KHOWLEDGE ZONE

In the 1930s, American pilot Amelia Earhart set speed and distance records for airplane flight. Today, Earhart is remembered as an adventurous pioneer during the early days of long-distance aviation.

EARLY YEARS

Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, in 1897. She worked as a military nurse in Canada during World War I (1914-1918). In 1920, Earhart moved to California and began taking flying lessons. She bought her first airplane at the age of 24.

In 1928, two American pilots invited Earhart to join them as a passenger on a flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The trip made Earhart famous. She was the first woman in history to cross the Atlantic by air! Earhart tasted the thrill of long-distance flight, and she wanted more.

EARHART'S FLIGHT ACHIEVEMENTS

In 1932, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo (alone) across the Atlantic Ocean. She made the trip in 13 hours and 30 minutes, setting a new speed record for the flight. For her achievement, Earhart won special honors from the American and French governments.

Then, in 1935, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo over the Pacific Ocean. She took off from Honolulu, Hawaii, and landed in Oakland, California.

Earhart set another record in 1935 by flying from Mexico City, Mexico, to New York City in a record time of 14 hours and 19 minutes.

HOW DID EARHART PREPARE FOR A FLIGHT?

Earhart spent months preparing for each flight. All of her airplane’s mechanical parts were tested. She carefully calculated how much gasoline and oil she would need for a trip. She mapped out different navigational charts in case foul weather forced her off course.

WHAT WAS A FLIGHT LIKE?

Earhart wore warm clothes on her flights since the cockpit of her airplane grew cold at high altitudes. The hardest part was battling exhaustion on the long, lonely flights. Earhart admitted to being so tired in a flight’s final hours that she was “likely to see illusions of land.”

EARHART'S LAST FLIGHT

In June 1937, Earhart began what she hoped would be her greatest achievement: a flight around the world. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Miami, Florida, flying east. On July 2, with over half of the trip behind them, their airplane left New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and headed for the Howland Islands.

But somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, Earhart’s airplane disappeared. Navy airplanes and ships searched for Earhart and Noonan, but they found no trace of their airplane. To this day, the fate of America’s golden girl of flight remains a mystery.

Asteroids are rocks in space that never quite made it as planets. Astronomers think that our solar system began as a cloud of gas and dust. Gravity pulled parts of the cloud together to make the Sun and the nine planets. Astronomers think that the asteroids formed in that cloud but never grew large enough to be planets.

HOW BIG ARE ASTEROIDS?

There are thousands of asteroids, and they come in all sizes. The biggest asteroid ever found is called Ceres. Ceres is more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) wide. Astronomers have found about 200 asteroids that are more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) across. All the other asteroids are much smaller. Some are only a few feet wide.


Astronomers wonder if once there were just a few big asteroids. The big asteroids may have crashed into each other. The crashes would have broken them into smaller pieces, making all the asteroids we see today.

Some asteroids are round. Some asteroids are long and bumpy. Some asteroids even have tiny moons going around them.

WHERE ARE ASTEROIDS IN SPACE?

Asteroids go around, or orbit, the Sun just like planets. Most asteroids orbit in the asteroid belt. The asteroid belt is farther out from the Sun than Earth’s orbit. It lies between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter.

Sometimes asteroids change orbits and move out of the asteroid belt. These asteroids cross the orbits of planets as the planets go around the Sun. A few cross Earth’s orbit.

HOW DO ASTRONOMERS STUDY ASTEROIDS?

Asteroids are normally too small and far away to see with your eyes. Astronomers study asteroids with telescopes. They have also sent spacecraft for close-up looks at several asteroids. A spacecraft named Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker actually landed on an asteroid in 2001.

Astronomers have found that most asteroids are made mainly of stone. Some asteroids are made mostly of metals. Astronomers think that asteroids made of metal must have melted at some time in the past. The liquid metal clumped together at the center of the asteroid. Most of the rocky part later broke off from the asteroid, leaving the metal behind. What melted these metal asteroids is still a mystery.

COULD AN ASTEROID HIT EARTH?

Astronomers think that several thousand asteroids have orbits that might one day make them strike Earth. Asteroids have certainly hit Earth in the past. People have found thousands of meteorites (stones from space) that have crashed into Earth. Most meteorites are pieces of asteroids. There is a giant crater (hole in the ground) in Arizona that is more than half a mile (about a kilometer) wide! The crater was formed when a meteor crashed into Earth.

An asteroid crashing into Earth may have killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Scientists have found a big meteorite crater around Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. They think the asteroid that created this crater may have killed the dinosaurs. After the asteroid crashed, a huge cloud of dust would have darkened Earth. It could have become very cold on Earth, and plants that dinosaurs ate might have died. As the plant-eating dinosaurs died from lack of food, meat-eating dinosaurs would have run out of food and died as well.

Scientists are setting up a system to warn us of asteroids coming toward Earth. If they find one they might be able to blow up the asteroid. They might be able to attach a rocket to the asteroid and push it just enough to miss Earth.