Article reprinted from "Gezhi Discourse Forum"
If only we could take a small step today,
Build china's planetary science education,
Let every little space dream be realized,
So tomorrow,
We will be able to realize our Chinese dream.
Wei Yong is a professor at the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Gezhi Dao No. 42 | July 20, 2019 Beijing
I'm from the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, so it's only natural for me to share planetary science with you today. But why do I talk about the future of education and education? This starts with the fact that I went to china space day in April 2019.
In April 2019, Hunan Province held the theme activity of China Space Day, at the event site I met several friends who do space education, they told me some stories, we talked from dinner until two o'clock in the evening.
What is it that makes us talk for so long at first sight? We're talking about some stories about space education.
Delving into planetary science makes students more likely to learn
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Beijing Bayi School, this school is very powerful, a middle school actually launched a satellite itself. Through the production of satellites and the launch of satellites, not only the students' learning and hands-on ability, but also the core members of the satellite team have been admitted to Tsinghua University, Beijing Institute of Technology and other universities.
▲ Beijing Bayi School "G2018 Satellite Engineering Team"
Beijing Pinggu Middle School has a complete set of aerospace curriculum education system, and the students have achieved very good results.
▲ Beijing Pinggu Middle School "Aerospace Characteristic Experimental Class"
Taiyuan Jinshan Middle School has an aerospace experimental class, the first class teacher Gao Min said that aerospace brings everyone more confidence and motivation.
▲ Taiyuan Jinshan Middle School "Aerospace Experimental Class"
There is a Rongzhen experimental class in Shijiazhuang Luquan, this class has two students who are particularly prominent, a boy named Zhao Shuo, through participating in the aerospace experimental class, his grade has improved from the top 100 in the grade to the sixth place in the grade.
▲ Shijiazhuang Luquan No.1 Middle School "Rongzhen Experimental Class"
There is also a classmate of Tong Dongsheng, she is a girl, her physics score has also been mentioned from failing to full score.
When asked how she did it, she said that she used to think that physics was particularly boring and boring, but through the study of the space experiment class, she felt that physics was very useful and interesting, so she took the initiative to learn, so she finally achieved good results.
Anhui Lujiang No. 2 Middle School also has an aerospace experimental class, and the average score of this class at the beginning of the school is only 4 points higher than that of the other two key classes, but after a semester, it is actually 40 points higher.
There are many more such stories. After listening to it, I was very curious, and I asked these friends, what is your original intention in doing space education? Is it to help students improve their grades? They said, no.
The purpose of their space education is to explore space, to give children a space dream, so that they can grow up to explore space.
I asked again, does launching a satellite count as exploring space? They say, how can that not be counted?
I said that the exploration of space should be the main purpose of acquiring knowledge, if only the satellite is sent up without considering whether there is knowledge obtained, then is this exploration completed?
If it is not completed, then where will the children's next space dreams come true? Who will help them achieve it?
They didn't give an answer to my question.
After returning to Beijing, I still think about how to help children realize their space dreams, and whether it is possible for them to realize their space dreams.
What is planetary scientific research and exploration?
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To realize the space dream, you must first know what it is to explore space and what it is like to explore space. Let's get a feel for it through this picture.
This is a map of the eight planets of the solar system.
The largest on the far left is the Sun, and on the right are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, the four closest to the Sun, which are rocky planets.
The next four are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and these four are gaseous planets, much larger than Earth. Of course, there are also many comets and asteroids.
Let's imagine what it would be like if we set off from Earth in a spacecraft or a spaceship and went into space, when we look back at Earth. What does the Earth look like?
Looking at the Earth from a space station 300 kilometers away, it looks like this:
▲ Space station, 300 km
Looking at the Earth from 380,000 kilometers away from the moon, it looks like this:
▲ Apollo 11 was photographed on the moon in 1969, 380,000 kilometers
If we go to Mars and look at the Earth from 70 million kilometers away, it looks like this:
▲ Curiosity was photographed on Mars in 2012, 70 million kilometers
Where is the Earth? There are three very bright stars in the picture, and the brightest at the bottom is the Earth.
▲ The Courier was photographed on Mercury in 2010, 183 million kilometers
We look at Earth from Mercury, 180 million kilometers away, and if the camera pixels are good enough, we can tell which is Earth and which is the Moon.
▲ Cassini was photographed on Saturn in 2013, 1,440 million kilometers
And if you look at the Earth from Saturn, 1.44 billion kilometers away, the Earth is just an ordinary bright spot, an ordinary star.
▲ Voyager 1 was shot in 1990 outside the orbit of Pluto, 600,000 kilometers
The image was taken in 1990 by Voyager 1 beyond the orbit of Pluto, which is 6 billion kilometers from Earth.
Friends over 29 years old, this photo is the farthest distant solar system you've ever seen. Friends under the age of 29, this is a family portrait of the solar system before you were born. Please remember this photo.
▲ There are countless "solar systems" in the universe
The solar system is already so vast, but there are countless galaxies in the universe that resemble the solar system. What should we do if we want to probe the solar system, the Milky Way, and the entire universe?
There is no doubt that space exploration relies heavily on flying machines. Up to now, humans have conducted more than 200 space explorations, mainly by the United States and the Soviet Union.
Each line in the figure represents a probe. Of those 200 explorations, the one we probed the most was the Moon, with more than 80, followed by Venus and Mars.
We've explored every planet in the solar system, and of course, mars is the one that interests us most.
As of today, we still haven't given up hope of finding life on Mars, although it hasn't been found yet.
▲ Mars Exploration Family Portrait
These paintings on Mars are called landers or rovers, and there are about 6 of them. The circle drawn around Mars is an orbiter, flying in the sky.
In 2020, China will conduct its first Mars exploration, which, along with a Martian satellite, will also include an orbiter and a lander.
The exploration of planets and space requires the support of a strong comprehensive national strength, and there has never been a planetary exploration mission that can be done by an individual or a group of scientists, and it all needs to be done with the strength of the whole country.
The photo documents an American astronaut in the Apollo program driving a lunar rover on the lunar surface to collect samples.
The astronaut collected information of critical scientific value on the lunar surface and brought it back to Earth safely and unharmed, something that only the United States can do at the moment and that China plans to do in a decade' time.
Exploring space requires associations based on rich experience. The two photographs take the surfaces of Earth and Mars, respectively.
You certainly can't imagine that the left one is actually Martian.
There are so many pebbles on Mars, as on Earth, they are so round, which shows that there were rivers on Mars, but these rivers disappeared 3.8 billion years ago, and the pebbles have remained to this day.
It is precisely by comparing different planets that we want to find a common law in the solar system.
Exploring space also requires a wealth of comprehensive knowledge and imagination.
We can't get into the interiors of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
Even if it is the interior of the earth, we can't go in, and the deepest drill we have hit at present is only a dozen kilometers deep, which is only a fur relative to the radius of the earth, 6371 kilometers.
However, although we can't get into the interior of a planet, we still have the ability to know what its internal structure is, and we can still explore what we can't see or touch.
We also need to trace the origin and evolution of the solar system.
This photograph is a real photograph that shows that when we look up at the stars, there is a forming system of stars at the edge of the Milky Way, which can be seen as another forming "solar system" that represents the process of the early formation of our solar system.
You can see these black circles, black ring-shaped things, which indicates that there is a planet that is forming, and the material inside the ring is used to gather into the planet, so it takes on a vacant state, showing black.
Before the birth of the solar system, our solar system was in the same condition.
By pursuing the origin and evolution of the solar system, we can deduce the history and laws of the entire universe. Of course, we also have an ultimate philosophical ultimate goal—to pursue the origin and evolution of life. We need to answer the ultimate question of where humanity came from and where it is going.
So, exploring the past, present, and future of planets, such space exploration is planetary science.
Planetary science makes our daily lives better
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Is planetary science as "tall" as we sound? Does it have nothing to do with our daily lives? In fact, planetary science is very closely related to us, to give a few examples to feel.
▲ Wireless communication equipment
Where did the phone that everyone has now come from? In fact, mobile phones were originally used by astronauts as a communication tool.
The camera on the mobile phone was originally used to take astronomical photos on the spacecraft.
▲ LED lighting equipment
Nowadays, many people no longer use tungsten light bulbs at home, but use LED lighting equipment.
LED lighting is also a product of the birth of space exploration. Initially there were only red and yellow diodes, and no blue diodes that could form white light.
It wasn't until 1994 that the blue diode was invented, and the discovery won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics. Thanks to blue diodes, we now have a lot of LED lighting equipment.
There is also formula milk powder, everyone must be wondering, why formula milk powder is divided into one, two, three stages? Why is there still a bunch of things that sound inexplicable in milk powder, such as DHA and ARA.
▲ Formula milk powder
In fact, the emergence of formula milk powder also benefits from deep space exploration.
In order to allow astronauts to obtain balanced nutrition, through the analysis of breast milk, we found that DHA is only found in human breast milk, and no other animals and dairy products are available.
Freeze-dried food is also one of the products of space exploration. Astronauts often complain that food is particularly unpalatable, in order to maintain the taste of food, and let the moisture in it dry out, scientists invented freeze drying technology.
▲ Freeze-dried food
This technology can quickly reduce the temperature of food from hundreds of degrees to tens of degrees below zero, so that the moisture in it can be sublimated. Freeze-drying technology is now widely used, and the top instant coffee is produced with this technology.
In Beijing, almost every home has an air purifier and a drinking water filter, both of which also come from space exploration.
▲ Air purification
In the confined environment of the space capsule, because there is no source of resources, whether it is air or water, it is necessary to recycle, so that there are two inventions of air purifier and water purifier.
▲ Drinking water filtration
In addition, 3D printing, virtual reality, cloud computing, memory pillows, prosthetics, space quilts, diapers... These things you can't imagine, in fact, were originally invented for astronauts.
So if there's one thing that's particularly strange that you don't know why humans have this demand for invention, nine times out of ten it's a transformation of space exploration products.
Thousands of such product transformations have been carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA has a dedicated website, and the statistics of the website show that for every $1 the United States invests in deep space exploration, it can generate economic benefits of $7.
From the successful launch of Chang'e-1 in 2007 to the successful launch of Chang'e-4 in 2019, China has also explored this aspect for more than a decade, so have we produced any product transformation?
There are also, for example, the temperature control technology of Chang'e-3. Because the moon's day-night temperature difference is more than a few hundred degrees Celsius, Chang'e-3 has particularly high requirements for temperature control, and the technology has now been applied to the Guogongzhuang subway station in Beijing.
▲ Chang'e-3 temperature control technology
Friends on Metro Line 9, when you pass by Guo Gongzhuang, you may not know that the air conditioning technology used in this station comes from the temperature control technology of Chang'e 3.
Establish a systematic planetary science education system
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The space dream is so important, it brings us knowledge, it brings us a very significant change in our lives, and every aspect of our lives is closely related to space exploration. So how can the space dream be realized?
First of all, primary and secondary school students with space dreams must have a place to receive systematic education, this place is obviously a university, and there must be special departments in the university to open special courses for planetary science education.
This table lists some of the most well-known universities in the United States, such as Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Johns Hopkins University, which have corresponding Earth and Planetary Science Departments, each of which has a very rich course in planetary science.
In addition, space exploration is not always so easy and enjoyable, and there are often many difficulties and problems, and you must have mentors and classmates to help you solve them together.
There must also be laboratories that can participate in scientific experiments.
That is to say, there must be teachers, students, scientific research, and education, and only when these four points are available can we say that this university is a university with a systematic and planetary science education.
So, for Chinese primary and secondary school students with space dreams, which university in China do they have to go to to realize their space dreams?
I'm sorry. There are no such universities in China, the above are all universities in other countries, and there is no university in China that can carry out planetary science education (as of July 2019).
So, is there no place for our space dream to come true? Obviously, I have not come to this podium today to report the bad news to you, I am sure to report the good news, the good news is that we are already in action.
How do we do that? Let's first look at this picture, this is China's science discipline catalog setting, the left column has mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc., this column is called the first-level discipline, the right column is called the second-level discipline.
All universities in China that offer science colleges, science courses, and science education all set up departments according to this catalog, because this is nationally recognized, and if they are not set up according to this catalog, there is no way to award degrees to students.
But in this catalog, we can't find planetary science. We have 12 first-level disciplines, but there is no planetary science.
So our goal is to build the 13th first-level discipline, which will be juxtaposed with mathematics, physics, and chemistry to become the 13th first-level discipline in China, which is planetary science.
On December 4, 2018, we held a demonstration meeting on the construction plan, which was jointly participated by representatives of 13 universities such as the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, University of Science and Technology of China and 7 research institutes within the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and 25 judges on the scene unanimously supported the construction plan of planetary science.
▲ 2018.12.4 Demonstration of the first-level discipline construction plan of planetary science
Then, on January 6, 2019, just two days after Chang'e-4 landed on the far side of the moon, we held a review meeting at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for the construction of a first-level discipline in planetary science, and the judges and experts at that time included more than 20 academicians, including Academician Bai Chunli and Academician Li Shushen.
▲ 2019.1.6 The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences adopted the first-level discipline construction program of planetary science
Everyone agreed that China must build a first-level discipline such as planetary science.
On July 2, 2019, we announced the establishment of the Planetary Science Alliance for Chinese Universities.
At that time, it was initiated by 27 units, including the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, Zhejiang University, etc. The inaugural meeting of the alliance was also attended by 10 academicians, more than 50 presidents and deans, as well as relevant responsible leaders of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Space Administration.
▲ 2019.7.2 The Planetary Science Alliance of Chinese universities was established
Everyone unanimously had great confidence in the future of the Alliance and in promoting the construction of a first-level discipline of planetary science in China.
The day after the alliance was formed, we swiped the screen. Everyone said that this is the strongest university alliance in the universe, specializing in planetary science. On the second day of the inaugural meeting of the alliance, there were 3 "211 universities" that asked to join, and on the third day, there was another one that asked to join.
Therefore, the number of universities in the alliance has now increased from 27 to 31, and more schools are also applying to join. Together, we will promote the construction of a first-level discipline of planetary science in China.
Building China's 13th first-level discipline, planetary science, and building a complete set of planetary science education systems from primary school to middle school to university, is a task that we should complete as soon as possible in this era. We want to make every space dream come true.
Whose space dream is it?
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Back to the original question: Whose space dream is it? Obviously, at the beginning, I talked about Bayi Middle School, and I talked about many primary and secondary school students, so the space dream must be these primary and secondary school students who have space dreams. But is it just a space dream for elementary and middle school students?
This is a congratulatory message sent by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on January 12, 2019, after Chang'e-4 successfully landed on the far side of the moon, which read: "Exploring the vast universe and peacefully using space is the common dream of all mankind." ”
This shows that the space dream is not only for primary and secondary school students, but also for all of us. For the common dream of all mankind, we Chinese are also contributing our own strength.
Chang'e-4 achieved the first man-made spacecraft landing on the far side of the moon, a great feat that even the United States and the Soviet Union did not achieve, and we Chinese completed it.
▲ Chang'e-4 – Man-made spacecraft landed on the far side of the moon for the first time
This is not enough. In 2020, we will implement China's first Mars exploration mission. The probe will also launch a rover and an orbiter at the same time, and the sky and the ground will be tested at the same time, which is something that humans have never done before, and we Chinese about to complete this task.
▲ China's Mars Exploration - the first orbiter rover joint test
The Mars rover we launch in 2020 will reach Mars in 2021. At the same time, we are also planning a second Mars exploration in the next decade , the Mars sample return , and we are going to bring the stones from Mars back to Earth.
We also have to explore Jupiter, asteroids, comets, launch Chang'e's 5, 6, 7 and 8, and build lunar research stations...
We have a lot of planning, we need thousands of young people with space dreams to join the ranks of planetary science, the country needs so many planetary scientists, but unfortunately we do not have a systematic planetary science education system, there is no such training system.
Academician Wan Weixing of the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (chief scientist of China's first Mars exploration and member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress) was very happy, and he asked me to bring you a few words, he said: "Deep space exploration looks at the contemporary, and planetary science depends on the future." ”
Yes, the future of planetary science depends on education.
On July 20, 1969, humans landed on the moon for the first time, leaving human footprints on another planet.
▲ 1969.7.20 Human landing on the moon
The one who left this footprint was the American astronaut Armstrong, who famously said at the time that it was a small step for me personally, but a big step for humanity.
If today we can also take a small step to build China's planetary science education so that every small space dream can be realized, then tomorrow, we may realize our Chinese dream.
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