Whizz Pop Bang Science Magazine for Kids! Issue 98: ALIENS by Whizz Pop Bang

ISSN 2399 -2840

THE AWESOME SCIENCE MAGAZINE FOR KIDS!

Invasion of the cane toa ds!

’s k k a G t f a Cr p

i h s e c a p s

ALiens

How radio telescopes work

The search for extraterrestrial life

E T A E CR IEN’ AL ‘ N A EGG

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cra alien myths!

WHIZZPOPBANG.COM ISSUE 98

EXPERIMENTS PUZZLES AMAZING FACTS SCIENCE NEWS

WELCOME!

Prepare to zoom into space and join us on an alien-seeking mission! Emmi

WHIZZ POP BANG is made by: Editor-in-Chief: Jenny Inglis Editor: Tammy Osborne Assistant Editor: Tara Pardo Designers: Rachael Fisher and Simon Oliver Illustrator: Clive Goodyer Staff writer: Joanna Tubbs Contributors: Sarah Bearchell, Anna Claybourne, Joe Inglis and Owen Inglis

I’ve made an eerie alien egg!

Riley

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EXPERT SCIENCE ADVISERS

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Do you think there might be aliens out there? Give n the unimaginably humongous size of th there’s every chance! Inside e unive rse, pe rsonally, I think th the conditions ne eded to su is epic edition, you’ll discove r pport life, find out how scien tists are combing the sk ies for sig ns of alien exist ence and re ad incredible stories of close en counte rs! You can also make a mode l spac e rocke t, investig at e the ef fe cts of fre ezing an d thawing on living things and craft an alien de sk tidy!

CONTENTS

AWESOME NEWS AND AMAZING FACTS

Fossil reveals epic battle and boys’ homemade boats sail off on an Antarctic adventure.

IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE…?

Launch a miniature Juice mission rocket, create an ‘alien’ egg and find out how living things survive in tough environments.

ANIMAL ANTICS

Travel to the Australian outback to find out about the invasion of the cane toads!

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Design an outer-space creature that could survive on Jupiter’s largest moon.

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Get your desk school-ready with an out-of-this-world stationery organiser!

PULLOUT

Craft Gakk’s spaceship and find out why certain shapes are used for different types of spacecraft.

22 24

INTERVIEW WITH A SCIENCE HERO

Sara Seager uses science to search for Earth-like planets that could have inhabitants!

HOW STUFF WORKS

Find out how radio telescopes work – and if they could help us discover extraterrestrial life!

TEN AWESOMELY AMAZING…

Stories of alien encounters! Discover the truth behind 10 crazy alien myths!

SENSATIONAL SCIENTISTS

Carl Sagan was a space expert who was super-interested in the idea of life beyond Earth. om

Ask our robot, Y, your burning science questions and share all of your adventures in science with the club.

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QUIZ POP BANG AND COMPETITION I’d love to see pictures of your knowledge with our super-duper 32 Test science quiz and win a slime lava lamp. your experiments! Send them to Y@whizzpopbang.com and ask an JOKES AND ANSWERS adult to tag us on social media out loud at some awesome jokes and find the 34 Laugh @whizzpopbangmag answers to all of our quizzes, puzzles and riddles.

SPECTACULAR SCIENCE

Discover the flashing jellyfish that looks like a UFO!

FIND THE SCIENCE EQUIPMENT Hidden on each double page is a piece of science equipment. Tick each one to find the complete kit!

s Awesome New cts and Amazing Fa

FROZEN IN TIME

THE EARLY UNIVERSE RAN IN SLOW MOTION

An extraordinary fossil has been found in China that shows a carnivorous mammal

attacking a larger plant-eating dinosaur.

Professor Geraint Lewis, lead researcher

FUNNY FURRY FRIENDS

Check out some of the hilarious photos that made it to the finals of this year’s Comedy Pet Photography Awards. These awards celebrate the positive role that pets have in our lives and encourage people to get involved with animal welfare issues. Find out more about this competition here: comedypetphoto.com

If you were there, in this infant universe, one second would seem like one second – but from our position, more than 12 billion years into the future, that early time appears to drag.

The ticking of time isn’t as constant as it seems! Astronomers studying the ancient universe have found that time moved five times more slowly back then. This is called time dilation, and it’s the first time it’s been observed in the early cosmos. Albert Einstein predicted time dilation over a hundred years ago when he worked out that the expansion of the universe stretches time. Researchers tested the theory using quasars, which are supermassive black holes at the centres of early galaxies. Quasars emit regular flashes of light, like the ticks of a clock. By observing the flashes over 20 years, the scientists could study how the running of time has changed.

The pair were caught in the act by a volcanic eruption which buried them alive, preserving evidence of their battle. The 125-million-year-old fossil shows a badger-like mammal, called Repenomamus robustus on top of a Psittacosaurus dinosaur (about the size of a large dog), gripping its jaw and biting into its ribs. “The two animals are locked in mortal combat, intimately intertwined,” explained Dr Jordan Mallon, a palaeobiologist who studied the fossil. “It’s among the first evidence to show actual predatory behaviour by a mammal on a dinosaur.”

REBEL BIRDS!

metal spikes are placed on buildings around cities to prevent birds from making nests there – at least that’s the plan! But the clever birds have a better idea, tearing the spikes off and using them to build what the researchers describe as ‘an impregnable fortress’, to keep other birds away from their eggs. In other countries, magpies have been seen making nests from barbed wire and even knitting needles! “It’s like a joke, really,” said Auke-Florian Hiemstra, who is studying the nests. “Even for me as a nest researcher, these are the craziest bird nests I’ve ever seen.” ©

W ik i m e di a

and crows have been making nests out of anti-nesting spikes. These

Two brothers from Aberdeenshire in Scotland built these awesome ships themselves – and now they’re hoping to sail them around Antarctica! Ollie and Harry, aged 13 and 11, were inspired by the Ross scientific expedition of 1839-1843. Their boats, named HMS Erebus and HMS Terror after the ships that discovered the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, were launched into the Southern Ocean in July. They are fitted with devices that will collect and send home scientific data, like ocean temperature and acidity, which can help scientists monitor climate change. If all goes to plan, the boats will travel 20,000 km over the next two years. You can follow their journey here: bit.ly/3pUyWI Iq

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Edgar’s Dandelion

Friends Comedy Pets’

Albert Einstein Barking Comedy Pets’

Free kick

Who are you? © Jonathan Casey / Animal Frien

ds Comedy Pets’

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Scientists studying birds’ nests in the Netherlands have found that magpies

AN EPIC ADVENTURE

Space is huge, with trillions of planets and moons – yet Earth is the only place where we know life exists.

What do you call a sad spaceship? A crying saucer!

By Anna Claybourne

...like trees, flowers, insects, dogs – and us humans!

COULD ALIENS EXIST? Life appeared on our planet, so there’s no reason why it couldn’t have arisen in other parts of the universe too. But so far, we have no clear evidence of any alien life existing.

Scientists haven’t found any good evidence of life beyond Earth... yet!

Scientists think life began on Earth about 3.7 billion years ago, when different chemicals combined to form small, simple living cells – the building blocks of living things.

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Hello? Are you forgetting someone?

Where am I?!

ALIEN EGG!

IT’S A MYSTERY!

So WHY haven’t we found aliens yet? Scientists have had several ideas about this…

In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake came up with the Drake equation, which estimates how many intelligent alien societies could exist in our They could be galaxy, the Milky Way. He calculated that there must be sending us messages at least 10,000 alien civilisations right now! advanced enough to send signals across space.

THE CASE FOR: Loads of aliens!

Do aliens lay eggs? No one knows… but if they did, they might look like this!

hite vinegar W (about 150 ml) Caster sugar Green (or other) food colouring

1. Put the egg into the glass, then cover with vinegar. Leave it somewhere safe for two days (bubbles will form on the egg, which will make it float, so you might need to turn it a few times or use a spoon to hold it down). 2. Carefully take the egg out and rinse in cold water. It’s grown and gone all rubbery and see-through!

Answer on page 34 © Department of Energy / Wikim

THE CASE AGAINST: No aliens!

edia Commons

So where are they?

Excuse me! I’m RIGHT HERE! We are alone… as far as we can tell.

ia Commons

Others, such as Professo r Brian Cox, point out that for most of Earth’s history, the only life was microsco pic single cells. So maybe there IS alien life, but it’s tiny, hard to see, and hasn’t sta rted flying through space or sendin g messages yet.

3. Now place the egg in an empty glass and cover with caster sugar. Leave for 1 day. Now it’s gone all shrivelled! 4. Gently rinse the shrivelled egg in water, put it into a clean glass and cover with water and a good glug of green food colouring and leave it until you're happy with the colour.

Yo u should find

IN BETWEEN: Tiny aliens!

n egg A 2 glasses or jars (just big enough for the egg to fit in)

What you do

The Milky Way galaxy is named after a chocolate bar.

Fermi, But another scientist, Enrico of is famous for arguing that if lots uld wo e intelligent aliens did exist, som logy have invented advanced techno t! en’ and visited Earth. But they hav ox. This is called the Fermi parad

Yo u will need

You’ve created an ALIEN EGG! An egg is a giant cell. Once you’ve dissolved the eggshell, water can cross the membrane (the ‘skin’ around the egg) by osmosis. In step 1, water from the vinegar moves into the egg, making it big and bouncy. In step 3, water moves from inside the egg into the concentrated sugar solution, leaving the egg shrivelled and baggy. Then in step 4, the green water moves into the egg, making it big again – and GREEN!

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What would aliens be like?

Aliens often appear in sci-fi films, comics and TV shows. But if they do exist, what might they really look like?

Erm… like this, maybe?!

Screen and cartoon aliens are usually cleverer than us, with inventions like intergalactic spaceships or teleportation. They include… little green (or grey) people – small, spooky-looking aliens with huge eyes.

VERSUS

SCIENCE FICTION!

What should you do if you see a green alien? Wait until it’s ripe!

tentacled creatures with feelers or lots of eyes.

humanoid (human-like) aliens with unusual faces or features.

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SCIENCE FACTS!

But if we do ever discover alien life, scientists think it might look more like this!

Microscopic cells – like life on Earth,

alien life would probably include lots of tiny, single-celled living things, similar to our bacteria.

Weird water worms – some scientists think life could exist in deep oceans on other planets or moons. It might be similar to some of our deep-sea creatures, like tube worms or sea slugs.

Purple plants – Earth plants

are green because they contain chlorophyll, a chemical that soaks up sunlight. But alien plants might use different chemicals, making them yellow or purple!

SUPER-SURVIVORS

On Earth, some living things survive in extra-tough conditions – especially animals called tardigrades and bacteria known as extremophiles. They can live in extreme heat or cold or survive high levels of salt or acid. Some planets and moons have extreme conditions like these, so they could have similar extremophile life forms.

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Tardigrades are tiny but tough

SURVIVING THE COLD

Some extremophiles can survive icy-cold conditions beca use their bodies contain chemica ls that stop them from freezing solid . Try this to see what freezing does to living cells… Put a piece of fruit, such as a strawberry, tomato or blueberry, in the freezer overnight, take it out, then let it thaw again. Now compare it to fresh fruit. The frozen fruit is mushy because the water in it expanded into ice crystals and ruptured its cells.

I will survive!

OR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT…?

Maybe alien life is even weirder than we think! Could there be planet-sized plants… or living space soup? What strange kinds of life can you imagine?

How many of these alien faces can you spot on pages 8 and 9? Check your answers on page 34.

Some scientists think purple plants could grow on other planets.

Getting frozen is not very good for living things!

Some animals on Earth use antifreeze chemicals to stop this happening to them.

Yo u will need

wo small plastic food T containers, roughly the same size and shape Salt Measuring jug Tablespoon Freezer

Ask an adult to help you measure 100 ml of hot tap water into each container. Stir a tablespoon of salt into one of them until it dissolves. Put both containers in the freezer, side by side, and check on them every half hour. When do they freeze solid? The salty water should take longer to freeze because salt is an antifreeze – it makes water freeze at a lower temperature.

Yoohoo!

The search for alien life

Come and say hi! Hi!

Th se

We haven’t found any aliens yet, but we’re trying!

WHERE COULD THEY BE?

Scientists think that, in order to exist, life needs water

energy (like light from a star)

basic elements like carbon and nitrogen, used to build cells.

Could there be life close to home, in our own Solar system? Scientists think these planets and moons are good places to look:

Jupiter’s moons Europa, Callisto and Ganymede

Saturn’s moons Enceladus and Titan

So, we’re most likely to find aliens on a planet or moon orbiting a star.

NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOURS

The perfect distance! Venus and Mars

Light from star

Medium temperatures, so some water can exist as a liquid.

Just right!

Scientists call this the Goldilocks zone – because it’s not too hot and not too cold!

Did you know that we've already given names to some aliens, despite not finding any yet?! Draw lines to match these aliens with their home worlds and check your answers on page 34.

Jupiter

Venus

The Moon

Venusians Lunarians Martians

Mars

Jovians

Our solar system has eight planets in total, with over 200 moons!

FAR, FAR AWAY…

Alternatively, aliens might live much further away, on planets orbiting distant stars.

Scientists have discovered thousands of these faraway planets, called exoplanets, using powerful telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope.

Who lives where?

(the planets closest to Earth)

Not to scale

MINI MISSION!

LOOKING FOR EVIDENCE

The furthest humans have travelled is to our own Moon, but we can send space probes and robots to explore the rest of the solar system. © Shutterstock.com

The Perseverance rover, sent to Mars in 2020, tests soil and rocks to check for signs of life, such as chemicals that could have come from bacteria.

Make your own miniatur e Juice mission rocket!

In April 2023, the Juice (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) mission launched to visit Europa, Callisto and Ganymede to see if they could support life. © Arne Nordmann / Wikimedia Commons

SPACE SIGNALS

Exoplanets are so far away that it would take thousands of years to travel to them. But there’s another way: super-fast radio signals. We’ve sent radio messages into space to tell any intelligent life out there that we exist.

The Arecibo message was sent in 1974. It contained information about the Earth, the solar system, humans and DNA. We also have radio telescopes looking out for any messages aliens might send to us! Only clever aliens could do this, so it’s known as the

Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Yo u will need

hite paper W R uler S cissors A thin pencil and a thicker marker pen

lue or G sticky tape Felt tips A straw

What you do 1. Cut three pieces of paper: one about 5 cm x 10 cm and two 5 cm x 5 cm. 2. Roll the big piece around the marker pen to make a long tube and stick it in place. 3. Do the same with the smaller pieces, this time using the pencil. 4. Pinch the ends into points and stick together. 5. Stick the three tubes together to make the rocket, like this. 6. Decorate with the pens.

To launch it, fit the rocket over the straw… and blow!

We’ve sent messages into space for aliens to find.

Turn to page 24 to find out how radio telescopes work!

Send a photo of your rocket to Y@whizzpopbang.com

AL ANIM S TIC

Cane toads

Not all aliens are in outer space. Some live right here on Earth (because ‘alien’ is another name for a non-native animal!). Our vet Joe Inglis is heading off to the Australian outback to track down this invasive ‘alien’ species. Cane toads (also called giant neotropical toads) are large amphibians with a long history – the oldest fossilised cane toads are 5 million years old! For most of their time on Earth they lived in the tropical central and southern areas of the Americas. But in the 19th century, they began their alien invasion into other parts of the world, as they were deliberately introduced to try to control pests.

Toads on the road The first alien cane toad invasion happened on Caribbean islands, such as Barbados, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. The toads were deliberately introduced there to try to control beetles that were eating sugar cane (that’s where their name comes from). They have since been taken to many countries around the world, including the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Japan and Australia.

24 cm

The length of the biggest cane toad ever recorded.

Alien invaders After 102 toads were released in northern Australia in 1935, they quickly spread across Queensland and have now reached as far as Western Australia. As an alien invader, they have caused massive problems to native wildlife, which hasn’t had time to evolve defences against them. They have caused the decline of many reptiles and snakes and largely left the sugar cane beetles alone.

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Toad-ally terrifying Measuring 10-15 cm in length, cane toads are one of the largest species of toad in the world. They’re not what most people would call good looking, with dry, warty skin and grumpy-looking faces!

Toxic toads To protect themselves against predators, cane toads have evolved some pretty alien defences. Their skin is poisonous and they have glands behind their eyes that ooze out a milky liquid that can kill small animals, and can be very nasty for people too!

Toad tucker Cane toads are hunters and scavengers, catching and eating small mammals, insects, other amphibians and birds. They also love stealing dog and cat food from outside houses and will even tuck into a meal of animal poo if there’s nothing tastier on offer!

Anti-aliens

How do you describe a grumpy toad? Unhoppy!

Despite their poison defences, some animals such as caiman, opossums and some snakes and eels can eat cane toads safely. Even tiny Australian meat ants are immune to their poison – they can overwhelm a toad and eat it!

200 million The number of cane toads estimated to live in Australia.

Saved by sausages? In Australia, scientists are trying to protect native animals by training them to avoid the toads using cane toad sausages! When animals like crocodiles and lizards eat the sausages, they get a small dose of cane toad poison, and this puts them off eating the toads.

Change the word PEST to the word TOAD by changing only one letter each time. There are some clues to help you! Check your answers on page 34. The opposite of worst

PEST ––––

A musical rhythm

––––

You might thread these together to make jewellery

––––

If you’re in first place, you’re in the…

––––

A truck can carry a heavy…

––––

TOAD

Could there be alien life in our own solar system? Get out your pencils and pens and design an alien that might live on one of the moons of Jupiter! Jupiter is a massive planet far outside the Goldilocks zone around our Sun (see page 10 to read more about the Goldilocks zone). It has lots of moons and scientists think it’s possible that life could exist on one or even more of them. They’re trying to find out by sending probes (spaceships without people on board) to investigate. The European Space Agency (ESA) launched a mission this year called Juice! That stands for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer. It will study three of Jupiter’s Jupiter has at least 92 moons, after 12 more were confirmed in February 2023. Below are the names of the 12 biggest ones. Circle any that you find in the grid and then check your answer on page 34. They could be written forwards, backwards, horizontally, vertically or diagonally.

IO EUROPA GANYMEDE CALLISTO HIMALIA AMALTHEA

L Y S I T H E A P C

M O A I A E Y A Q E

C T P R U U S T I D

M P A R F I F G M E

THEBE ELARA PASIPHAE CARME METIS LYSITHEA

F L O E P S I T E M

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E P Q H E B E H T Y

A M A L T H E A D N

M E E M R A C Q L A

O T S I L L A C L G

I V H I M A L I A V

largest moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Scientists think they have liquid water oceans deep below their thick, icy crusts. If there is liquid water, there’s a chance there could be life there. Juice will spend months orbiting Jupiter and flying past the moons, and then finish its mission by orbiting Ganymede. But we won’t have any answers for a while – the journey time to Jupiter is eight years so it will be 2031 before it even arrives!

What’s it called when you have too many aliens? Extra-extraterrestrials! NASA is also sending a mission to Jupiter, launching in 2024. It is called Europa Clipper and it will focus on Jupiter’s moon Europa to see if it might be suitable to support life.

GLORIOUS GANYMEDE

Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, even bigger than the planet Mercury. Ganymede’s gravity is less than Earth’s, about the same as our Moon. Ganymede gets less than one thirtieth the amount of sunlight that Earth does. Its daytime temperatures at the surface can be as low as -183° C. Ganymede has a faint oxygen atmosphere – but it’s far too thin for us to breathe! It is likely that Ganymede’s ocean holds more water than all the water on Earth.

If there is alien life on Ganymede, what do you think it will look like? Think about how our bodies are adapted to life on Earth. We have strong bones and muscles so we can move around in Earth’s gravity. We have lungs that can breathe Earth’s atmosphere of mostly nitrogen and oxygen. We have eyes that can see in bright sunlight (and less well at night). But we’re not very good at surviving in extreme cold or heat.

How might an alien be adapted to life in the ocean under the ice on Ganymede? How would it breathe and eat? How would it survive the cold,

dark ocean? How would it sense its environment? How would it move?

b... clu O C E

Emmi’s

Upcycle some packaging to get your desk ready for the new term!

ALIEN DESK ORGANISER Yo u will need

selection of clean, dry A food packaging – we used cardboard tubes (loo roll, kitchen roll and crisps), a hot drink cup and a small box

Paint Paintbrushes Scraps of coloured paper and card, one piece around A4 size

How to make your own glue:

bit.ly/3WQgeO6

Decorate the boxes and tubes. Paint wor ks well on anything made of cardboard. For shiny packaging, cut a strip of coloured paper to the same height, then wrap it around the box or tube and glue or tape it in place.

Gather together about five cardboard tubes and small boxes. Ask an adult to help you cut the tops off any boxes, and trim the tubes so they’re all different heights.

4 Arrange the pieces of packaging into a group, with the smaller bits at the front and the taller bits at the back. Fix them together using glue or tape.

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Scissors Glue (PVA or homemade) Optional Hot glue gun Sticky tape Pipe cleaners Felt tips

Put your desk organiser onto a piece of coloured card and draw around it, leaving a 2 cm border, then cut it out. This will be the base of your organiser.

Continued on page 21 ➜

Turn the organiser upside down and cover any parts with flat bottoms with glue. Add a thin line of glue to openended tubes. Place the organiser onto the base and leave it to dry.

I’d love to see your alien desk organiser! Take a photo and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag and email it to Y@whizzpopbang.com

Stick on body and mouth shapes cut from scraps of card. Glue or tape details to your organiser to make a bunch of aliens! Make antennae and limbs from pipe cleaners or cut out wiggly shapes from card, then glue them in place.

Cut out circles of white paper or card to make eyeballs, then add pupils with black paper, pen or pencil and glue them in unexpected spots on your aliens.

ECO

Now add your stationery!

ideas...

Instead of buying a whole new set of stationery at the start of the school year, you might be able to reuse last year’s kit! Test out pens and sharpen any blunt pencils. If you have any old pens, pencils, highlighters and similar things that have stopped working, they can be recycled! Visit this website to find your nearest collection point, and check what will be accepted for recycling there. bit.ly /42V4 USs

Continued from page 16

We can all help to save the planet. Lots of small actions can make a BIG difference! Make your desk an eco-friendly zone! Save scrap paper for making notes and make sure you use both sides of the paper. Ask an adult to help you check if your desk lamp uses an efficient lightbulb and make sure you turn off any electronics once you’ve finished your homework.

whizzpopbang.com 21

➜

TEMPLATE 2

TEMPLATE 1

LEG TEMPLATES

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We’d love to see your spaceships! Send your photos to Y@whizzpopbang.com and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag

PULL OUT pages 17-20 and get making!

GAKK’S SPACESHIP! In science fiction stories, aliens sometimes travel about in spaceships shaped like ‘flying saucers’. Make Gakk’s spaceship and then hang it up in your room!

Yo u will need The templates on these pages Scissors Glue Sticky tape Needle and thread

What do aliens wear to the office? Space suits!

What yo u do

1. Cut out the templates and fold and unfold along all the dashed lines. 2. Take template 1 and add glue to the white tabs, then stick them in place to the back of the template. 3. Add glue to the grey tabs and stick them in place to complete the main ‘saucer’ part of the spaceship. If you find it difficult to glue the tabs in place, try using sticky tape. 4. Take template 2 and add glue to the white tabs. Stick them in place to create a dome. 5. Take the needle and thread and push it through the dot on the underside of the dome. Pull the thread almost all the way through, then stick the last bit to the inside of the template with sticky tape. 6. Refold the grey tabs, add glue and stick the dome to the saucer. 7. Fold each of the leg templates along the centre line and fold the tabs. 8. Add glue to the tabs and stick them to the underside of the spaceship.

Yo u should find When we send astronauts or equipment into space, they travel in rockets that are tall and thin with a pointy top. As a rocket zooms up through the atmosphere, friction with the air creates drag, slowing it down. Thin, pointy shapes travel through air more easily with less drag. When astronauts return to Earth, they travel in a ‘re-entry capsule’, which is shaped a bit like a flying saucer! The wide, flat underside keeps the capsule stable and helps to slow it down. When it gets closer to the ground, parachutes create more drag and thrusters add lift to slow the capsule even more for a softer landing!

Once vehicles are in space, it doesn’t matter what shape they are as there is no air to create drag and slow it down. The International Space Station travels at 28,000 km/h, orbiting Earth about every 90 minutes.

your answers Riddles Checkon page 34.

1. What are the next three letters in the sequence? WATNTL 2. An alien jumped out of a spaceship and fell to the ground. The alien wasn’t injured. Why?

3. They come out at night without being called, they are lost in the day without being stolen. What are they?

Fill in the circles on the flying saucer with the rest of the numbers from 1-9 so that any three in a straight line add up to 18. What number goes in the centre circle? Check your answers on page 34.

TEMPLATE 1

TEMPLATE 2

LEG TEMPLATES

Aerodynamics is the study of how objects move through air.

Find a printable version of the pullout here: bit.ly/43hEU3Y

whizzpopbang.com 19

Interview with a SCIENCE HERO

In my job I get to... search for another planet like Earth Sara Seager is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If you have any questions of your own for Sara, you can contact her on profseager@mit.edu

“

I went to a ‘star party’ with my dad when I was little.

Professor Sara Seager, physicist, and a planetary scientist, erospace enginee r

“

I’ve always wondered about life beyond Earth.

”

A movie called E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was popular when I was a child. It's all about an alien who came to Earth and lived with a normal family – it made me curious about life on other planets. When I was 16, I found out that it was possible to be an astronomer as a job. I told my dad that I was thinking about becoming one and he was concerned. He didn’t know if people could get paid, secure jobs as astronomers. I went to university and studied maths and physics, both of which are important if you want to be an astronomer.

“

”

It wasn’t a party packed with Hollywood celebrities, but one where people who did astronomy as a hobby set up their telescopes and invited everyone along. When I first saw the Moon through the telescope I couldn’t believe my eyes – it was a whole new world! Later, on my first camping trip I saw the dark night sky and an endless number of stars. These memories have stayed with me.

One of my lifelong goals is to find an Earth-like planet.

”

One that is Earth-sized, in an Earth-like orbit around a Sun-sized star. One with a thin atmosphere that has water oceans. One where we can point to a specific star and say, ‘That star has a planet like Earth.’ I love to dream that maybe there’s some life on that planet, looking back at our Earth and our star and saying the same thing. How amazing would that be!

22 whizzpopbang.com

Venus’s clouds could contain ba cteria-like life – Sara’s research focuses on finding out more! © NASA/JPL-Caltech

Interview with a SCIENCE HERO

“

NASA is working on a telescope to find Earth twins.

”

We don’t yet have the technology, but NASA’s current research could lead to a telescope that can find planets like Earth in the 2030s or 2040s. For now, we can study small planets orbiting small red dwarf stars, more like Earth cousins, with the new James Webb Space Telescope. We are still working to study their atmospheres to see if any of them have things in common with Earth.

at a planetary Sara talking about her work science conference

“

s / Conrad Erb

I’m working on the idea that there' s life in the clouds of Venus. I do chemistry experiments in a laboratory to find out what kind of biological molecules can survive in sulfuric acid – a nasty chemical that makes up Venusʼs clouds. I research planets beyond our solar system (called exoplanets). We can collect data from space telescopes to find out more about exoplanets’ atmospheres – it’s a good way to understand if they’re similar to Earth or not, and if they might be able to support life. I write computer codes to understand and interpret this data. I’m a teacher, too – I train students to become scientists.

”

The James Webb telescope, the largest and most powerful space telescope © NASA /Desiree Stover

Sara was in the award-winning documentary, The Hunt for Planet B!

ellite that Sara and satSeager ASTERIA, a tiny© Sara rs team used to investigate some nearby sta © NASA /JPL-Caltech

Find out more about xxxxxx © Roco Films

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HOW STUFF

WORKS

Radio Telescopes Are we alone in the universe? Radio telescopes might be able to help us find out. They scan the skies, looking for signals from extraterrestrial lifeforms. Here’s how these super-sized alien-detectors work…

1 Radio waves 2

Cosmic radio waves are incredibly faint – around one billion billion times weaker than a mobile phone signal – so radio telescopes need massive reflecting dishes to collect and focus these signals. These dishes can be hundreds of metres across to allow them to collect the faintest radio waves.

are a type of electromagnetic energy. They are emitted by stars, distant galaxies and even giant dust clouds in space (as well as by advanced alien societies – if they’re out there!).

After bouncing off the main reflecting dish, the radio waves are reflected again off a sub reflector above the main one and focussed back down to the centre of the telescope.

The focussed beam enters the feed horn, which is a special funnel designed to be exactly the same diameter as the wavelength of radio wave that the scientists want to study, so only these radio waves can pass through.

At the bottom of the feed horn is a super-cooled receiver that converts the radio waves bouncing down the feed horn into electronic signals.

The reflecting dishes are supported on telescope mounts that allow them to be tilted and turned to focus on different parts of the sky.

The bigger the reflecting dish, the more detail scientists can see when they analyse the radio waves. But really big reflectors are hard to make, so groups of smaller telescopes linked together called arrays are used instead.

The biggest single telescope dish is the whopping 500-metre-wide FAST telescope built in a natural crater in China.

The largest array, called the Square Kilometre Array, is being built in Australia and South Africa. It will have nearly 200 dishes and more than 130,000 radio antennae. When it’s finished in 2028, it will allow scientists to study radio signals that are almost as old as the universe itself – and could pick up distant alien signals, if there are any out there…

8 7 Cables

carry the electronic signals from the telescope to the control room for processing.

Finally, the signals are analysed by powerful computers which help scientists understand what cosmic events made the signals and what they reveal about stars and galaxies (and one day maybe even aliens!) billions of kilometres away from Earth.

In the control room, receivers and amplifiers boost the signal and separate it out into hundreds or thousands of different signals, each at a different radio frequency.

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g.. in z a m A ly e m o s e w A 0 1

E ’ N E I L A ‘ ST O R I E S O F for thousands have been reported e lif n ie al of gs tin Sigh stories – me of our favourite you? of years. Here are so y of them are true. Do an k in th t n’ do s ist nt scie

Crop circles have been

spotted for hundreds of years, but they’re particularly common in Wiltshire, UK. Some people think these intricate patterns must have been created by landing spaceships (but most people think they’re made by humans!).

Weather can create optical illusions that can be mistaken for UFOs. This is a sun dog, where sunlight is refracted by ice crystals in the atmosphere, making it look like there are several Suns (or spacecraft!) in the sky.

Ball lightning is a mysterious phenomenon where a glowing sphere appears close to the ground for a few seconds, hissing and producing an unusual smell. This could be connected to atmospheric gases – or could it be a fleeting visit from aliens?!

2 The Roswell incident of 1947 is a famous UFO (unidentified flying object) story. After metallic debris was found in the desert in New Mexico, USA, some people believed that an alien spacecraft had crashed, but it’s now thought to have been the remains of a high-altitude balloon.

Extraterrestrial sightings aren’t a new thing – there were quite a few ancient UFO-spotters! Flying objects (some described as being fiery, glowing and disc-shaped) were spotted in the sky during the Ancient Egyptian and Roman periods.

S R E T N U ’ ENCO

Lenticular clouds are formed when moist

air is blown over an obstacle (usually mountains), creating distinctive UFO-like shapes.

In Victorian times, some scientists thought they could see canals on Mars, thought to be evidence of a civilization of intelligent Martians (but they turned out to be an optical illusion).

There have been a number of reports about

alien abductions of cows – but none of them have been proven true!

Map of Mars showing canals

Satellites and the

International Space Station can sometimes be seen from Earth, looking like fast-moving bright or flashing stars – and are sometimes mistaken for alien spacecraft!

In 1967, six fake flying saucers were built by a group of students and hidden around southern England. They were made of fibreglass, filled with flour and water goo and contained small speakers that played spooky sounds when they were disturbed.

© 1. DedMityay / Shutterstock.com, 2. Wikimedia Commons, 3. Gopherboy6956 / Wikimedia Commons, 4. Matrioshka / stock.adobe.com, 5. KREML / Shutterstock.com, 6. Majonit / Shutterstock.com, 7. Meyers Konversations-Lexikon (German encyclopaedia), 1888 / Wikimedia Commons, 8. Shutterstock.com, 9. Artsiom P/ Shutterstock.com, 10. andrea crisante / Shutterstock.com.

whizzpopbang.com 27

Sensational Scientists

By Joanna Tubbs

Carl Sagan Carl Sagan was an astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, professor and science communicator (phew!) who was fascinated by extraterrestrial life.

CARL EDWARD SAGAN WAS BORN IN BROOKLYN, USA, IN 1934.

When he was a child, curious Carl loved to visit the libraries and museums of New York City. He became interested in stars when he read in a book that the Sun is a nearby star, and that lots of other stars are suns that are very far away from us. When he was four, he visited the World’s Fair exhibition, where he was amazed by an early version of a television and a time capsule. His brilliant brain was full of questions, and his parents encouraged him to research answers.

Carl never stopped asking ‘why?’ While studying physics, astronomy and astrophysics at university, Carl’s interest in the possibility of life beyond Earth grew and grew. He’d always loved science fiction and dreamed about aliens visiting Earth – now, he was able to use science to investigate this further. He showed that it’s possible to create the chemical building blocks of life beyond planet Earth.

Carl was involved in American space exploration from its very beginning in the 1950s. He briefed the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon and helped to plan missions to Venus, Mars, Jupiter and the outer solar system. He came up with the idea for Voyager I to take a photo of Earth from 3.7 billion miles away to show just how tiny our planet is.

The Pale Blue Dot photo became very famous.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

/JP

Carl put together several messages that were sent into outer space in the 1970s, including Golden Records that were sent on Voyager I and Voyager II. One of these is now probably the farthest human-made object from Earth. They included: Messages in 55 ancient and modern languages Sounds from Earth, like music, bird song and human laughter Photographs and diagrams of humans and Earth

Find some examples of things included on the Golden Record here:

bit.ly/438i3ro

Make your own Golden Record Think about what you would like to tell aliens about life on Earth today. Write and draw anything you think they should know. You could stick your work onto a circle of card – perhaps an alien will find it one day!

The nature of life on Earth and the search for life elsewhere are two sides of the same question – the search for who we are.

In 1980, Carl presented a TV show about space called Cosmos, which was watched by 500 million people in 60 countries. Carl won many awards before his death in 1996. The Carl Sagan Institute in New York State and the Carl Sagan Centre in California were named after him and are dedicated to continuing his search for life beyond Earth.

whizzpopbang.com 29

Email me at Y@whizzpopbang.com

der Club!

Welcome to Y’s Won to share your This page is for you with our robot, adventures in science p Bang readers! Y, and other Whizz Po ce question Everyone whose scien is page gets answered on th ng wins a Whizz Pop Ba Science Joke Book, ome available in our awes at online science shop

whizzpopbang.com/shop

F oR

Dear Y, What is quantum physics and how does the quantum realm work?

CURIoUS K I DS

From Maisie, aged 11

Quantum physics is the study of matter and energy on a tiny scale. By studying interactions between very small particles, we can gain a much better understanding of the everyday things around us. A quantum is the smallest amount of something. For example, a photon is a quantum of light energy – knowing its properties and behaviours helps us to make predictions about light. Quantum physics has also helped us make smaller and more powerful computer chips to run satnav systems and mobile phones.

Neelke, d this 11 aged , create inth yr awesome lab e inspired by th e Ancient Greec edition.

Esme, aged 6, made this brilliantly decorated peg-osau r from the Prehistoric Flying Beasts edition.

To Y, Are humans elements?

From Charlotte, aged 10

An element is a substance which cannot be broken down into other substances. A human might look like a single thing, but you could break one into many different kinds of atoms – representing abou t 60 different elements. Most are present in tiny amounts, but six make up abou t 99% of a human. About 10% is hydrogen, made shortly after the Big Bang . You also contain oxygen (65%), carbon (18%), nitrogen (3%), calcium (1.5% ) and phosphorous (1%) – all made in stars! Interestingly, you are 0.0000000 03% gold, which was made in supernovae (exploding stars). We really are made of stardust!

Quantum physics includes some truly mind-bending ideas that can be very hard to imagine. For example, quantum superposition is where quantum particles exist in more than one place at the same time, making parallel universes possible. In the Ant-Man films, ideas from quantum physics are used to create a fictional Q uantum Realm – the space between atoms. Quantum superposition explains the different timelines and parallel universes, but it’s quantum entanglement (which connects all of space and time) that lets him access any timeline and any universe from a single point – something not yet possible in reality!

enamel badges Y’s Wonder Club Badges Collectable for you to earn! Help local wildlife to earn your Wildlife Watcher badge.

Investigate scientific questions to earn your Super Scientist badge.

Help save the planet to earn your Eco Hero badge.

CALLING ALL SUPERFANS!

It looks like you really enjoyed the activities from our Buzzy Bees edition…

This autumn we’ll be celebrating

100 issues of Whizz Pop Bang magazine! We’d love to showcase some of our biggest fans in the Issue 100 Wonder Club pages. Send us a photo of you with your favourite edition of the magazine or tell us your favourite fact, experiment or joke from Whizz Pop Bang by September 20th 2023 to be in with a chance of featuring on our special superfans page!

Aariz, aged 8, and Haris, aged 6, with their bee-rillia nt bumblebee flyers and bumblebee bookmarks.

Take a look at some of the fantastic things you curious kids have made to earn your Y’s Wonder Club badges…

Elijah, aged 8, made these lovely beeswax food wraps.

Noah, aged 4 , made this gre at model of a beehive.

Ella, aged 7, with her buzzy bookmark.

e Sammy mad to l te o this bee h fe li d il W is earn h . ge ad b er ch Wat

Dear Y, When you cut onions, why do your eyes water? From Ben, aged 9

The lacrimal (say lack-rim-al) glands in your eyelids are constantly making tears to keep your eyes moist and comfortable. But if you cut into an onion, they go into overdrive! That’s because cutting the onion breaks open cells, releasing substances which react with each other to make a chemical that vaporises (turns into a gas). When this gas gets into your eyes it causes a burning feeling and irritates the nerves in your lacrimal glands, so they make LOTS of tears to wash the problem away. Chilling the onions before chopping them can slow down this reaction – or you could try wearing swimming goggles!

Get problem solving to earn your Epic Engineer badge.

Write a report or a review to earn your Science Reporter badge.

Boaz, aged 8, drew this fab picture of th e Whizz Pop Ban g characters.

Send your experiments, ideas, photos, reviews and questions to Y@whizzpopbang.com or Y, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Don’t forget to include your name, age and address. We can’t return any post, sorry.

To find out how to earn your badges, go to whizzpopbang.com/wonder-club. Schools can get involved too! Find out how here: bit.ly/39xNQ Q qV

whizzpopbang.com 31

um/ Test your m dad/auntie

How much can you remember from this issue?

at they know! to see wh

Test your knowledge with our super-duper quiz. Just tick the answers you think are correct, mark them using the answers on page 34 and then add up your score. If you need some help, check out the hints at the bottom of the page.

What is the Atolla jellyfish’s nicknam e?

What does the Drake equation estimate? a) The number of ducks living in space

a) Alarm jellyfish b) Alien jellyfish

b) The number of aliens living among us on Earth

c) U FO jellyfish

What is a sun dog?

a) A breed of dog that loves summer n optical illusion b) A caused by weather

c) The number of intelligent alien societies in the Milky Way

Carl Sagan’s TV show was called… a) C osmology

golden retriever c) A

a) Jupiter’s largest moon

c) N eptune’s only moon

How many cane toads are estimated to live in Australia? 00 a) 2

b) Compost c) C osmos

What is Ganymede? b) M ars’s smallest moon

What is an alien’s favourite drink? Gravi-tea!

Which one is NOT part of a radio telescope? a) Feed horn b) Reflecting fish c) Telescope mount

What do scientists call an area around a star where life could theoretically exist?

b) 20,000

a) The porridge zone

00 million c) 2

b) T he Goldilocks zone c) T he cosy zone

Need a hint? Find the answers by reading these pages… 1) Page 35 2) Page 7 3) Page 26 4) Page 29 5) Page 14 6) Pages 24-25 7) Page 13 8) Page 10

Answers on page 34.

I scored: .......... 1-3: On another planet 4-6: In the (Goldilocks) zone 7-8: Out of this world!

If there are aliens somewhere in the universe that are clever enough to use language, perhaps they’d also have a way of writing it down. Do you think they’d tell each other jokes?! Translate the alien text and send it in to be in with a chance of winning one of five awesome slime lava lamps!

ABCDEFGHIJKLM ABCDE FG H I J K L M

NOPQRSTUVWXYZ

NO P Q R S T U V WX YZ

! IN

Alien message

W H Y H A V E N’T ’ A LIE N S VI SITE D EA RTH? ? TH E Y LOO K E D AT TH E R E VIE W S A N D SA W IT O N L Y H A S O N E STA R! !

So Slime Lava Lamp With the So Slime Lava Lamp from trendsuk.co.uk, you can make your own glow-in-the-dark lava slime. Just mix the clear and colourful ready-made slimes with decorations and watch the lava effects appear! You can also remove the slime to play with.

WINNERS Issue 96 competition winners Thank you to all of you who sent in your entries to our Coasts competition. The animal in the rock pool without a matching pair was the limpet. These six lucky winners will each receive a Sensory Science kit from Bandai Evie Collomosse, 9 Arran Caird, 6 Tillie West, 12 Arlo Philip, 9 Elsa Carruthers, 8 Faelan Smith, 10

Send your entry to win@whizzpopbang.com with ‘Aliens competition’ as the subject of your email. Alternatively, post it to Aliens competition, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Please don’t forget to include your name, age and address. Deadline: October 8th 2023. UK residents only. Full terms and conditions available at whizzpopbang.com.

whizzpopbang.com 33

JOKES

What do y ou two-heade say to a d alien? Hello, hello !

aliens How do ir crops? the harvest ! r beams o t c a r t With

Why don’t alien tourists visit Earth? They looked at the reviews and saw it only has one star!

n What do you call a es? alien with three ey An aliiien!

What do you call an alien with no eyes? Alan!

Page 7 – True/Untrue

Page 13IO – Toad puzzle THEBE

UNTRUE: It was called the Milky Way because its stars can look like a milky white streak in the night sky.

PESTGANYMEDE ➡ BEST ➡ BEAT ➡ BEAD ➡ LEAD PASIPHAE ➡ LOAD ➡ TOAD CALLISTO CARME

re Looking for mo ? ens jokes about ali out They must be ! re there somewhe

What would aliens be like? Erm… like this, maybe?!

SUPER-SURVIVORS

little green (or grey) people – small, spooky-looking aliens with huge eyes.

What should you do if you see a green alien? Wait until it’s ripe!

tentacled creatures with feelers or lots of eyes.

humanoid (human-like) aliens with unusual faces or features.

/ ev ts

Actual size!

m k.co toc ers utt Sh

Ol eh

m bi

VERSUS

Screen and cartoon aliens are usually cleverer than us, with inventions like intergalactic spaceships or teleportation. They include…

SCIENCE FACTS!

Li u

Tardigrades are tiny but tough

SCIENCE FICTION!

SURVIVING THE COLD

Some extremophiles can survive icy-cold conditions because their bodies contain chemicals that stop them from freezing solid. Try this to see what freezing does to living cells… Put a piece of fruit, such as a strawberry, tomato or blueberry, in the freezer overnight, take it out, then let it thaw again. Now compare it to fresh fruit. The frozen fruit is mushy because the water in it expanded into ice crystals and ruptured its cells.

But if we do ever discover alien life, scientists think it might look more like this!

Microscopic cells – like life on Earth, alien life would probably include lots of tiny, single-celled living things, similar to our bacteria.

Weird water worms – some scientists think life could exist in deep oceans on other planets or moons. It might be similar to some of our deep-sea creatures, like tube worms or sea slugs.

Purple plants – Earth plants are green because they contain chlorophyll, a chemical that soaks up sunlight. But alien plants might use different chemicals, making them yellow or purple!

I will survive!

OR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT…?

Maybe alien life is even weirder than we think! Could there be planet-sized plants… or living space soup? What strange kinds of life can you imagine?

How many of these alien faces can you spot on pages 8 and 9? Check your answers on page 34.

Some scientists think purple plants could grow on other planets.

8 whizzpopbang.com

Page 10 – Alien names puzzle Venusians ➡ Venus Lunarians ➡ The Moon Martians ➡ Mars Jovians ➡ Jupiter

Getting frozen is not very good for living things!

Some animals on Earth use antifreeze chemicals to stop this happening to them.

You will need

Two small plastic food containers, roughly the same size and shape Salt Measuring jug Tablespoon Freezer

L Y S I T H E A P C

M O A I A E Y A Q E

C T P R U U S T I D

M P A R F I F G M E

LYSITHEA

F L O E P S I T E M

E P Q H E B E H T Y

A M A L T H E A D N

M E E M R A C Q L A

O T S I L L A C L G

I V H I M A L I A V

Page 18 – UFO number puzzle GLORIOUS The number in GANYMEDE 6 the middle is 9.

Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, even bigger than the planet Mercury.

Ganymede’s gravity is less than Earth’s, about the same as our Moon.

Page 32 – Quiz

Its daytime temperatures at the surface can be as low as -183° C.

1) a 2) c 3) b 4) c 5) a 6) b 7) c 8) b

Ganymede has a faint oxygen atmosphere – but it’s far too to for us breathe! Whoops! In thin issue

It is likely that said Ganymede’s 96, we there ocean holds more water than all the water on Earth.

Page 18 – Riddles 1) I T S. The sequence is the first letter of every word in the sentence.

3) Stars!

Ganymede gets less than one thirtieth 7 the amount of sunlight that Earth does.

14 whizzpopbang.com

2) The spaceship was on the ground.

What’s it called when you have too many aliens? Extra extraterrestrials!

Answers

ELARA

AMALTHEA

Twelve – there are four of each of the three alien heads in the picture. Aliens often appear in sci-fi films, comics and TV shows. But if they do exist, what might they really look like?

NASA is also sending a mission to Jupiter, launching in 2024. It is called Europa Clipper and it will be focus on Jupiter’s moon Europa to see if it might be suitable to support life.

METIS Page HIMALIA 14 – Moons wordsearch

Page 9 – Alien faces puzzle

Invent ! an a l i e n

largest moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Scientists think they have liquid water oceans deep below their thick, icy crusts. If there’s liquid water, there’s a chance there could be life there. Juice will spend months orbiting Jupiter and flying past the moons, and then finish its mission by orbiting Ganymede. But we won’t have any answers for a while – the journey time to Jupiter is eight years so it will be 2031 before it even arrives!

Jupiter has at least 92 moons, after 12 more were confirmed in February 2023. Below are the names of the 12 biggest ones. Circle any that you find in the grid and then check your answer on page 34. They could be written forwards, backwards, horizontally, vertically or diagonally.

EUROPA

If there is alien lif you think it will lo our bodies are ad have strong bone move around in E lungs that can br of mostly nitrogen eyes that can see less well at night) at surviving in ext

were 20 triangles in the puzzle on page 13, when we should have said 23. Well done to any eagle-eyed readers who spotted our mistake!

Is it a UFO? This may look like an alien spaceship covered in flashing lights, but it’s a jellyfish! The Atolla jellyfish lives in oceans around the world. It is found in the mid ocean and even down in the depths of the midnight zone. Its nickname is the ‘alarm jellyfish’ because when it is attacked, it flashes blue light bioluminescence (say by-oh-loom-in-ess-en-s). The light is produced by a chemical reaction in its body. This is to startle the attacker and also to attract larger predators to scare the attacker away.

R A L U C A T C E SP

e c n e i c s

ESA’s Juice mission will be looking for signs of life in the deep oceans of Jupiter’s moons. If there is any life there, do you think it could look like this?!

FANTAST IC FACTS FR OM

CELEBRI TY SCIENTI STS

COMING SO O

N...

celebrating

100 issues of

Whizz Pop

Bang!

T EVER S! T N E M I R E EXP OUR BES

AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 2023

LOA D S O F A M A ZI N G

S C IE N T IF IC D IS C O V E R IE S T u r n to p a ge 3 1 t o find out h ow can ge t i n v o lved!

YOU