Hannah Weirens
'Death Star' Moon May Hide a
Buried Ocean
Lemonick, Michael D. "'Death Star' Moon May
Hide a Buried Ocean." National Geographic. National Geographic, 16
Oct. 2014. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fnews.nationalgeographic.com%2Fnews%2F2014%2F10%2F141016-space-death-star-moon-mimas-ocean%2F>.
The
article, “’Death Star’ Moon May Hide a Buried Ocean,” talks about the new
plausible interpretation on Mimas’ wobble.
Mimas is one of Saturn’s many moons that has a large wobble in its orbit. Many scientists were curious as to why this
occurs. They first looked at the giant
Herschel impact crater on the surface of the moon for an explanation. They theorized when an asteroid hit, the
remains under the impact crater made Mimas more massive on one side, which would
explain the wobble. Unfortunately, they
realized this would have permanently reoriented Mimas, so the idea of an
asteroid and crater having to do with the wobble was rejected. Their next theory was that there could be a
subsurface sea between the core and the surface. If this is true, it would explain why Mimas
wobbles. Since it is moving while
orbiting, the water would move as well resulting in the moon wobbling. Although this is not proved, this is the most
realistic explanation for the wobble so far.
If Mimas
has a subsurface sea, it could provide an environment for life to exist. Although it is not ensured, it at least
raises the possibility. Now that we have
knowledge of another moon with a potential subsurface sea, scientists can use
this to find ways to move life there if the conditions are safe enough, as well
as find whether life exists there already.
This would be an important scientific discovery and could save humans if
Earth were to become dangerous to live on.
I am personally very curious as to what scientists discover or learn
after establishing this theory of the subsurface sea. This can lead to finding other moons with a
wobble like Mimas, along with Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Enceladus, and Titan.
This
article was well written, but it was hard to understand. It made sense after I read it a couple
times. I was confused at first on how
the wobble could lead to the explanations, but soon after rereading I
understood. Although some parts were
hard to understand, the author, Michael D. Lemonick, did a thorough job on
explaining some concepts. For instance,
he used a scientist’s model of a hard-boiled egg and a raw egg spinning to help
readers picture how the subsurface sea could make the moon wobble. In addition, the author did a great job of
telling readers what this new theory can mean for the future. This helped the article be relevant to my
life along with many other readers and made me excited about this topic!
3 Aspects of the review that were particularly well presented:
ReplyDeleteHannah's did a great job reviewing the article. She summarized it well and used descriptive and engaging words, such as "plausible" and "subsurface." Also, the sentences and the whole review was structured in a way that made sense to the reader. Lastly, she wrote a fascinating paragraph about the significance of Mimas wobble and included her own opinion on the subject. I was impressed by the possibility of life on the random moon of Saturn. Additionally, I learned that if water exists and the environment of Mimas is safe enough humans could make it their second home if Earth got too dangerous. The only thing I would recommend to make this review even better would be to make sure all commas necessary are in the review.
Sam Abukhadra 11/1/14
ReplyDeleteCurrent event comment Earth Science
I read Hannah Weirens’ review of, “’Death Star’ Moon May Hide a Buried Ocean.” Overall, I think Hannah did a very good job, although there is still some room for improvement.
One aspect of Hannah’s review that I thought was particularly good, was how specific she was. She added lots of really specific detail about various theories presented in her article. Another aspect that I thought was well presented was how she used the evidence from the article to support her claims of importance. She used specific evidence to prove why Mimas could potentially be so important to us. The third aspect of her review that I thought was very well done was how honest she was. She was very direct and straightforward about her thoughts and the article and didn’t hold back. This adds a strong sense of professionalism.
Although Hannah’s article was very well written, there were some areas that could have been improved. One area that could have been improved is when she was talking about the complexity of the article. She stated how there where many confusing parts to the article but only provided one example. I think if more examples were added it would have provided us with a much better understanding of just how complex the article was. The other area that I thought needed improvement was when she was taking about how the earth could potentially become a dangerous place to live on. She needed to expand on the topic more in order for us to understand what could potentially happen and the timeframe as to which this could happen. One thing I was really astounded by was the fact that Mimas actually has a sea. This was truly amazing to discover that there is potentially life somewhere else in the universe. Overall, I thought Hannah did a very good and informative job.
I thought that overall, Hannah did a good job presenting her information. She was able to explain the affect that this could have on humans very well. In addition, she included the analogy of the eggs and how this relates to the topic. By including this analogy I was able to easily understand the subject she was reviewing. Lastly, her summary of the article was short, concise, and understandable. This made it more enjoyable to read. Although Hannah did a good job, she still has room for improvement. She included words like “plausible” and “subsurface sea” which I do not know the meaning of. If she included some sort of definition, I may have been able to understand her work a little better. In addition, I was not so sure how the crater could have an impact on the moon’s wobble. An explanation of this could have been helpful. Hannah choose a unique article that grabs my attention. It is amazing how there could be life on Mimas! This is almost unimaginable and it truly is astonishing to me.
ReplyDeleteI also think that she made a great point in her second paragraph by noting that if Mimas has a subsurface sea, it could support life. This means a great deal in the astronomy world! Hannah's review also taught me that it is not the most usual thing for a moon to have a wobble in its orbit. I didn't even know there was such thing as an orbit to have a wobble before reading this review! The final piece of information that I took away from this review is that scientists are still discovering more and more about space every day. There is always more to learn. I was very impressed with the language in which Hannah used to summarize this article. I feel that she used nice vocabulary that helped to give the reader a better idea of what she was talking about. I also think that overall, Hannah's summary paragraph was fantastic. I was able to learn quite a bit about what the article was about by just a short description. It was very interesting to read as well. I think this review could've been better if she had elaborated more on the critic of the author. I found this paragraph (paragraph three) to be a little vague. Otherwise, I think Hannah did a great job!
ReplyDeleteHannah's review of "Death Star Moon may Hide a Buried Ocean" was well written. One thing that I learned was that the moon Mimas has a large wobble in its orbit. I had no idea of this fact, which made me very interested in the review. In addition, I was impressed to learn that Mimas may have a subsurface sea, which I did not think was possible. Also, I learned that asteroids could make such big impacts that it could make a moon wobble, even though this is clearly not the case with Mimas.
ReplyDeleteTwo aspects of the review that were particularly well presented were, that Hannah thoroughly explained what the different theories about the wobble were. In addition, she had an organized way of telling about the topic which helped me fully understand what she were writing about.
Although Hannah's review was great, one thing that she could improve is that she could have put more details about the subsurface sea, like how it formed and how big it could be.
Hannah's review of the article, "Death Star Moon may Hide a Buried Ocean", was a strong piece overall. It was written with good sentence structure and vocabulary, her ideas were fluid and thoughtful, and she included great facts. Her work was enjoyable to read, and I saw almost no grammatical errors. All of Hannah's ideas were connected, and they read in a logical order. Hannah also did a great job at connecting the article back to the reader and putting it's significance into context with our own lives. From this very well done review, I also learned a lot. Before reading this article, I didn't know planets could wobble when orbiting, and it's really interesting to learn that they actually can, and some do. I also was very intrigued to learn that if this theory of a subsurface sea is true, then life on Mimas could be a possibility. The idea of life on a another planet is crazy, and Hannah did a good job addressing that. However, one thing she could improve on, is that she didn't give very much background information. Since most readers dont know a lot about the topic prior to reading this article, Hannah could have talked more about what evidence scientists have and what additional theories are being looked at.
ReplyDelete