Innehållsförteckning för March 2024 från Muse: The magazine of science, culture, and smart laughs for kids and children

LETTER of the MONTH Meet Me in the Middle Hey, I’m Shriinidhi, a soon-to-be 6th grader! I love many things, including white witchcraft, reading (specifically Muse), socializing, and drawing. If you didn’t know, the term “So mote it be” is used a lot in witchcraft spells at the end. It basically means that your intent is focused on only the outcome of the spell, like “so let it be.” Another thing: I know that a bunch of my friends are really nervous for middle school! In my town, the middle school building is HUGE, which can be kind of overwhelming! Here are some tips to help you make friends, which for me, is the best thing about middle school. • Try to participate more in class conversations! Most…

More than 50 years ago, on Dec. 11, 1972, two US astronauts from the Apollo 17 lunar landing mission, Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, became the most recent humans to step onto the gray, dusty, and rocky surface of the Moon. Today, NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is partnering with international space agencies and commercial enterprises to make the 238,855-mile (384,400-kilometer) return trip a reality in the 2020s. They’re calling it the Artemis program. It’s named after the Greek goddess of the Moon and the twin sister of the Greek god Apollo. (Apollo was the name of NASA’s first illustrious lunar space program. It brought humans to the Moon for the first and last times, with a total of six missions.) As early as 2026, the Artemis missions…

Science@Work Jupiter and Saturn had been trading the title for the most moons of any planet in the solar system. In February 2023, Jupiter, the larger planet, pulled ahead. Twelve new moons had been discovered, pushing its total number of moons to 92. But just a few months later, in May, another team of astronomers announced they had found 62 new moons orbiting Saturn (plus one moon a little earlier), bringing its total to 146 moons. This finding, which nearly doubled the number of known Saturn moons, marked the most moons ever discovered at one time. The astronomer who led the team behind the impressive Saturn moon discovery was Edward Ashton. He began this research while a graduate student at the University of British Columbia in Canada in 2019. He…

Your Tech INDIA LANDED AN UNCREWED SPACECRAFT ON THE MOON FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AUGUST 2023. Japan just reached the Moon for the first time with a robotic spacecraft in January. And in 2026, the United States is set to land astronauts on the Moon for the first time in more than half a century with its Artemis III mission. Exploration, research, and national prestige are all important goals for these missions. There’s more to the new space race, however. Some companies hope to harvest and use the Moon’s water and precious minerals. So, are they allowed to just fly up there and take whatever they want? That’s a tricky question. The one thing almost everyone agrees on is that no one owns the Moon, or any other celestial…

MAMMALOGY A Squirrel’s Tail Aids in Navigation A squirrel’s tail has many uses, making it one of the handiest features of any animal. It helps the mammal to maneuver, allowing it to balance on tree limbs, jump, and soar. It’s a communication tool that can declare alarm, interest, play, and joy. And it protects the animal in winter, working as a coat, a blanket, and an umbrella. As if all this weren’t enough, researchers have recently found that a squirrel’s tail contains magnetite receptors. These receptors indicate that squirrels use magnetic fields to navigate. Scientists have found such receptors in many animals, including certain species of sharks, sea turtles, honeybees, dolphins, some birds such as geese, and some rodents. Though scientists know some animals rely on the Earth’s magnetic field…

Science@Work Throughout history, people have had some curious ideas about the Moon.Some see a face or a rabbit on the surface. Others believe the Moon can bring good luck. There’s even a myth that a full Moon can help turn humans into werewolves! When Justin Darnall looks up at the Moon, he sees the future of space travel and exploration. Darnall is an aerospace engineer—someone involved in the design, development, testing, and production of aircraft and spacecraft. He has worked on both systems and equipment. Today, he works for Blue Origin, a private spaceflight company and aerospace manufacturer. Jeff Bezos, famous for founding Amazon, started Blue Origin in the year 2000. Darnall is a senior manager of software development, testing, and deployment for “lunar permanence” at Blue Origin’s offices in…

The Search for Hidden Oceans—and Extra-Terrestrial Life On April 14, 2023, a sleek rocket took off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, in northeast South America. It blasted beyond Earth’s atmosphere, soaring into the darkness of space. Onboard was a brand new space probe called the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or Juice for short. Juice has an exciting trip ahead. It will travel through our solar system, with its sights set on reaching the planet Jupiter by July 2031. This probe will be so far from Earth—hundreds of millions of miles away—that it needs a 2.5-meter (8.2-foot) antenna to send information to us back home. It is also equipped with large solar panels to provide power. Once near Jupiter, Juice will embark on a planned four-year mission to study the…

Last Slice e•clipse 1. verb. To cut in front of someone in line and pretend you haven’t done anything wrong 2. noun. An eclair presented as part of an apology 3. verb, slang. To accomplish a task effortlessly without preparation 4. somewhat improper noun. A small noise that sounds like a person passing gas but is really something else E•clipse 1. proper noun. Online barber school popular from 2020 to 2022 e•clipse•y 1. adjective. Overbearing, bossy…

The armies battled beneath the hot Sun. Neither side seemed to be winning. It was May 28, 585 BCE, the sixth year of war between the Lydians and the Medes in what is now Turkey. Suddenly, the light grew thin, and the air turned cold. A hole appeared in the sky where the Sun should be, surrounded by a halo of light. Surely, this was a sign from the gods that they should make peace. A total eclipse of the Sun, as those ancient armies witnessed, could be frightening if you didn’t know it was coming. That fear could even stop a war! Nowadays, we know what causes eclipses. We can predict when and where they’ll happen, down to the minute and mile. Instead of frightening people, an eclipse can…

Do the Math The game of billiards, or pool, is all about geometry. You line up your shot and strike the cue ball. It caroms off the billiard table’s wall and smacks into the target ball, which scoots across the table right into a pocket. That is, if you get your angles right. An expert player can figure out exactly where the ball will go. Most times, the ball travels in a straight line until it hits a wall. When it bounces, it obeys a basic law of physics: The angle between the incoming ball’s path and the wall is the same as the angle of the outgoing ball’s path and the wall. That’s enough to predict the ball’s motion, no matter how many bounces it takes. Some mathematicians like…

Imagine a planet that spins so fast a day lasts not 24 hours but only six. Daytime is brief, and nighttime is only long enough for a nap. The planet’s moon rushes across the sky so close it looks 10 times larger than our familiar Moon! No, this is not one of the Earth-like planets astronomers have discovered around distant stars. It is Earth itself, 4.5 billion years ago, when the Moon was newly formed and orbiting less than 20,000 miles (32,200 kilometers) from Earth. Since then, the power of the tides has slowed Earth’s spin and pushed the Moon’s orbit more than 200,000 miles (322,000 km) farther away. Other tidal forces have affected many of the solar system’s moons. They have controlled their orbits, slowed their spins, melted their…

Tiny, lumpy, and whizzing around their planet in all directions. And not just one or two of them, but an entire swarm. Welcome to the surprising new moons of Saturn. Astronomer Edward Ashton led the team that recently discovered an astonishing 63 tiny new natural satellites orbiting around the sixth planet from the Sun. His findings pushed Saturn past Jupiter for the most moons in our solar system. No one has ever found this many moons before. Ashton only located the new moons by breaking many of the unwritten rules about how and where to search for moons and how they should be expected to behave. He began this research while a graduate student at the University of British Columbia in Canada and now works at Academia Sinica Institute of…