Cassini Scientist for a Day Essay Contest 2010 – Sri Lanka

The 9th Edition of Cassini Scientist for a Day Essay Contest, Fall 2010 is now in progress around the world. Cassini Scientist for a Day Essay Contest is an international essay contest, carried out by NASA. This is aimed at raising awareness about Saturn, its moons and current updates among students in general. At the same time this contest focuses on improving students know-how on essay-writing and scientific thinking and merging them for a better output.



Sri Lankan students now have the chance of taking part by submitting their entries. If you’re in grades 5-13, this is the change to show the world the talent you got. The contest is held under 3 age groups and you can write an essay about any of 3 targets that Cassini spacecraft reached in last October.

Age groups:

-Grades 5 to 6
-Grades 7 to 8
-Grades 9 to 13

Topics:


•Target 1: A close-up view of the moon Rhea
•Target 2: A video of Titan, Tethys and Enceladus dancing under Saturn's rings
•Target 3: A time-lapse movie spanning a whole day on Saturn

Just grab up the target, that you’re most interested in and start putting together a piece of writing. You’re supposed to explain why your target is the best to yield more about Saturn and its moons, in terms of scientific value. Go ahead and do some research and learn as much as you can about these targets and enrich the content belonging to your preferred.

Your essays will be evaluated by a panel of judges and winners will have the change to raise their questions directly from the Cassini scientists. Moreover every entry will receive a certificate of participation too.

You can browse the contest rules at http://scientistforaday.blogspot.com/p/contest-rules.html
and submit your entry online as well. More information is available from Cassini Scientist for a Day as well

If you have any inquiry or clarification to be made fee free to email it to jdpdesh (at) gmail.com , also you can contact the National Coordinator through 071-6202262

Thank you for your interest in the Cassini mission, and good luck with your essays -- Look forward to hearing from you!

Prasanna Deshapriya
National Coordinator for Sri Lanka
Scientist for a Day Essay Contest 2010

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6-photo-slider

Well, If you have read one of the latest blog posts you can be familiar with this '6-photo-slider' that I'm gonna talk about now. Otherwise you can check that out at Starry Night in Kandy | Another Outreach Event with MAS, which will make more sense.

Now I'm gonna present you the 6 photos of the final slideshow we had. Indeed it was a tough challenge for the contestants to correctly recognize the 6 photos, each of which was made visible only for 10 seconds from the projector. Now try it for yourself too and check how many of them are familiar to you. Of course you can have as much time as you prefer, but try to do it quick. Random googling might not help a lot since Google is yet unable to google images/ photos :) Correct answers can be found at lowermost portion of this post. Take a minute just for a small test.


1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Before giving you the answers I'd like to just let you know about the final evaluation we had.
It was the Sombrero galaxy which was the only object identified by the students. Now go and see how you have performed.

I'd like to hear any feedback as well, if you might have.

Answers

1. Abell Nebula
2. Sombrero Galaxy
3. Witch-head Nebula
4. Apophis Asteroid
5. Comet Lulin
6. Hubble Nebula

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A lecture on Exoplanets by Michael Snowden

A lecture on Exoplanets will be delivered by professional astronomer Michael Snowden tomorrow at University of Moratuwa. Michael is a professional astronomer from New Zealand and he has been contributing towards the development of astronomy in Sri Lanka since last few decades. Following are specific details about this lecture.

 Michael Snowden

Topic : Exoplanets
Time : 11:00 AM
Date : 04th of November 2010
Venue : Auditorium of Department of Electronic & Telecommunication Engineering, University of Moratuwa

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