June 1996 — Features
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Universal Access to Science Study via Internet
Example 2: Sun Spots
http://www.users.interport.net/~jbaron/solar.html
A great deal of data is available on the Internet describing phenomena in the solar system and further reaches of space. Telescopes from observatories around the world contribute to these reports, as do satellites orbiting the earth and space probes traveling to other planets.
Images of the sun can be studied from the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration's site (http://www.noaa.gov) that show sunspots as well as report on their position on the sun's surface. Since the sun rotates, the changing locations of a sunspot provides an opportunity for students to calculate the rate of the sun's rotation (about 13.3 degrees per earth day). In addition, since the sun is gaseous and not solid, the observed time for the sun to rotate around its axis varies according to location of the sunspot. Using the Internet, students are thus able to make measurements and to draw conclusions about phenomena that were among the first studied in modern science. When the telescope became available, Galileo made these same measurements in the early 1600s!
Visiting Scientific Laboratories
Example 1: Fusion at Princeton
http://ippex.pppl.gov/ippex/
Since the advent of the hydrogen bomb in 1950, scientists have dreamed of gaining control of the fusion reaction. Through this process, they could possibly produce almost unlimited energy from the reaction in which hydrogen and other light nuclei combine or "fuse." One promising research program on controlled fusion is at the Plasma Physics Laboratory at Princeton University in N.J.
At Princeton, light atoms are ionized into a gas, placed in a doughnut-shaped magnetic field for containment, and energized with powerful pulses of electrical energy. The plasma reaches temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Centigrade, greater than those in the interior of the sun! For short periods of time deuterium and tritium, which are isotopes of hydrogen, fuse to form the nucleus of helium plus an extra neutron. This fusion reaction releases excess energy. The amount of fusion is not yet at a level for a practical energy-generation plant, but considerable progress is being made in emulating the sun here on earth.
Scientists at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (operated by the U.S. Dept. of Energy) are working with our NJNIE group to provide data to students directly from the fusion machine. This is an example of students being able to enter one of the world's leading research facilities and gain access to the data that is being studied there as quickly and easily as its own scientists.
