Awards & Nominations

Orion constellation has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Local Peoples' Choice Winner

Mission to Planet Earth: A Digital History

NASA’s activities in space have brought new knowledge of the Earth, inspiring new ways of thinking about humanity and the planet. However, many people aren’t aware that NASA studies the Earth in addition to other planets. Your challenge is to tell stories of NASA’s Earth science enterprise using interactive digital tools. This will test your technical skills and your ability to think like a historian or educator.

Orion Constellation

Summary

Nowadays, even with the increasing advance of technology, few people end up being interested in astronomy itself, seeing it as something very distant or out of reach, thus ignoring the search for more information in this medium. Based on this problem, we chose the constellation of Orion, a constellation that can be observed all over the planet, which everyone knows, as a way of introducing astronomy in a simpler way in order to arouse the interest of lay people in the subject, demonstrating information in a way to provide a clear and simple experience.

How We Addressed This Challenge

We took advantage of a method that many people already use, which is feedback via Quiz. Many people do these tests to know their potential and test their knowledge, so we decided to use this tool as a way to teach and distribute learning to other people.

ORION CONSTELLATION-What is a star? And how do they form? The Star is nothing more than a large ball of gas that emits light and heat. It all starts with a cloud of gas and dust, the place where the star is born, the gas (mainly hydrogen) is pulled by gravity into the cloud, the cloud starts to spin. The atoms of the gas start to collide with each other, generating thermal energy, the cloud begins to heat up and reaches a temperature that occurs with nuclear fusion. The cloud starts to shine and is called a protostar, when the star stops growing it becomes known as main sequence star, its life span is determined by its size, it can shine for millions of years or more. There are also other stars, such as the massive and medium ones. Orion is a constellation present in the celestial equator, so we can observe it in almost all parts of the planet, with greater emphasis on summer nights in the southern hemisphere, in the months of December and January. Orion has in its reach 81 stars present in its constellation, the main ones being Betelgeuse, Meissa, Bellatrix, Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka, Saiph and Rigel. The Orion Constellation also has a nebula in its midst, being one of the brightest in the sky. BETELGEUSE-It is an aging red supergiant star, it is nearing the end of its life and will soon become a supernova. Its distance is about 600 light years, it is more than a thousand times greater than the sun and it is also known as Alpha Orionis. It has about 11 solar masses, but its diameter varies from 550 to 950 times that of our star. MEISSA- Meissa's distance is 1,000 light years, it is located where you could imagine the place of the hunter's head, emits ultraviolet light. BELLATRIX The third brightest star in the constellation, is located at approximately 240 light years, with the possibility of visualizing it with the naked eye, has a magnitude of 1.64 and is close to Earth (Matthew Spinelli, 2003). ALNITAK, ALNILAM, MINTAKA-Also known as the Orion Belt, they are about 1,500 light years away, they are stars from east to west in a bright blue. (Sergi Verdugo Martínez, 2011). SAIPH-Saiph is the star located in the lower left corner of the constellation, an estimated distance of 650 light years. RIGEL-Classified as a supergiant blue star, Rigel is the brightest star in the constellation, located in the lower right corner of the cluster, with an estimated distance of approximately 800 light years. (Mario Cogo (Galax Lux), 2018) CLOUDY ORION-The Orion Nebula is one of the brightest nebulae in the sky, allowing its observation with the naked eye, a tin located just below and to the left of Orion's belt, easily identifiable. It is located about 1,500 light years away and spans about 40 light years. (Stefan Seip, 2004). CONCLUSION-The project was developed based on the information proposed above, in order to obtain the greatest efficiency and ease possible. Many people do not realize the immensity that exists outside our planet, many do not even know what a star really is. The project aims to facilitate the transmission of this knowledge to everyone, to understand and arouse the curiosity of what is in space.

How We Developed This Project

We simply realized that few people touch on issues related to space in their daily lives, the main reason being their lack of interest or little knowledge of the subject, so we look for a way to try to change this situation, introducing one of the most important constellations. known to the public in the simplest and most practical way possible. We used the SurveyMonkey platform to create a simple quiz to accomplish this goal.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

We used NASA data as a reference and base, it was easy to approach the topic, because a subject with few degrees of difficulty was chosen. Through the materials we used to emphasize the project, it was possible to address an excellent theme, a subject that we could go into a little more, aroused even more curiosities about the Universe.

Project Demo

https://youtu.be/eH7eJC7Onbs

Data & Resources

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030207.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040927.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110121.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171129.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180115.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990605.html

https://canaltech.com.br/espaco/destaques-da-nasa-fotos-astronomicas-da-semana-1909-a-25092020-172113/

https://canaltech.com.br/espaco/nasa-escolhe-foto-tirada-por-brasileiro-como-foto-do-dia-151287/

https://www.gb.nrao.edu/~rmaddale/Education/OrionTourCenter/meissa.html

https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nasap/docs/unive1_p/stars_p.html 

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7035

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/hubble-finds-that-betelgeuses-mysterious-dimming-is-due-to-a-traumatic-outburst

Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Judging process.