This activity was organised by Mendaki for Cahaya M's kids. And the man who has this powerful knowledge at the tip of his fingertips is Mr. Faisal, an astronomer from the Science Centre and also under MUIS. I'm sure you guys haf watched Mufti on tv on hari raya eve declaring the sighting of "anak bulan". Well, the man responsible for the actual sighting and calculating is none other than Mr Faizal himself.
Kak Zah getting ready with all the preparations b4 the activity begins..
Nice huh. Of coz it is. I made it :D
It was lecture from 5 till 7pm. Abg Faisal was giving us a talk abt how big the earth is, how big the moon is and all the 10 planets in the universe. All these things may sound trivial but dun be surprise hor, i actually dun even know the names of all the planets or their positions from earth :p See lah, this is wat happen when u are too caught up with worldy things. I din even bother to know abt Allah's creations just bcoz it doesn't affect my everyday life or even my exam grades.
Anyway, Abg Faisal was relating to us his conversation with an astronaut. Supposedly, anything that touches the atmosphere will burn. So he was asking the astronaut whether he felt hot sitting in the space shuttle. But somehow the space shuttle is designed to withstand the strong heat. If not, they would all be dead. And the space shuttle has to enter the atmosphere at a 2 1/2 degree angle. Not more, not less. Or else, the space shuttle will burn like Apollo 13. And apparently Neil Armstrong's footstep can still be seen on the moon surface till now bcoz there's no atmosphere up there, meaning there's no movement watsoever. With zero gravity, even supply of oxygen will float away.
And do you know that the nearest to Earth, a star call Alpha Centauri, takes 4.2 lightyears (at the speed of light) to reach from Earth whereas the furthest planet Pluto, takes only 5 hours. Now how do u explain that? Only God knows.
Then Abg Faisal showed us this verse from the Quran under Surah Ali-Imraan which states .. erm, i want to tanslate it in English but i'm scared it's going to sound wrong so here it goes..
"Sesungguhnya dalam penciptaan langit dan bumi dan silih bergantinya malam dan siang terdapat tanda-tanda bagi orang-orang yg berakal, yaitu, orang-orang yg mengingati Allah sambil berdiri atau duduk atau dalam keadaan baring dan mereka memikirkan tentang penciptaan langit dan bumi.."
You know wat, even i believe so. That God created this universe for us to learn wat's in it and wat's outside it so that we ponder upon His greatness. Bcoz in fact, there's no life at all in these planets. It's just God's way of telling us there is some power up there creating these things and this makes us humbling.
The real fun starts when night falls. All of us gathered in the open field in total darkness while Abg Faisal assembled his super huge telescope..
The first planet we saw through the telescope was Jupiter. Actually u can see it too with the naked eye. At nite look up into the sky, and there right above your head, wat looks like a very bright star, it's actually Jupiter. The difference between planets and stars are that planets appear brighter and do not twinkle. U know, twinkle twinkle little stars. Yes, only stars twinkle. Planets do not.
That's me looking at Jupiter! It's was so awesome!! Jupiter is like a ball with bands or lines on it. Apprently those bands are created due to its gaseous atmosphere and there are 4 little moons surrounding it.
Atiqah on the telescope..
The other planet we saw was Saturn. It looks much tinier than Jupiter coz it's further but MasyaAllah, it was beautiful!! Really, really gorgeous. It looks like a small ball with a ring around it. Like the ones u see in books. I was in awe!!
Unfortunately we din get to see Mr Moon coz he was too shy to appear last nite or the stars, bcoz they are too far to be seen thru the telescope but Abg Faisal showed us the different constellations or zodiacs in the sky. It was so cute! We were drawing stars wif our fingers. I saw Leo and Virgo, though now i forgot how Virgo looks like bcoz the shape was a bit blur. But the most obvious one had to be Scorpio. The body is shaped in 3 stars and it expands upwards and has 3 stars curved-like tail like a scorpion.
He also explained to us how we can look at the stars for directions. The stars act like compasses. The Big Dipper which is shaped like a laddle is indicative for north while the Southern Cross, 4 stars forming a diomond shape, indicates the south. Guess wat, for the first time yesterday i saw a red star! Abg Faizal said it's an old star and will die soon becoming a supernova. I also saw the Orion!! 3 stars in a row. How cool is that!!
Atiqah tangkap jambu di bawah bulan purnama.. *pukes* hehehe
Although it was an exhausting & sweaty night, (i reached home almost at 12am) nevertheless it was an interesting and educational one. One that i will never forget. Well wat can i say. It's out of this world!!
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