Events
Westmeads to Upsilon Andromedae!
Luckily for Planet C, it's located in the Star's 'habitable zone' - a zone defined by astronomers as the region around a star which can support human life (and liquid water). Upsilon Andromedae C is a gas giant, but if it has moons then it's possible that liquid water and possibly life could exist there.
Here's a guy explaining how to see it: "The best jump guide to Upsilon is to say look to the east or southeast after 21:30 BST and locate the really bright 'star' - that's the planet Jupiter. Above and right of Jupiter is a faint circle of stars which represents one of the fish in the constellation of Pisces the Fishes.
"Above that is a large square of stars known as the Great Square of Pegasus. Earlier on, the square may appear tilted over and more like a diamond than a square! Locate the bottom right star of the square (Markhab) and draw an imaginary line from it through the upper left star (Alpheratz). Keep going until you come to Mirach and then on to Almach.
"Roughly mid-way between Mirach and Almach is a faint triangle of stars. Upsilon is the upper-right star in this group. A pair of binoculars might help if your skies are light polluted!"
And a few facts about the message...
The signal (message) will pass the orbit of the moon after about 1.5 seconds, Mars after 4 or 5 minutes, Jupiter after about 35 minutes, Saturn after about 1 hour, Neptune after about 4 hours.
The signal will pass out of the region of influence of our star the Sun, the boundary of which is known as the Heliopause, after about 30 hours and then can be said to be in interstellar space.
The signal should arrive at Upsilon Andromedae in about 44 years and 3 months time so in about April 2066.”
By the time the message ends, the start of the message will be about 82 million km away.
A message into space...
Whitsparkle Event
On the 4th December lots of our school members joined in the wonderful Whitsparkle event and we are so proud of those who took part for their spirit and enthusiasm. The children joined the parade with their wonderful lanterns that they had made in class. Here are some photos of the parade. If you did go along we hope you had a wonderful time.
Mural for the Community
As you may remember the children were asked if they wanted to draw a design to be added to the mural that Sam from Dream Safari was creating on the back wall of Westmeads in Stream Walk. Community Ad Magazine that came out recently, have written an article all about the mural, which we are sharing with you in case you hadn't seen it.
Remembrance Day
As well as attending a Remembrance assembly where we discussed the relevance of wearing poppies and held a two minute silence; Year 2 children visited the War Memorial where they laid wreaths on behalf of our school in memory of those who have fought and died in wars around the world.
