VOLUME 2, Nº 6
DATE: FEBRUARY 2017
Reach the Sky Bulletin TEAM COUNTRY CURIOSITY ARTICLE: SPAIN Spain is a country that is located on the Iberian peninsula in southern Europe. It borders Portugal on the west, France on the north, Andorra between the France and Spanish border and Morocco on the south.
Their currency is the euro. The official language is Spanish. The capital and largest city is Madrid and the national anthem is La Marcha Real. The flag is composed of two colours red and yellow. The thick middle layer is yellow while the thin outer layers are red. On the flag there is also the coat of arms. Spain also has a lot of islands. Spain has three main climate zones. The Mediterrean climate, semiarid climate and oceanic climate. Spain is a country that is rich with history. In the past it was one of the most powerful kingdoms. During World War I Spain stayed neutral from the begining till the end. In the year 1936 a civil war broke out. A war between Nationalist Spain and Republican Spain. Both sides were supported by Europes power houses. The Nationalist side was supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. While the Republican side was supported by the Soviet Union. The Nationalist side was led by Francisco Franco who in 1939 emerged victorious. He became a dictator. After he won the Falange party was formed.Falangism was a type of fascism that emphasised anti-communism, nationalism and Roman Cathlicism. The party was later renamed to
National Movment. During the Cold War Spain was strategiclly important for the US. After Franco's death in 1975, Juan Carlos became the King of Spain. He was king untill 2014. When he became king Spain was no longer ruled by a dictator. Tourism is very important for Spain. It's a tourist attraction due to the rich history, culture, etc. Spain has many tourist destinations for example Sagrada Família a church in Barcelona. The construction of the church started in 1882 and it is still not finished.
Another tourist attraction is the Burgos Cathedral, located in Burgos. The building was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The construction started in 1221.
https://images.google.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain Luka Valenčak Slovenia
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ASTRONOMIC INSTITUTION: One of the most difficult questions are What is universe made of? Or How did it start? Nobody knows the real answer, but the physicists at CERN are seeking those answers, using some of the world's most powerful particle accelarators. Now you are probably asking yourself : What is CERN? CERN is the Eureopan Organization for Nuclear Research, where physicst and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. They are using the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments to study on the basic constituens of matter – the fundamental particles. The particles are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives the physicits clues about how the participles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature. The instruments used at CERN are purpose -built participle accelarators and detectors. Accelarators boost beams of participle, to high energies before the beams are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. Founded in 1954, the CERN laboratory sits astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe's first joint ventures and now has 22 member states. The name CERN is derived from the acronym for the French "Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire", or European Council for Nuclear Research, a provisional body founded in 1952 with the mandate of establishing a worldclass fundamental physics research organization in Europe. At that time, pure physics research concentrated on understanding the inside of the atom, hence the word "nuclear". Today, our understanding of matter goes much deeper than the nucleus, and CERN's main area of research is particle physics – the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and the forces acting between them. Because of this, the laboratory operated by CERN is often referred to as the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. Here are some of their most important achievements: 1973: The discovery of neutral currents in the Gargamelle bubble chamber 1983: The discovery of W and Z bosons in the UA1 and UA2 experiments 1989: The determination of the number of light
neutrino families at the Large Electron– Positron Collider (LEP) operating on the Z boson peak; 1995: The first creation of antihydrogen atoms in the PS210 experiment 1999: The discovery of direct CP violation in the NA48 experiment 2010: The isolation of 38 atoms of antihydrogen 2011: Maintaining antihydrogen for over 15 minutes 2012: A boson with mass around 125 GeV/c2 consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson.
Nadja Blazinšek, 9.a Slovenia
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SOME ROMANIAN PEASANTS BELIEFS IN STARS AND SKY The Romanian people call comets “Stele cu Coada” (Tailed-Stars), and think they are divine signs placed in the sky to announce the coming of great hardships, such as bloody wars between kings and emperors, epidemics or plagues of men and cattle, famines, etc., and that these will occur in the place the tailed-star goes to. Even the end of the world will be heralded by a tailed-star, thus many peasants think, on seeing a comet that the end of the world is at hand, and prepare themselves for death using their remaining time for prayers. In fact, all the beliefs in the evil portents of comets existed from the earliest times with all peoples. What can we say when, even in our own times, many prognosticators forecast that a comet will destroy the Earth, and give the time of its coming? But the cunning comet does not wish to respect their anticipations! Romania’s war for independence in 1877-78 contributed to the people’s beliefs in the forecasting ability of comets. In a paper, a peasant remarked: “Sometimes, stars are seen with tails, which forecast bad events, like wars, plagues, etc.” In 1877, while the Romanians fought with the Turks, a star was seen in the sky with a little tail; then the tail began to lengthen, and the star drew nearer to us; only close to the end of the war did this tailed-star disappear. On Epiphany the sky opens. Victor Anestin, a tireless popularizer of astronomy in Romania, claimed that this faith is bound to an astronomical phenomenon. Thus, on Epiphany (6th January) and St. Andrew`s days (November 30 ) people believed that the sky opened, because sometimes a bright light came through the clouds, accompanied by rumblings that faded in a flash. It was likely to be bolides – very bright balls of fire that crossed the sky on their flight to Earth. It is possible that the crossing of such fireball over the sky to cause our popular superstition. The vivid brightness of this ephemeral star, sifted through the clouds` thick sieve, gave the impression that the sky might split in two. Christianity did not erase from Romanian thought all the old beliefs and legends from the pagan Romanians. From them, some tales remained clear, but others became confused. This happened with all the Christianized peoples, however. These old beliefs are included in the people’s innermost convictions, but they are not annexes of
the Christian religion.
Graphic illustration on the cover of the book of I.M Stefan `Celestial stones, small planets, and stars with tails`. Some indeed are heresies, which hinder the peasants in their field work on days which are not Christian holidays; others make the peasants superstitious; but they also have a positive aspect, telling of the people’s origins. Such heresies, and the people’s legends and language, together with their history, form the Golden Book of that people. Then, even history must recognize them, but this source is frailer, needing more discrimination to use. From this work, we have seen so many valuable data about this Golden Book of our origins that nobody could be in any doubt about our Dacian-Roman beginning. Webography: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php? fbid=243248846112023&set=a.106445753125667. 1073741829.100012807273108&type=3&theater Gal Alexandra Romania
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HOW TO CALCULATE EASTER The date of Easter Day is usually the first Sunday after the first Full Moon occurring on or after the March equinox. Because the Church calendar follows the moon, Easter Day can be on any Sunday from March 22nd to April 25th! Easter is the Christian celebration of the anniversary of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This happened on a date representing the first Full Moon of Spring on the Jewish calendar. Because of that, Easter Day is always the first Sunday after the first calculated Full Moon on or after March 21st. If the Full Moon is on a Sunday, Easter Day is on the next Sunday. For the past 1500 years, March 21st has been used to represent the date of the March equinox (the real equinox might be a day or two different). There are two equinoxes a year, one in March and one in September. Equinox means 'equal night' and on the Equinoxes the day and night are of the same length. The March Equinox is also known as the Vernal Equinox. Several methods have been used since early Christian times to work out the date of Easter Day. It was made more complicated in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII replaced the old Roman 'Julian' calendar (started by Julius Caesar) with a new more accurate 'Gregorian' calendar, which most people still use today. In the UK, Easter was first calculated using the Gregorian calendar in 1753 when the country had changed calendars. Catholic and western Christians now use the Gregorian calendar to find the date of Easter. However, some Orthodox churches celebrate Easter Day on a different day because they still use the old Julian calendar (which is now 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar) and also a different moon to calculate from. In the Gregorian calendar, Easter can be on the dates from March 22nd to April 25th. In 2008, Easter was on March 23rd, about as early as it can be. This is probably the earliest Easter anyone reading this page will see in the rest of their lives! You'll have only had an earlier Easter if you're over 95 years old (it happened in 1913)! And no one has ever, or will, see it any earlier! The next time Easter will be as early as in 2008 will be in the year 2160! The next time it will be on March 22nd (as
early as it can be), will be in the year 2285. Easter last occurred on March 22nd in 1818! (However, in Orthodox churches in 2010 Easter will be on March 22nd. It will be on April 4th in the Gregorian calendar.) Working out the date of Easter Day is extremely tricky and you need to be pretty good at Math to do it! There are still several version of how to calculate the date. Below is a version with all the complicated math already done (it works for the Gregorian calendar for the years 1900 to 2199), so all you have to do is: 1. Divide the year number by 19: 2009/19=105.73 2. Multiple the number before the decimal point by 19 (105 for 2009): 105x19=1995 3. Then subtract the result from Step 2 from the year number: 2009-1995=14 4. Add 1: 14+1=15 Look up the 'Golden Number' in the following table (15 for 2009!). Easter is on the first Sunday after the date in the table. In 2009 Easter is on
April 12th, so it works! The number 19 is used to find the 'Golden Number' because the dates of Full Moons repeat, almost exactly, every 19 years. The dates in the table are the dates of the 'Paschal Full Moon' (a 'representative' Full Moon used in the calculations!), which represents the real Full Moon quite closely. Webography: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/ determining-easter-date.html http://www.whyeaster.com/customs/ dateofeaster.shtml Nikolett Ivan (Romania)
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A DISCOVERY OF ONE OF THE OLDEST GALAXY A research team led by astrofisic Maruše Mullet is discovered 13,1 billion years old galaxy. It goes to the first openly usually galaxy of that period and the alleged culprit for this, that the universe is clarified. In the oldest periods of the universe it is extremely hard to look at. Not only because they are temporally and spatially extremely remote, more than 14 billion (light) years, and, consequently, only little light reaches to us; if it is extremely weak and distorted. Strong reason lies also in the fact that the universe of first billion years after the birth was not transparent and vacuum clean, as it is today. The first 380.000 years, it was so dense and hot that since that time we don't have either one. Almost a billion years later and it was comparable with a huge cloud of fog, which mostly all shiny. From this period, astronomers can only mined the first of the galaxy at all and are studying how the universe has evolved. It has been almost a decade doing international research team, led by slovenian astrofisic Maruša Mullet, a professor at the University of California, Davis (USA). With a few good telescopes of the world tries to penetrate into the old webs and figure out what is hiding in them. Long it takes what discovered. Years and years of observations bring only a few potential candidates, then a lovely time study, we collide gold interpreted. Last year, the Bradačeva proclaimed the discovery of the darkest known galaxy from the infancy of the universe, and now in its research the group found the example of the galaxy that is unusual because it is ordinary. With the help of the hubble space telescope Hubble discovered the MACS1423-z7p64, and then by land telescopes Keck accurately measure the distance and properties. They found that MACS1423-z7p64 occurred approximately 700 million years after the big bang, therefore 13,1 billion years ago. The study, published in the scientific publication Nature Astronomy, its first author is phd student Austin Hoag.
Picture 1: Foggy early universe- photo with Hubble and Keck
FINDING THE MILKY WAY'S HYDROGEN HALO Our galaxy is missing matter — baryonic matter, to be specific. Baryonic matter consists of baryons: particles such as protons and neutrons. It’s the everyday matter around you and makes up every element on the periodic table. Astronomers have been puzzled by the fact that the Milky Way and other galaxies are missing baryonic matter when the mass of their easily measured components, the disk and the bulge, are summed. Recent observations have indicated that galaxies may host a diffuse halo of gas out to great distances (hundreds of thousands of light-years), which is particularly hard to detect but could account for the missing matter. And now, as all-sky surveys amass ever more data, astronomers are finally starting to uncover more information about these halos. In a paper published in Nature Astronomy April 18, authors Huanian Zhang and Dennis Zaritsky describe their research exploring the Milky Way’s galactic halo of cool, diffuse hydrogen gas by observing the light of other galaxies as it passes through the halo on its way to Earth. When this light is broken up by a prism, it forms a spectrum that contains key details about the material the light has traveled through, which includes not only the matter in the distant galaxy from which it came, but also any intervening matter the light may have encountered on its journey — such as our galactic halo.
Picture 2: Hydrogen halo around the Milky Way
Necj Rudež, Slovenia