My Spelling Book

Here in Rm 20 we have been doing a spelling program. Our spelling books take two forms, a hard copy or digital. Here is a link to my spelling book.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11hMhQdT3ugkE-6PgYN1DC-35Pn9LxBeQcl0yIvZBsF8/edit#slide=id.ga450aaaea_0_0

What Causes the Spectacular Southern Lights?

Have you ever witnessed nature's light show dancing across the night sky? This colourful display is often referred to, and known as ‘The Southern Lights’.

The sun is always active with a constant flow of ions ejecting solar flares. A solar flare is a cloud of ions, electrons and atoms. These charged particles from the solar flare travel through space towards Earth.

Earth has a magnetic field. The magnetic field acts as an invisible shield. When particles from the solar flare collide with the shield, they follow it and accelerate until they reach the poles. When they hit other chemicals they get excited  and release light.

The spectacular Aurora Australis doesn't just occur in the South Pole it occurs in the North as well and is known as the Aurora Borealis or the Northern lights.

How is a Black Hole Formed?

Is it a bird,  is it a plane, is it a ham sandwich? You may have heard of it but wonder what causes this obscure phenomenon a Black Hole. Many people will just think it comes from a star exploding. But it  really is a bit more complicated than that.

It starts off with a star about twenty times the size of our own sun. When a star like that reaches the end of its life the core runs out of fuel and collapses in on itself, when this happens the gravity runs wild. It pulls inwards but at the same time it pumps energy outwards. For a few million years there is an extremely even  duel, but when the star completely runs out of energy fusion stops, the stalemate ends, and  gravity wins.

The remains turn cannibal and start eating away at the hydrogens provided by the dying star. The consuming baby black hole chews more than it can swallow. It chokes, coughs and spits off massive explosions. Finally there is an immense  explosion a star that was once a giant is now multan rubble.

In that one second it contains more energy than our sun will accommodate in its entire lifetime. What is left is a midsize destroyer. This new black hole shoots beams of energy across the universe. These beams are known as gamma rays they travel at the speed of light.

There is a black hole at the centre of every galaxy and many smaller ones spread across the universe. We don't quite know how the black holes at the centre of each  galaxy  are formed.  Supernovae are  similar to black holes with much the same process but they come from smaller stars.