Over The Edge Page 10 By Nicole Larson Starting in September of 1998 there will be another feature added to the UNBC Childcare Society, another preschool pro- gram. This program will the fourth implemented at the UNBC Childcare Centre and will hope- fully be a boon to full and part- time student parents as well as other parents in the UNBC com- munity. The convenience of the location of the UNBC. Childcare Centre coupled by it’s forward thinking and 10 licensed early childhood educators makes it a perfect spot for the children of UNBC COMMUNITY Porcupines and Cubs and Ravens, Oh my. students, faculty and staff. The centre has a progressive disci- pline policy and philosophy. The staff understand children and know how to appropriately deal with problems. The centre, which currently cares for 64 children, is once again expanding to implement a second preschool program which will be held on Monday, Wednesday and Friday morn- ings. The centre already has two full daycare programs, one for children aged 18 months to three years called Cubs Corner and one for children aged three ATTENTION PARTICIPANTS in the Centre’s LASSI and Nelson-Denny Project!!! Everyone who participated has won a prize of one sort or anoth- er. To find out what you have won drop by the UNBC LEARN- ING SKILLS CENTRE!!! The prizes include a UNBC fleece sweatshirt, life passes for Tabor and Purden ski resorts, a selection of books from Mosquito Books, gift certificates for Domino’s Pizza, Books on Fourth, Outer Limits Lazer Tag, to five years called Porcupine Pals, and a Tuesday and Thursday morning preschool program, called Raven’s Nest. Even though the Childcare cen- tre currently caters to part and full-time students, staff, faculty and other community parents, the new program will be espe- cially helpful to part-time stu- dents who have only one or two classes on those mornings. “This will really help students who are just taking one class,” said Anne-Marie Prediger, the Daycare Manager. Learning Skills Zone Bowling, Buffalo Brewing Company and Hollywood Video. Thanks again to all those who participated and to the above mentioned prize donors!!! Enjoying the sun These little ones from the Porcupine daycare enjoy the sun in the courtyard at UNBC. photo by Aaron Mahoney March 24, 1998 Look-UP...Way Up! THE SKY AND SPACE UPDATE Prepared by ADO OBJECTS TO LOOK FOR IN THE NIGHT SKY (MID- NORTHERN LATITUDES) MERCURY rises to greatest elongation — some 19 degrees from the Sun —on Mar. 16. Look for it in the west shortly after sunset. By the end ofthe month, Mercury will have faded in brightness to the point that it is notreadily view- able. VENUS is visible in the low east-southeast in the pre- dawn sky, lookinglike an extremely bright star. It reach- es greatest elongation (47 degreesfrom the Sun). on Mar. 27. MARS is very low in the southwest in the early evening. {t looks. likea dim yellowish- orange star. JUPITER reap- pears from its conjunction with the Sun low in the eastjust before dawn. Look for it to the lower left of Venus about half an hourbefore dawn. Just before dawn on the morning of Mar. 26, observers on theEast coast of the U.S. may be able to glimpse Jupiter emerging . from behindthe dark limb of the Moon. SATURN is low in the west shortly after sunset. It looks like ayellowish star. THE MOON Last Quarter Moon occurs Mar. 20 at 11:38 p.m. PST (UT - 8 hours). New Moon occurs Mar. 27 at 7:14 p.m. PST. TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE REPORTAndre Bormanis, and Dick Kenealy traveled to Aruba to witness the totaleclipse of theSun that occurred on Feb. 26. Both report spectacular views. At thesouthern tip of Aruba, totality lasted 3 minutes and 32 seconds. All fivenaked- eye planets were visible during the eclipse! Mercury and Jupiter werejust a few degrees away from the Sun. Photos and a more detailed account ofthe eclipse will eventually be posted on the web. Other accountsof the eclipse can be found on the Sky & Telescope website, http://www.skypub.co m, along with links to other eclipse-related websites. PLANETARY SPACECRAFT UPDATE LUNAR PROSPECTOR: Data from the Lunar Prospector spacecraft stronglysuggest that water ice is abundant at both the north and south poles ofEarth’s Moon. _Prospector’s neutron spectrometer detected low concentrations of waterice across a significant number of polar craters. Due to the low angle ofthe Sun at the poles, parts of the floors of these craters are permanentlyin shadow. The ice crystals appear to be mixed into grains of lunar soil(regolith) that cover the crater floors. Mission sci- entists estimate that the total amount of ice detectedranges from 10 billion to 300 billion metric tons. The north pole containstwice as much ice as the south. The scientists theo- rize that ice has beendeposited on the Moon over the last sev- eral billion years by comets crashinginto the lunar surface. Just 30 billion tons of lunar ice would be able to support the waterneeds for a colony of 2000 people for 100 years, even without recycling. Inaddition to providing drinking and bathing water, the water could be brokendown into its constituent hydrcgen and oxy- gen atoms. The oxygen could beused for breathing, and the hydrogen could be used for rocket fuel. Lunar Prospector has also mapped the gravita- tional field of the Moon togreat accuracy. This “gravity map” will be extremely useful for plottingthe orbits of future lunar spacecraft, as well as for deter- mining thestructure of the Moon’s _ interior. Lunar Prospector will continue to conductits primary mission for the next ten months. Prospector’s orbit will thenbe lowered to an altitude of just ten kilometers, allowing the spacecraft’sinstruments to gather even higher resolution data on the Moon’s compositio- nand gravity. More information about this mission can be found at the NASAwebsite http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov. GALILEO: Analysis of images from the Dec. 16, 1997 Europa fly-bybolsters the theory that liquid water exists beneath the moon’s icy surface. Galileo made its closest pass ever (200 kilometers) over Europa duringthis encounter. The images it obtained show evi- dence of slush on theEuropan surface, along with ice cliffs as tall as America’s Mount Rushmore,and plates of ice that have broken apart and moved around. The presence ofslush and moving ice plates implies a warmer, possibly fluid layer of waterrecently existed, and may still exist, beneath the moon's surface. For more information on the Galileo mis- sion, see ht tp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo. THESE WEEKS IN SPACE HISTORY MAR. 18, 1965: Soviet Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first man to”walk” in space. MAR. 25, 1655: Saturn’s giant moon Titan was discovered by the Dutchastronomer Christiaan Huygens. Titan features an atmosphere thicker thanEarth’s, comprised primar- ily of nitrogen. In the year 2004, the Cassinispacecraft will release a probe named in Huygen’s honor to study theat- mosphere and surface of Titan. MAR. 29, 1974: The U.S. Mariner 10 spacecraft becomes the first, and sofar the only spacecraft to fly-by Mercury, closest planet to the Sun.Mariner 10 passed by Mercury three times, pho- tographing a total of 54percent of the planet's surface. RANDOM SPACE FACT The first experimental confirmation of Einstein's General Theory ofRelativity was made during the total solar eclipse of May 29, 1919. Duringan eclipse, bright stars become visible. Einstein had predicted that- gravity from the Sun would slightly bend the path of starlight passing closeto the Sun. Astronomers tested this assertion by measuring the positions ofseveral stars that appeared close to the Sun dur- ing the 1919 eclipse. Thedeviations in the observed positions of these stars due to the Sun’s_ gravitymatched Einstein’s predictions.