Kids Gov News

Volume 1, Issue 1

October 2015

Dawn Reaches Dwarf Planet

You might have heard that in July 2015, the spacecraft
New Horizons flew over the dwarf planet Pluto. You'll
hear more from us about that amazing mission soon.
But did you k now that it was actually the second visit to
a dwarf planet in 2015? Here's a news article about the
first. It was written while New Horizons was on its way
to Pluto
In March 2015, the NASA spacecraft Dawn reached
the dwarf planet Ceres. The unmanned craft slipped
into orbit around Ceres. It was the first-ever visit to a
dwarf planet.

I N S I D E T H I S I S S UE
1

Daw n Reaches Dw arf Planet

Running the World

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Look...New Hands!

Kids Gov form

Dwarf planets are much like planets. Both orbit the sun.
Both are basically round in shape. In fact, the only
difference between them is their surrounding area. In
2006, the International Astronomical Union created a
new definition for "planet." The group says a planet has
"cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit. A dwarf
planet has not. Instead, a dwarf planet shares its area
with other bodies of about the same size. Pluto was
once considered a planet. That changed with the new
definition.
Ceres measures 598 miles (962 kilometers) across. It
is the largest body in the main asteroid belt. This is a
zone between Mars and Jupiter. It is filled with rocks
continued on page 2

Newsletter

Continued from page 1

from the formation of the sun and the planets.

Scientists believe that Ceres has a rocky core
surrounded by an icy mantle. Scientists also think
Ceres may have once had an underground ocean.

Running the World

Some world-class athletes have achieved something
amazing! In early 2015, a group of runners completed the
first-ever World Marathon Challenge. The challenge tested
runners to complete seven marathons on seven different

Ceres was discovered in 1801. But the far-off space

body has remained mostly a mystery. Now, scientists
hope to learn a lot more about it.

continents in just seven days.

Twelve runners raced in the World Marathon Challenge in
2015. They came from eight different countries: Brazil, India,

Dawn was launched in 2007. It reached Ceres after an

eight-year journey. Along the way, it spent about a
year at the asteroid Vesta. Vesta is in the main
asteroid belt. Starting in July 2011, Dawn slowed down
to tak e close-up images of Vesta's lumpy surface.
Dawn sent the amazing images back to Earth. Then, it
headed to Ceres. Now, it will circle the dwarf planet for
16 months. The craft will photograph the dwarf planet's
icy surface for scientists to study.

Great Britain, the United States, Hong Kong, Australia,

France, and Finland. Their weeklong journey around the
world started on January 17. First, the runners traveled to
Antarctica. Then, they flew to Chile and the United States.
From there, they went to Spain, Morocco, the United Arab
Emirates, and Australia. At each location, runners had to
complete a full marathon26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers)or a
half marathon. Then, they flew to the next location.
The runners had to be physically fit to finish the challenge.

NASA scientist Lucy McFadden echoed the excitement

of her fellow scientists. "There are a lot of secrets that
will be revealed," McFadden said.
Among those secrets is the nature of a pair of shiny
patches inside a crater. The shiny patches are a sign
of ice or salt. Scientists spotted the patches in photos
that Dawn took as it approached Ceres. Now,
scientists hope to get a better look. Dawn will also
examine plumes of water vapor. The plumes were
spotted in 2014. Scientists want to see whether the
plumes continue to vent. The vents suggest that Ceres
has surface water ice.
Dawn might answer questions about dwarf planets. It
might also raise new ones.
"Every time we get closer, we see more things that
mak e us scratch our heads," said NASA scientist
Mark Syk es.

They had to be mentally tough, too. In addition to the time

spent racing, runners spent over 59 hours in planes. They
flew about 23,600 miles (38,000 kilometers) in just seven
days. There wasn't much time between events. That left little
time for rest after runs. Many runners suffered from lack of
sleep at some point during the week.

Tyler Durbin, age 31, ran in the challenge. He

represented the United States. "In the last 48 hours,
I've slept less than 9 hours and [run] three
marathons," Durbin wrote in an e-mail halfway
through the event. He added that most of his sleep
had been on the airplanes. He sometimes slept a few
hours in hotels. Durbin said he did have one full night
of rest after running in Punta Arenas, Chile. Then, he
headed to the next marathon in Miami, Florida.
For Durbin, the Morocco race was the toughest of the
week . That marathon was held in Marrak ech. It started
less than 7 hours after the race in Madrid, Spain,
ended.
"Twice we have done two marathons in 24 hours,"
Durbin said. On January 23, Durbin and the others ran
the final leg of the World Marathon Challenge in
Sydney, Australia. By the race's end, ten runners had
completed their seventh marathon. (Two runners
completed half-marathons in the challenge.) As each
racer crossed the finish line, they received a special
medal. They also received some well-earned bragging
rights: The chance to say that for one week , they got

to run the world.

Newsletter

C A L E N D AR

OF

E VE NTS

MEETING 1
KIDSGOV.COM

OCTOBER 21, 2015

3:30
st

A 1 online tour of how to use kidsgov.com

MEETING 2
KIDSGOV.COM

NOVEMBER 12, 2015

3:30
A first president election for kids gov.
MEETING 3
KIDSGOV.COM

DECEMBER 12, 2015 3:30

Discussion day
MEETING 4
DECEMBER 18, 2015
3:30
New s report day

Newsletter

LookNew Hands!
Milorad Marinkovic lives in Austria. In 2001, he
was in a motorcycle accident. He was 30 years
old. He lost the use of his right hand. In 2011,
Marinkovic got a new hand. His injured hand was
removed. It was replaced with a bionic one. It
responds to thought, just as a natural hand does.
Marinkovic was one of the first three people to
have "bionic reconstruction." The surgery
included transplantation of leg nerves and
muscles into the arm. He then had to learn to use
signals from those nerves to command the bionic
hand. Now, the three men use their new hands to
do everyday tasks. They can pick up a ball. They
can button a coat and tie shoelaces. They can
even cut food with a knife.
Bionic hands are much better than they used to
be. The transplanted nerves allow the brain to
send messages directly to the new body part. The
human hand has many muscles and nerves that
work together. It's difficult to copy.
Dr. Oskar Aszmann of the Medical University of
Vienna worked on the bionic reconstruction. He
did the first surgery in April 2011 on a 24-year-old
Austrian. The man had lost the use of his left
hand in a work accident.

Now, Marinkovic loves his new hand. It allows

him to hold things like a sandwich or a bottle of
water. He can play with his children. Still, the
bionic hand is not the same as a natural one.
"I can throw things, but it is harder to catch a
ball. My right hand is still not quite as quick and
natural [as my left]," Marinkovic said. "I can do
almost everything with [my bionic hand]. I just
don't have any feeling in it."
Dr. Simon Kay is a doctor in England. He
performed the first hand replacement there. Kay
said there would always be many limitations to
bionic hands. He pointed out that the brain has
thousands of ways to send messages to a human
hand. But a bionic hand can't receive all of these
messages.
"The question is always going to be: How do we
get the message from the mind to the metal?"
Kay said.
Still, patients like Marinkovic are happy.
Marinkovic's new hand was especially popular
with his son. When Marinkovic first got the device,
his son was 4 years old. The child would put on
the bionic hand and walk around with it. He
proudly told his classmates, "My father is a robot."

"This is the first time we have bionically

reconstructed a hand," Dr. Aszmann said at the
time. "If I saw these kinds of patients five to seven
years ago, I would have just shrugged my
shoulders and said, 'There's nothing I can do for
you.'"
Aszmann's team wrote about the cases of the
three men. Their report came out in the journal
Lancet in February 2015. All three men had
injuries to the brachial plexus. This is a group of
nerves running from the spine to the shoulder,
arm, forearm, and hand. The nerves control
movement in these areas. Injuries had left the
hands of these men unable to move. They agreed
to have the affected hand removed only after
having the bionic hand strapped onto their injured
hand. This allowed them to see how the robotic
one might work.

Newsletter

Kids Gov Form

Form
Name:
Parents E-Mail
Address:

Date:
Parents Phone No:

OCTOBER
2015

Events

MEETING 1
KIDSGOV.COM

OCTOBER 21, 2015

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

3:30
st

A 1 online tour of how to use kidsgov.com

Newsletter