text and art by Thor Wickstrom

OOOOOOH!...

May/June 2020 Volume 19 Number 5 cricketmedia.com $6.95

I wish I could find

It’s a shooting
I wish for a that meteorite!
star!
skateboard! We can look
It landed right
Make a for it in the
over there.
wish! I wish for morning!
I wish for a pizza. With
new book! everything!

Next morning... Too pale. Zia, that’s What about

a snail. that?!?
Meteorites
Is this a look burnt.
Nope, that’s OOOOOH!...
meteorite?
limestone.

Hey, thanks! You

Why is it such a found our glbnx! Rematch!
weird shape?

It almost
looks like..
Um, guys...
Catching
Comets
 Is this one ho
t ro
ck?

Volume 19, Number 5 May/June 2020

Liz Huyck Editor

Tracy Vonder Brink Contributing Editor
Emily Cambias Assistant Editors
Stacey Lane Smith
Anna Lender Art Director
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29 Ask Ask
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30 Contest and Letters

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33 Bot’s Mighty Math

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Suggested for ages 7 to 10.
 page 20
Features

ve your brother?
6 Field Guide to Space Rocks
and where to find them

10 Is There a Meteorite
u lo
in Your Backyard?
yo
do
12 Ride a Comet h
How
muc
by Meg Moss
y?
16
a
The Visitors
t, an y w
18 Caroline Chases Comets
ce is i

by Rebecca Szulhan
s pa

22 To an Asteroid and Back

se

o
Wh
by Meg Thacher
page 27
26 How to Avoid an Asteroid
Did anyone or

page 15
der a battle c
omet?
 by
Elizabeth
Preston

A Giant’s Heart
An adult human’s heart beats 60 to 100 sensors tight to each animal’s skin. The
times a minute, on average. But a hamster’s sensors could pick up the sound of the
heart can beat 400 times a minute. Smaller whale’s heartbeat.
animals usually have faster heartbeats than The sensors showed that a blue whale’s
bigger animals. So what about the biggest heart beats almost 40 times a minute at
animal on Earth—the blue whale? the surface. But when the whale dived deep,
Researchers decided to find out with its heartbeat slowed down to just twice
the help of some stick-on microphones. The a minute. Slowing their heart rate helps
team used a long pole to stick tiny sensors animals like the blue whale make long dives
onto whales when they came up for air at without running out of oxygen.
the ocean’s surface. Suction cups
p heldd the
My heart beats
fast AND slow.

The red marks at the bottom show how often a blue whale’s Food makes
heart beats each minute as it dives and feeds. my heart beat
faster too!

A New Dwarf
Snow White was friends with seven that Hygiea is nice and round. That
dwarves. And our solar system may means it might technically be a
now have a sixth dwarf planet. dwarf planet.
That’s what astronomers say after To be a dwarf planet, a space
taking a closer look at an asteroid rock has to be round, orbit the
called Hygiea. It’s part of our solar sun, and not be a moon. Our solar
system’s asteroid belt. Asteroids system’s most famous dwarf planet is
come in many shapes. But new Pluto. At about 270 miles (434 km)
telescope images showed researchers wide, Hygiea would be the smallest.
2 ask
Lice Bugged Dinos, Too
Have you ever had lice? It This ancient dino-feather-nibbling
probably seemed like the itchy bugs louse got stuck in some tree sap,
which hardened into amber.
in your hair would never go away.
Now scientists say lice have been
around practically forever. Millionns
of years ago, the pests even
nibbled dinosaur feathers.
Recently, researchers found
10 tiny bugs in pieces of amber.
Amber is fossilized tree goo. Thesse
amber pieces also held feathers
from dinosaurs that lived in the
Cretaceous, about 100 million
years ago. The fossilized bugs werre
clinging to feathers that were full
of small chewed holes.
The scientists think these fossil Still pesky after
all these years.
bu
ugs were long-ago lice. Like
todday’s lice, the bugs had no winggs.
Buut they did have big jaws—perfect
for pestering their hosts.

Hey, can
I join?
Ceres

Pluto Haumea Hygiea

Once upon a
time, Pluto
Makemake thought it was
a planet...
Eris
ask 3
 And interesting!
Meteorites can
Meteors are contain all sorts of
so pretty! rare metals.

Free space treasure!

My fortune is made!
a s i n v a luable?
Rare
Sure. Meteorites are bits
of asteroids, and some
asteroids are full of heavy
metals like platinum.

4 ask
 How are you
going to get your After I’ve mined out all
treasure back to the metal, the hollow
Earth? asteroid will be a great
space delivery ship.
If your asteroid has some
frozen water, you can use it
to make air and rocket fuel,
and grow food.

Phil’s platinum
delivery, on the way!

When rocks fall through the Burn up? Like a Yep, Phil, you’re going to
atmosphere, don’t they . . . meteor shower? be rich.

ask 5
 Field Guide
to Space Rocks
and where to find them
Space is vast, dark, and cold. And surprisingly full
of rocks. Here is a short guide to some of the most
common ones you may encounter on your travels.

W
here do space rocks come from? Most are left over from when
the solar system was born, 4.5 billion years ago. The sun and
planets formed from a big spinning cloud of gas and space dust.
And there are still bits of leftover rock (and gas) floating around.

Gas and dust swirl in Bits clump together. The center ignites to Around it spin planets
a cloud. become the sun. and leftover rocks.

ASTEROID
An asteroid is any small rocky object that Asteroids come in many
orbits the sun. Asteroids range in size from shapes and sizes.
a few feet to many miles across. They are
smaller than planets or moons. Many have
odd shapes. Some are solid rock or metal.
Others are loose clumps of pebbles, dust,
and ice, gathered together like a leaf pile. Gaspra
Sometimes asteroids run into each other
and split up or stick together. That one Ida
There are millions of asteroids in looks like a Mathilde
boxing glove.
our solar system, left over from when This one’s That one’s
the sun and planets formed. shaped a giant
like a shoe.
potato!
6 ask
MOON DWARF PLANET
A moon is a round object A dwarf planet is a big,
that orbits a planet round asteroid that is
instead of the sun. Many Mars with its almost, but not quite, a
two moons,
moons are asteroids that planet.
Deimos and Phobos
have been captured by a In 2006, astronomers
planet’s gravity. Earth’s decided that Pluto is a
moon is a bit of Earth itself that was dwarf planet because its
knocked off in a collision long ago. orbit overlaps with other
objects. Other dwarf
planets in our solar
SPACE DUST system are Ceres, Eris,
Space dust is made up Makemake, and Haumea.
of tiny specks of rock
and simple molecules. And Hygiea!
Space dust often coats
the surfaces of moons,
comets, and asteroids. A grain of space dust seen
Tons of space dust sifts through a microscope
down on Earth every
year—there’s probably
Scientists are very interested in space dust.
some in your house. They collect it as it falls to Earth by flying
Th
Save some dust bigg airplanes with dust collectors on the
for science! wings. Some space dust comes from outside Dwarf planet Ceres, in
our solar system, so it could tell us about the asteroid belt
other places in the galaxy.

COMET
A comet is an asteroid made of ice,
Comet
omets hhave two tails, a
with a sprinkling of rock and dust.
blue tail of gas and a white
These fast-moving dirty snowballsls tail of dust. The glow is
are born in regions beyond Jupitter, caused by particles from
where it is very cold. They orbit the the sun hitting
the comet.
sun in wide loops.
Sometimes a comet will get knoocked
toward the inner planets. As sunligght
warms it up, the ice starts to evapor te.
This makes a tail of glowing gas. Th he
tail is the comet’s most distinctive
feature. Some bright comets are visibble
from Earth even during the day.

Comets hang in the sky in the same place forr

days, sometimes weeks. Some regularly reappeaar
on their long loops around the sun. Halley’s
Comet passes Earth every 76 years. Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997

ask 7
 Incoming!

METEOROID In space METEOR Falling

Meteoroids are small space When a meteoroid falls into Earth’s atmosphere,
rocks. Many are broken-off bits it flashes across the sky as a bright meteor.
of comets or asteroids. There As space rocks fall, they heat up white hot and
are billions of these small rocks floating melt. Most meteors completely vaporize before
around the solar system. They are called they reach the ground. Sometimes they explode
meteoroids while still in space. But if one with a flash and a bang.
falls to Earth, it gets a new name. A meteor makes a bright light trail for just
a second. This looks like a star falling out of the
sky, so meteors are also called shooting stars—
though they are not stars, just space rocks.

meteoroids
Meteors move
so fast that
they squash
up the air in
front of them
with a huge
force. This
Asteroids often shed super-heats the
bits of rock. Most air enough to
will re-clump with the melt the rock
asteroid. But some escape and make a
and rain down on Earth bright light
as small meteors. trail.

This tiny hole Space Rock Hang-Outs

in a satellite
is about the ASTEROID BELT
size of a A clue! Many asteroids come from the Asteroid Belt,
pencil dot. a rocky region between Mars and Jupiter.
It was made
by a speck
of rock going
very fast.

MICROMETEOROID
Very tiny space rocks are called
micrometeoroids. Most are smaller than
sand grains. Still, they can be a hazard
to spacecraft and satellites. Even a tiny Asteroid Belt
rock can punch a hole right through
metal if it’s traveling at high speed.

8 ask
METEORITE Fallen M
METEOR
If any of the meteor makees S
SHOWER
it all the way to the grounnd, A lot of
once it lands, it’s a meteorite. meteors falling
m
aat the same
time make a
meteor shower.
Usually these
happen when A shooting star!
Earth passes Make a wish.
through the
tail of a
comet.

The Perseid
meteor shower
can be seen every I wish for more
space rocks.
year around
This meteorite fell in the desert in Sudan. August 12,
Meteorites often have a melted black as Earth
crust from their fast, hot fall. passes
through the
oold tail of
ccomet Swift-Tuttle.
T ttl Earth
E th circles
i around to this showery tail at
the same time every year, like running around a track that has
a sprinkler turned on at one point.

te roid Belt
As
OORT CLOUD
The Oort Cloud
Oort Cloud
is a vast region
sprinkled with icy
Kuiper Belt dust and comets.
It surrounds the
solar system like
a bubble. It’s even r Belt
Kui p e
farther away
Round and
KUIPER BE
BELT round and than the Kuiper
Icy comets come from frosty round we go! Belt. Because it’s
regions far from the sun. The so far away,
Kuiper Belt is a loose ring of we don’t
rocks and comets out by Pluto. know much
Sometimes comets get knocked about it.
out of their orbits and zoom in
toward the sun.

ask 9
 Meteorite
in Your Meteorites are bits

Backyard? Or
Meteorite? meteor-wrong?
of space rock that have made
it all the way down to Earth’s
surface. They are pretty rare—
but many small meteorites
do fall every year.

H
ow can you tell if a
rock is a meteorite or just a rock?
Here are a few signs to look for. No holes
Meteorites do not have holes or air pockets
Is it a bit heavy? in the rock. This can be an easy way to
Meteorites are often a bit heavier than tell them apart
from lava and

X
ordinary rocks. Many contain metal. But
there are also heavy Earth rocks. slag, a human-
made rock
left over from
Does it look burnt? metal-making.
Falling meteorites heat up super hot. Most Slag, or clinker, is rocky waste
from metal factories.
vaporize entirely. Bits that survive the trip
usually have a burnt crust that is darker
than the rock inside. Often the crusts have Does its surface have smoothed dents?
melty crackle Often, meteorites have smooth dents that
lines and flake look like thumb prints. These marks are
off easily. called regmaglypts. They are left by hot
gas evaporating from the surface of the
meteorite as it falls.
This lummpy meteorite is covered
in telltale regmaglypts.

You can see the burnt crust

on this meteorite that fell
near Chelyabinsk, Russia.

10 ask
 Look at the inside Ask an expe t
To confirm a meteorite, rockck experts use a Many natural his
history museums have “ID
special saw to slice off a bit and look in- Days” when you can bring in rocks and bugs
side. Meteorites come in three main types. for experts to identify. If you think you’ve
found a meteorite, check the museum’s
Stony meteorites, or calendar. A geologist will be able to tell if
chondrites, are the most it’s a genuine meteorite.
common. They have a
pebbly-looking inside, with Where the experts look
round grains and silvery Meteorites can fall anywhere, but meteorite
bits. hunters often
Iron look for them in
meteorites are a mix of deserts and in
iron and nickel. A slice the ice fields of
will show a special criss- Antarctica. Those
cross pattern in the metal. places don’t get
more meteorites.
Stony-iron meteorites It’s just easier to
are a mix of metal and spot small black
rock. These look like metal space rocks on
studded with rocky raisins. flat, light-colored
Often the rocks inside are ground.
olivine, a green crystal. And there’s
These are two pieces of a
one more place larger meteorite that broke
you can find space up over the Nubian Desert.
rocks—under your
Will it attract a magnet? bed! Tiny dust grains from space constantly
Many meteorites have iron in them, so rain down onto Earth. Most house dust
magnets are attracted to them. But some contains a few grains of dust from space.
Earth rocks also attract magnets, so by But you may need a microscope to see them.
itself this is not a sure test.

Impostors Nope.
These Earth rocks are often mistaken for meteorites.

Lava or volcanic rock— Hematite is an Magnetite is heavy, Manganese can

the holes give it away. iron-rich rock. black, and magnetic. look burnt.

ask 11
 a C o m et
e
by
Me

d
g

i
Mo
ss

R Hold on!

From the farthest edge of the solar system,

comets sometimes pay a racing, icy visit.
Leet’s hitch a ride.

B
eyond Earth, past Jupiter and Saturn, and
farther than Pluto lies a cold and distant
region called the Oort Cloud. Out here,
trillions of dirty, icy lumps surround the solar
system like
li a vast, loose bubble. Scientists
believe that
t these lumps were left over when the
planets formed about 4.5 billion years ago.
Now and then, a lump gets pulled out
Comets look like oof its peaceful orbit by the gravity of a
fiery stars, but
they’re actually
star or planet. It plunges into the inner
snowballs. solar system on a wild ride toward the
sun. A comet is born.

12 ask
A Comet’s Journey Dust escaping from thee
Most pictures of comets show a melting ice spreads out inn
bright ball of light with a long, a curving tail. The comet
glowing tail. That’s how comets also grows a second,
look when they pass Earth. But straighter tail of carbon
they don’t start out that way. Our dioxide gas. The two tails
baby comet leaves the Oort Cloud glow as they are hit by
as a frozen chunk of ice, dust, and the solar wind, a stream of
frozen gas. It looks a bit like a charged particles from the sun.
dirty snowball. This is the comet’s These two shimmering tails of This dusty, icy lump is the
nucleus, its solid core. dust and gas give the comet its core of comet Churyumov-
Gerasimenko. The Rosetta
Space probes have caught extraordinary appearance. spacecraft snapped this photo
photos of comet nuclei. Many and landed a probe on the
comet as it sped along in 2014.
have surprisingly weird shapes,
resembling hamburgers, peanuts,
and bowling pins. They can be
When a comet is far out in
as large as 160 miles (257 km) space, it’s just an icy lump. Its
across, or less than a mile. Some long tail appears as it heads
toward the sun. Particles from
don’t look icy at all. Their surfaces the sun hit the ice, making it
are rough, covered in craters, evaporate and glow.
cliffs, and dust. It’s hard to tell by
looking whether the surface is
spongy or solid. There’s no air and Comets have two
tails. One is a white
very little gravity. tail of dust and
A fainter tail
water.
As a comet draws closer to the of gas glows
blue.
sun, the fun begins. The surface
heats up. By the time it passes
Mars, jets of gas explode from
inside the nucleus. The jets make
the nucleus wobble. Heat turns The core of a comet
is a dirty snowball,
the comet’s ice to gas. Gradually, called the nucleus.
a thin cloud of gas thousands of
miles wide surrounds the nucleus. The
nucleus is
This is called the coma. It glows surrounded
by a shell
brightly in the sun’s light. of glowing
gas called
the coma.

ask 13
 The Aztec ruler Moctezuma saw a
comet in the sky just before the Spanish
arrived in 1519.

comets. Or how about gases rising from

the ground?
After much study, scientists
realized that comets circle the sun in
large, oval orbits. Some vanish into
space, never to return. Some take
The Hairy Stars
T millions of years to make each trip
B the time a comet passes Earth,
By around. Still others zoom around in
it looks spectacular.A comet less than 200 years.
migght be visible for weeks, hanging The most famous returning comet
The bright flashes in the sky like a “hairy star.” The name is Halley’s Comet, which appears over
are bits of comet “comet” comes from the Greek word Earth every 76 years. It will next visit
Shoemaker-Levy,
which broke up kometes, meaning “long-haired.” Long in 2061.
and smacked into ago, some people believed that com mets
t
Jupiter in 1994.
predicted disease, warfare, or the
It wasn’t me! death of a king. The ancient Chinesse
described 29 types of comets, sorteed
by the shapes of their tails. Each
kind of tail was supposed to foretell
the coming of a different disaster.
Early astronomers didn’t know
whether comets were close to
Earth or way out in space. They Comets loop around the sun
wondered if weather caused on oval paths. The bright tail
always points away from the
sun, no matter what direction
the comet is moving.

Air Gel
A
W
What’s lighter tthan air but tough
g as
nails? This amazing stuff is aerogel, a silicon foam invented
n
to collect samples of dust in space—and from comet tails.
Aerogel is 99.8% air. It weighs less than any other solid on
Earth. Though it looks like smoke, a column of aerogel the
size of a person is strong enough to hold up a car. It has to
Comet bee strong to stop dust grains speeding by at hundreds of miles an
grains
hour. In 2004, the Stardust mission flew through a comet’s tail
h
caught
in aerogel holding out a tennis-racket-shaped collector filled with squares of
aerogel to capture bits of comet for scientists to study.
14 ask
 Dust collector filled
Sampling Comets with aerogel
Scientists are very interested iin
comets. Comets contain rock,
gas, and molecules unchanged
from the very early solar
system. So they can reveal a lot
about space history. In the last
20 years, more than 10 robot
spacecraft have visited comets.. The Stardust
In 2004, the Stardust mission spacecraft caught
caught dust grains from the dust from the tail
of a comet.
tail of comet Wild-2 and Here you go!
returned them to Earth for Plenty for
study. These missions have taught us a everyone!

lot about what comets are madde of and how theyy

hold together.

As a comet
nears the
sun, the solar
wind pushes
the comet’s tail
out ahead of the
h taill is
nucleus. Since the Halley’s
Comet
pushed out by particles streaming passes by
from the sun, it always points Earth every
This tapestry shows soldiers pointing at 76 years.
Halley’s Comet in 1066, just before the away from the sun, no matter what This picture
Norman invasion of England. Good luck for direction the comet is going. was snapped
the Normans, bad luck for the English. on its last
After looping the sun, a comet visit, in
Around 30 new comets are discovered heads back out into space. As it gets 1986.
each year. Most are too faint to see farther from the sun, it quiets down
without a telescope. Comets bright and its glowing tail fades. Only when
Let me know
enough to shine in the sky are more rare. it nears the sun again will a comet if you see
Comets take different paths around grow its glowing veil of dust and gas. any.

the sun. Some make a wide circle, 20 Many new comets are spotted
million miles from the sun. Others first by backyard astronomers. So,
scoot so close to the sun that they break while you can’t ride a comet (yet),
up or evaporate. These are known as keep an eye on the skies.
“sungrazers.”

ask 15
 The Visitors
Did this comet That solar system
looks interesting!
come visiting from
another star?

Oumuamua had come from, it pointed outside our

On the night of October 19, 2017, the solar system entirely. The object was a
You can tell where
Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii visitor from another star! It was the first
something came got to work, scanning the skies for extrasolar space rock every spotted.
from by tracking
its path back. asteroids. But that night, it found Astronomers named it Oumuamua,
something new. a Hawaiian word for “scout.” When it was
It spotted a small object moving discovered, the speedy visitor was already
fast—five times faster than a normal leaving the solar system. Astronomers
comet. It was zooming away from the hurried to learn everything about it.
sun on a wide, curving path. Oumuamua moved like a comet,
Over the next several days, though a strange one. It had no visible tail.
telescopes around the world tracked But it was speeding away from the sun a
the object. They noticed that it got bit faster than it should from just gravity.
brighter and darker about every seven Astronomers think it was spitting out a
hours. What could cause that? Maybe little tail of gas, like a comet—not enough
the object had a long shape that to see, but enough to give it a push.
was tumbling over and over. When Oumuamua passed so quickly that
they traced the path to see where it we didn’t have much time to study it. So
16 ask
 Borisov has a faint glowing tail
we don’t know for sure and looks more like a comet than
what it is made of, Oumuamua. Its path shows that it
also came from far, far away.
where it came from,
or how long ago it left
home. It may have
been circling the galaxy
for millions of years.

Borisov
In 2019, a Russian star-gazer
spotted a second comet on a fast,
wide path. Comet Borisov (named
for its discoverer) looks more like Astronomers think
a proper comet, with a glowing that there are probably
head and a bushy tail. But its path lots of wandering comets
It’s hard to
and speed show that it, too, came and asteroids out there, Why is this photograph a
picture so
from outside the solar system. Its tumbling around between the blurry?
fast-moving
pebble in space.
route will take it on a wide circle stars. Visitors may pass through
around the sun, then back out into our solar system as often as once
deep space. a year. But since they are small
Borisov is brighter than and fast, we haven’t caught any
Oumuamua, and it was discovered until now.
when it was heading toward Now that we know what to
the sun, not zooming away. So look for, maybe we’ll get a better
astronomers haveave hadd a bit more look at the nextt one.
ne
time to watch iit. By looking at the
tail with speciaal This is an artist’s idea of what
Oumuamua (say “oh-MU-ah-MU-ah”)
cameras, might look like. It sped by too quickly
they can for photos. When astronomers traced
its path, they realized that it must
tell that it’s have come from outside our own
made of the solar system.
same stuff
as comets in
our own solar
system—ice,
pebbles, dust,
and frozen
gases.
ask 17
 o l in e Ch
a r Comets
C
by Rebecca Szulhan
art by Joy Kolitsky

O
When she wasn’t ne night, when I was a little Music of the Stars
singing or comet girl, my father took me I was born in Hanover, Germany
hunting, Caroline
was also in outside to show me the stars. in 1750. When I was 22, I moved
charge of the As he pointed out the constellations, to England to live with my older
kitchen.
we s otted a visitor to our sky. brother, William. He was a musician.
et! I gazed at the At the time, I wanted to be a singer.
tering sky with William thought I had a pretty voice.
onder. That was He offered to give me singing lessons
ne of the first in return for doing his house-
omets I ever saw, keeping. I practiced and practiced
ut it wasn’t my singing. Soon, I was performing
he last. at William’s concerts!
My name is But as time went on, my
roline Herschel, brother started spending less time
’m a comet hunter. on music and more time on his
18 ask
 other passion— stronomy. Space
fascinated William. He often fell
asleep tucked under a cover f Milk and poop? Didn’t
astronomy bo ks. When he ke p they have clay?

in t e morning, he co ldn’t w it t y h d, l in e t
tell me hat h ’d earn d. B akfast el m s s . Th d ts
in our o s often turned into an lu e c m k, Proteins in the
milk and straw in
astronomy less n. ri d s . Lo f the horse dung
d n ! es ri d kept the mold from
cracking when hot
The Horse Poop Telescope r e me al was poured
into it.
My brother loved telescopes. They . ne b rn
showe him all the incredi le y n
things he read about his books. th
He wanted t see even mo e. What e . a m
e se was out there, d ep in space .
William dreamed of bu ldin ger,
m re powerful el sc pes so that h
co ld ind out. I agree to he him. .
text © 2020 by Rebecca Szulhan, art © 2020 by Joy Kolitsky

escopes use irrors an

len es to catch l ht a m g y
fa aw y things. W li m ig re that
m mirrors uld wo k b st fo .
the teles o es e had in m d. v
wh ey we er a g , etal .
m r rod c d cl r ima .
e st th etal r William’s
o se , u ur wn molds. workbench,
where he made
a e e mol s a l telescope lenses

ask 19
 William built a special mirror-
polishing machine to give the mirrors
William cast his a perfect curve. But once he started
own metal mirrors
and invented this polishing, he couldn’t stop until it was
tool to polish done, or the mirror would be ruined.
them smooth. The
mirror had to Once, William worked for 16 hours
curve perfectly straight! He couldn’t even stop to eat,
to give a sharp
image. so I had to feed him. I also read out
loud too entertain him. Hey, I work
Mirrrors may be shiny, hard too!

buut polishing them

suure is dull. A New Planet
While looking through one of his
telescopes on March 13, 1781,
William noticed something unusual
in the sky. Could it be a star? No, it
was too blurry to be a star. The object
was also moving, but a star’s position
seems fixed. Maybe it was a comet?
After talking with other astrono-
mers, William realized that it wasn’t
a comet, either. He’d discovered a
new planet! William named the planet
Georgium Sidus (George’s Star) in
honor of King George III. But that
wasn’t the planet’s name for very
long. Other astronomers renamed it
Uranus, after a Greek god who ruled
the universe.
No one had discovered a new
planet in centuries, and no one had
ever discovered a planet using a tele-
scope. Other people with telescopes
had spotted this object before, but
had dismissed it as just a faint star.
It took William’s keen observations
20 ask
 A ppage from Caroline’s
com
met-spotting notebook

to show
h thath it movedd llike
k a planet.
l
King George was impressed. He offered
William a job as a royal astronomer.
William accepted, of course. And I
agreed to be his assistant. William
made a telescope just for me, so that
I could help him search the sky for
remarkable objects.
On August 1, 1786, I spied some-
thing quite remarkable indeed. In my
observation notebook, I wrote that it
looked “like a star out of focus.” I was
pretty sure that I’d found a comet.
But I wanted to be certain. I decided
to watch it for one more night before
announcing my find.
It poured rain all the next day. I It’s nice to
do things as
worried that I wouldn’t be able to see a family.
anything through the clouds. When
the sky cleared around 1 a.m., I peered
eagerly into my telescope.
I found the object…
It was a comet! Historical Note: After Caroline discovered her
first comet, King George paid her £50 a year
Now everyone is talking about my to be William’s assistant. She was one of the
comet. They call it the Lady’s Comet. first women astronomers to be paid for her
This is the first comet I’ve ever work. She went on to find seven more comets
discovered, but I don’t think it will be between 1786 and 1797.
the last.
ask 21
 Asteroids All Around found in the asteroid belt, between the
Asteroids are space rocks, left over orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
from when the solar system formed 4.5 Asteroids are too small for their
billion years ago. They are some of the insides to heat up and melt. So the
oldest objects in the solar system, so rocks in asteroids haven’t changed
they are very interesting to scientists. much since the start of the solar
Asteroids can be a few feet (1 m) system. Asteroids are like little rock
to hundreds of miles (500 km) across. museums floating in space. Scientists
They spin and travel around the sun can look at them to see what the solar
in orbits, just like planets do. Most are system was like long ago.

A s te ro i d
an
an d B a c k
To

art by Merrill Rainey

What are asteroids made of?

Space scientists in Japan sent
a robot to find out.

In space? You
Ooh! A rock! don’t say!

22 ask
 I’ve got
you now!
How to Catch a Space Rock
Most asteroids are very far away. They are also
small and dark, which makes them difficult
to see with telescopes. Most of what we know
about asteroids comes from studying meteor-
ites, small pieces of asteroids that fall to Earth.
But what if we could send a spacecraft to an
asteroid to see what it’s like? Even bring back some
asteroid rock to study? That’s exactly what JAXA,
the Japanese space agency, has done. In 2014, they
sent a robot mission called Hayabusa2 to visit a
small asteroid known as Ryugu. Its mission was to
study Ryugu and bring a rock sample back to Earth. Hayabusa2 casts a
shadow on asteroid
text © 2020 by Meg Thacher, art © 2020 by Merrill Rainey

Hayabusa2 is about the size of a refrigerator. It’s armed Ryugu as it hovers

with cameras, scientific instruments, solar panels, and above the surface.

four tiny rovers. Its name, Hayabusa, means

“peregrine falcon” in Japanese.
After several loops around the sun to build
up speed, Hayabusa2 arrived at Ryugu in
2018. First it flew around Ryugu to map it and
look for safe landing spots. Special cameras
analyzed the rock to see what Ryugu is made
of. Hayabusa2 discovered that the asteroid is This probe took photos
not solid. Ryugu is more like a giant rubble and measured the
asteroid’s temperature,
pile. Inside its crust, there is as much empty gravity, and chemicals.
space as rock.
Hayabusa2 dropped three rovers onto Ryugu’s
Two round probes
surface. These rovers hopped from one place to another, tumble from place
taking photos and videos. Because Ryugu is so far away, to place.
it takes 19 minutes for a message to travel from the rover
to mission control on Earth and another 19 minutes for
Rolling is the
Earth’s reply. So the rovers were programmed to explore only way to
on their own, without instructions from Earth. The travel!

rovers radioed what they found to Hayabusa2, which

passed the data back to JAXA.

ask 23
 In 2019, Hayabusa2 mooved on
to its most important task:
The surface of Ryugu
is rough and crumbly.. collecting a sample from
Ryugu’s surface. T
To do
this, Hayabusa22
Goodness! moved in close
More dust! Aim
to Ryugu and steady!
shot a pellet,
knocking pebbl the surface. Then
Hayabusa2 went in close, and the pebbles and dust
floated up into a storage container.
This should get
us some dust. Next, Hayabusa2 shot a copper ball at Ryugu to create an
artificial crater. Material from under Ryugu’s surface splashed
out and landed all around the crater. Hayabusa2 collected
a sample of the crater material. Now Hayabusa2 has two
samples of rock and dust from Ryugu, some from inside the
asteroid and some from its surface.

Dust Delivery
Finally, Hayabusa2 started its trip back to Earth.
ed a In November of 2020, Hayabusa2 will drop off a
a sa m p le, H a yabusa2 dropp
To get
kick up dust. capsule holding the sample containers. Then it will
metal pellet to
continue on to check out another asteroid. The
capsule will parachute into the

Gesundheit.

Then the probe extended

a long straw to suck up
the loose rock.

24 ask
Australian desert. JAXA scientists will collect the capsule
and take the samples to their lab to see what Ryugu has
to tell us about our solar system.
The American space agency NASA is also
hunting asteroids. Its robot explorer OSIRIS-REx is
currently exploring asteroid Bennu. Bennu is about
half the size of Ryugu. It’s of special interest to sci-
entists because its looping path may bring it close
to Earth sometime in the 22nd century. OSIRIS-REx Ryugu is about half a mile
(0.85 km) across. The bright
has been busy mapping Bennu and snapping photos. dots are light markers used
It will send back rock and dust samples in 2023. to guide probes down.

What will the samples reveal? One thing scientists have

already discovered is that asteroids are all different.
One order of
Ryugu has surprisingly little dust. It is mostly made up asteroid dust
of two kinds of rock. It’s also quite crumbly and would coming up!
break apart easily if struck by another asteroid. Bennu
is also less solid than expected. It’s shedding pebbles
in a steady stream. We’ll know more once OSIRIS-REx
has done its work. And maybe we’ll also have a better
picture of our own Earth’s early days.
If at first you
don’t succeed... Fly, fly a hen?

Hayabusa 1 and 2
Was there a Hayabusa 1? Yes! In
2003, the first Hayabusa mission Engineers at work
visited an asteroid called Itokawa. on Hayabusa
But Hayabusa had problems with
its computers and steering. It
lost its rover. Sample collection
didn’t go well, either. In 2010, it
brought back a very small bit of
dust from Itokawa.
But engineers learned a lot
from that first mission, and they
improved the new spacecraft’s
design. Hayabusa’s problems have
made Hayabusa2 a huge success!

ask 25
 art by David Clark

io n y e a rs a g o , a c it y -s ized
65 mill u t the
th e E a r th , w ip in g o
asteroid struck ? And what
o u ld it h a p p e n a g a in
dinosaurs. C ?
could we do to stop it

What are the

Wh h chances?
h ? wide. Luckily, asteroids this big are
Small rocks and dust from space rain rare. And space is vast. The chances of
down on Earth all the time—several a big wandering rock crossing Earth’s
hundred tons fall every year. Most path exactly when Earth is in the way
burn up in the atmosphere or leave are extremely small.
pebble-sized meteorites. All in all, astronomers estimate
The space rock that wiped out the that the chance of a city-sized asteroid
dinosaurs was huge
huge, about 6 miles hitting
hitti Earth is about once in 100
milllion years. (That doesn’t mean
m
oone WILL hit Earth every 100 million
yyearrs—that’s just the average chance.)
So, probably
p not something to worry
abouut a lot.

B still, it could
But
happen, right?
It could. Though an impact is
very unlikely, NASA and other
sspace watchers keep track of large

26 ask
 asteroids and comets in our neigh- If they do spot a big
borhood, just in case. Currently, they asteroid headed for
track about 20,000 NEOs (Near-Earth Earth, what
w can we
Objects) larger than 460 feet (140 do to sttop it?
m) wide. They don’t track smaller The best waay to deal with a
objects, since they’re less of a danger. threateningg asteroid or comet is to
An object is considered “near” if its try to nudgee it a bit off course,
orbit brings it within 30 million miles so it just miisses Earth
of Earth. (That’s 100 times farther instead of hhitting
away than the moon!) Satellites and us. There arre
computers map the objects’ paths. many ideas
They alert teams if it looks like any for how to
might be heading our way. do this.

1. Run into It
The simplest plan is to send a robot spacecraft to
crash into the asteroid, to shove it off course a bit.
Of course, getting a spacecraft out to an asteroid
can be tricky. You also want to be sure that the asteroidd is
I’m ready!
solid enough to take a hit.You don’t want to break it upp into
two or three dangerous rocks instead of one. But even with all
the difficulties, this is probably our best bet.
NASA is currently building a robot spacecraft to try thishi out. In
2021, the DART mission will fly to a small asteroid that is orbiting
a larger one. DART will crash itself into the smaller asteroid.
Astronomers will measure how much it moves to see if this
could nudge dangerous rocks away from Earth.

2. Gravity Tractor
Instead of ramming the asteroid, we could pull
it off course—with gravity. A small robot
spacecraft would fly next to the asteroid. The
gravity of the spacecraft would tug the asteroid
art © 2020 by David Clark

slightly off course—just enough to miss Earth.

The spacecraft would need to fly alongside
for a while to have an effect. So we would have
to start when the asteroid is still pretty far away.

ask 27
 3. Give It a Jetpack
Another idea is to use lasers or bombs to
vaporize the surface on one side of the
asteroid. The escaping dust and gas would
act like a jet to push the asteroid in the
opposite direction.
For this to work, you’d have to know
exactly how the asteroid was spinning. Then
you’d
oud havee to be sure to hit it in just the
righht place.

4. Paint It White
Sunlight reflects more off of white. If we could paint one
side of an asteroid white or wrap it in shiny foil, sunlight
bouncing off it might be enough to nudge it off course.
You can see this idea in action if you’ve ever watched a
photo mill spinning in a science museum. More light
bounces off the white side of the paddles than the dark
side, pushing the pinwheel around. Missed a
Of course, painting an asteroid might be easier said spot.

than done. Asteroids don’t have much gravity, so things

tend to float off them. A shiny cover might just drift away.
And many asteroids are covered in loose, icy dust. So trying to
paint one might be like trying too stick tape to a bowl of flour.

Cou
uldn’t we just shoot it down?
To suuccessfully stop an asteroid in its tracks, you’d need a weapon
that could match its force. An asteroid big enough to be a danger
will weigh thousands of tons. And they move very, very fast—about
122 miles a second. No known weapon system, including nuclear
bbombs, is anywhere near powerful enough to stop a big rock
moving that fast. We’re much better off just nudging it a bit
while it’s still out in space, so it misses Earth completely.
But have no fear, the astronomers and their computers are
keeping watch.

28 ask
 t b
b
h

Cat belly
Hey, Sage! Ramona in Pennsylvania
buttons can be
wants to know, why doesn’t my cat
hard to see, it’s
have a belly button? Because cats
true. But if you
look closely, all are mammals, and
cats do have all mammals have
one—tiny, flat, belly buttons!
and covered
with fur.
Well, almost all.

What’s a We are! Mammals are And give birth to So what are belly It marks the spot
mammal? animals that have young, and feed buttons for? where you were
hair or fur, and are them with milk. connected to your
warm-blooded. mother before you
were born. She
ate and breathed
for you. Food and
oxygen passed
from her to you
through a twisty
tube called the
umbilical cord.

What happened
to it after I was When a human is You said almost all mammals
You didn’t need born, a doctor have belly buttons—so
born?
it anymore. Your cuts the umbilical some don’t?
mother cut it with cord. It doesn’t
her teeth and hurt at all. The
licked you clean. Do humans do only thing left is
that too? a small mark—the
belly button, also
known as a navel.

Monotremes, which lay

eggs, and marsupials,
like kangaroos.

When I was still tiny, I Platypuses and So…I have something

crawled into my mother’s echidnas are you don’t have!
pouch to grow. I didn’t odd mammals Wri
need my umbilical cord that lay eggs. 70 .
So like birds, Suuitt
for very long. When it
fell off, it didn’t leave we don’t have ey
any mark. a belly button. em ask
True. But can
you fly?
 Send your letters to Ask Mail,
70 East Lake St., Suite 800, Chicago, IL
In our January 60601, or have your parent/guardian
email us at [email protected].
issue we asked you
to design a special
house just for Ayushman M.,
pigeons. Thanks to age 7,
all you amazing Maryland
avian architects for
showing us your The Grand
shelters! Pigeon Hotel
Agata, age 9,
by email

Pigeontown in Cactus City

Rebecca W., age 10, Mobile Pigeon Loft
New Jersey Charlie S., age 8, New Jersey
Pigeon Tower
Jack S., age 9, New Jersey

Dear Marvin, Dear Zachary, Dear Plush,

I have a funny prank for you: See, I keep telling her. It’s not Do you like cats? I love cats.
get Bot to zap a rock with his me, it’s the universe throwing I have two cats at my house.
laser, so that Plush notices it. rocks! It would be so cool to And one bunny. A boy bunny.
She’ll think it’s a meteorite. find a meteorite. But you’re The girl ran away. I have a
She can cool it down with right, why not make our own? girl and boy cat, too. And you
a fan and add it to her I mean, if the whole Earth like to read rule books? I do
specimen box. She could then formed from space rocks, all too!
draw a hippo on it. rocks are space rocks, right? Your Friend,
Zachary M. Lasers away! Zoey S., California
Marvin

30 ask
 A Pigeon’s
Dream House
Ruby K., age 8,
Washington

Pigeon House 6000 Tigerlily G., age 5, Ohio

Indiana G., age 7, Ohio

Serena Y.,
age 7,
Massachusetts

Treetop House
Cleo J., age 7, California
Briar L., age 9, Connecticut

Nicobar
Pigeon House
Isaac A.,
age 8,
New York Rainy Day
Dog Pigeon
Home
Lilliana, The Annoying Bird
age 10 Party House
Lydia T., age 10, North Dakota

Dear Zoey, Dear Ask, whale species, pygmy sperm

I love all animals, furry or How much does a whale whales, only weigh about 200 kg,
scaly. Well, maybe not the weigh? I’m guessing tons. a fifth of a ton. Belugas weigh
fanged ones so much. I always From Lexie R., age 9, a ton and a half (1,600 kg). But
find it comforting to know Finland blue whales can grow 80 feet
that the universe has Rules, long and weigh 100 tons (90,000
and that we’ve figured out Dear Lexie, kg). So, to make sure everyone is
some. Don’t you agree? Plus, it If you are building a swing happy...build big.
keeps the peace. for whales, it is important to Weightily,
In fellowship, know their weight. But what Bone Pony
Plush kind of whale? The smallest

ask 31
 May/June Contest

Crazy Comets
In the days before telescopes or space robots,
sky-watchers were not entirely sure what comets
were. Artists had a lot of fun imagining comeets
as running stars, flaming ladies, horses, or
phoenixes racing across the sky. And so
can you! For this month’s contest, let your
imagination loose and draw a fanciful
picture of a comet with its long tail. We’ll
host a constellation of the most creative
Comets are made of ice, but this
in an upcoming issue of Ask. artist imagined a fiery one.

Contest Rules:
1. Your contest entry must be your very 5. Your entry must be signed or emailed 7. Email a photo of your artwork to:
own work. Ideas and words should not by a parent or legal guardian, saying it’s [email protected], or mail to:
be copied. your own work and that no one helped Ask, 70 East Lake St., Suite 800, Chicago,
2. Be sure to include your name, age, and you, and that Ask has permission to IL 60601. Entries must be postmarked or
address on your entry. publish it in print and online. emailed by June 30, 2020.
3. Only one entry per person, please. 6. For information on the Children’s Online 8. We will publish the winning entries in an
4. If you want your work returned, enclose Privacy Protection Act, see the Privacy upcoming issue of Ask.
a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Policy page at cricketmedia.com.

Save 25% off your subscription at Shop.CricketMedia.com/Try-Discount

32 ask
 by Ivars Peterson
art by Thor Wickstrom

Bot's

Tight Fit
Can you fit a quarter through
a dime-sized hole?

Trace around a dime on an index card or But if you use your fingers to gently
stiff paper. Then carefully cut out the pull the sides of the paper apart and up,
circle to leave a hole the size of the dime. the hole stretches and the quarter falls
Can you get a quarter through this hole through.
without tearing the paper? The trick works because half the
That seems impossible. A quarter is distance all the way around a dime (half
larger than a dime. its circumference) is more than the width
of a quarter.
By pulling on the paper, you stretch
the hole into an oval that is wider than
the circle. But the hole can never be
stretched longer than half the dime’s
circumference.

Try this. Fold the paper so that the

fold goes across the middle of the hole.
With the fold pointing down, place the
quarter so that it sits in the hole. Of
course, the quarter just sticks out below
the paper and doesn’t fall through.

To find a dime’s exact circumference,

multiply its width (or diameter) by the
special number pi, which is about 3.14.
text © 2020 by Ivars Peterson

You’ll find that the quarter’s width is less

than half that value.
With what other coins would this trick
work? A half dollar would not fit through
a dime-sized hole. But could it fit through
a hole the size of a nickel?