Astronomy

Eighth graders at Jordan's school do a year-long project on a subject of their choice, and Jordan's choice is astronomy. He recently had to write a proposal, and he will eventually be conducting research, shadowing or interviewing professional astronomers, creating something astronomy-related...not sure what exactly. All of this is still in the formative stages. While he is musing, I thought of a bunch of astronomy questions that I thought might be accessible and interesting to a middle schooler, which are also interesting to me. Some of these I mostly know the answers to (though there would always be more to learn), and some of them are genuine questions of mine, as in, if I were doing a project on astronomy these are questions I myself would want to answer.

1. Are there planets outside our solar system? How can we tell? Can we see them in telescopes?
2. What kinds of things are out there in space? Stars, planets, and what else? How can we tell the different things apart?
3. Where are the big telescopes? Why are they in those places? Are there any problems or conflicts about the big telescopes?
4. Can you do astronomy in Seattle, where it is cloudy much of the time? What can and can't you do?
5. What is the life of an astronomer like? Do you have to stay up all night? Do you have to  live in a certain place?
6. Historically/globally, which people did astronomy, within a given culture? Did you have to be rich? Male? A priest? 
7. How about now, in the US - what kinds of people do astronomy? What are the problems with racism, sexism, etc. in astronomy?
8. Why did people do astronomy historically - what were they trying to accomplish? 
9. How about now, in the US - what are astronomers trying to accomplish? Are they trying to make the world a better place or help people in some way? Are they trying to get rich? Benefit their countries?
10. Spaceships and telescopes must cost a lot. Who pays for them? Why? Do they hope to get anything back for it? Where does the money come from? Who does it benefit?
11. I heard that astronomers just crashed the spaceship Cassini on purpose. Why? What was Cassini doing?
12. What spaceships are out there in space now? What is their purpose? Are they working? Will we crash them too?
13. Someone told me you can tell time by the Big Dipper. How do you do that?

I am not planning to pursue these questions... I have enough projects! But it was fun to think of them. I shared them with Jordan but I don't think he adopted them.

In closing, here is Cassini's last portrait of Saturn.