NASA's+Space+Place

====** Most elementary-age children are interested in space exploration. But how often do they find information about the very latest space discoveries and space technologies written especially for them? **====

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Through a partnership with NASA's Space Place, we will be featuring a short monthly column provided by NASA's award-winning Space Place outreach program. The columns are about 300 words and include a high-resolution image. They are written at 4th or 5th grade level. (Older files are available. Please leave a message for details). ====== We are excited to be able to bring these wonderful articles to your classroom!

Certain conditions do make tornadoes more likely. But no one ever knows when, where, how intense, and how many tornadoes a thunderstorm will create.

Jupiter is our solar system’s largest planet by far. It contains twice as much material as all the other planets combined. It’s also quite stunning, with its colorful bands and its Great Red Spot – a storm big enough to swallow Earth! But those facts do not begin to tell Jupiter’s story...

NASA (short for National Aeronautics and Space Administration) reaches for new heights and reveals the unknown so that what it does and learns will benefit all humankind.

Earth is a pretty safe place to be in the big, scary universe. That’s because Earth is inside a strong protective bubble. And that bubble is inside another strong protective bubble.

[[file:niewatertownny/Nov 2012.pdf|Build It and The Universe Will Come ]]
"I have looked further into space than ever human being did before me. I have observed stars of which the light, it can be proved, must take two million years to reach the earth." -William Herschel

[[file:niewatertownny/Dec 2012.pdf|Carbon's Travels]]
If you weigh 100 pounds, 18 pounds of you is pure carbon. Plants are almost half carbon. Even pure carbon (that is, carbon not combined with anything else) comes in many forms, such as coal, charcoal, even diamonds. Carbon is versatile. Carbon moves.

= = = When Earth and the Moon were very young, they were much closer together. The Moon was so close, it took up a huge part of Earth’s sky. When it hung overhead in the daytime, it cast such a shadow on the surface of Earth that in many places it would have been almost like night. =

= = = You may have seen colorful, eye-popping space images in books or on NASA websites. There are beautiful spiral galaxies that shine in pinks and blues; glowing green and yellow clouds with great white-tipped columns; or the radiant leftovers of exploded stars that may look like an eye or a spider. =

Go outside when the Moon is full. Look up and imagine you see two Moons, instead of one. Some scientists think that long ago Earth may have had two Moons. = =