It was Open House today and we had many visitors come by to have a look at the class. Thankfully, we still got a lot of work done. It has been a great week so far and the students are one star away from earning their next party. If we do have party, it will be on Friday in the afternoon.

I had a couple of students bring in an answer for whether there is colour in space. Brennan was the first students to bring me their answer. His search revealed that,

Although space objects are very colourful, chances are you will not be seeing much colour unless looking at Jupiter or maybe Mars through a large aperture telescope. Galaxies, nebulae and other space objects are simply too far for seeing any colour.

Hannah also brought in an answer from Yahoo Answers. Her search revealed that,

Space has no colour. Space isn’t a thing, it’s the absence of things (although, it’s not completely empty, there are particles in it, they’re just rare and spaced far apart so space is mostly empty).

The reason space looks black has to do with how we see colour. Colours are the result of different wavelengths of light bouncing off of objects. If there is no object for light to hit, then it just passes though and we don’t see it. We see sources of light (like a star or flashlight) and we see objects that light hits (like planets or dust) but we don’t see the particles of light as they move through empty space unhindered. Thus, empty space just looks black.

Good Job, Hannah and Brennan for taking the time to research and bring those answers in for us.

We had another Math Problem of the Day Today. Take a look at Cameron’s response below.

To end off today, here is an interesting video of a shuttle launch including all the stages.