Year: 2015-2016
School: Hüseyin Avni SÖZEN Anatolia High School
Grade: 9
Teacher: Aysegül Sari
City: Üsküdar - Instanbul
Target: Rings and Moons
"During the process of taking the decision about which target to choose, the main reason forced me to consider and choose target 1 is my attitude fundamentally pretty useful in most fields contrary to appearance: You ought to have an overview of the subject if you want to consider the matter wholly. Besides, I have several reasons which have scientific evidence.
Saturn and its satellites have characteristics prompting one to go further in research. As for me, Saturn with its ring kind of represents the Earth. Saturn's hexagonal North Pole resembles Earth's, and enables us to examine Saturn's meteorological phenomenon resembles Earth's, though more violently.
A satellite of Saturn's, Enceladus, represents the hydrosphere of Earth as it is all made of ice and rock and there are geysers on its surface. The composition of the gasses coming out of geysers include carbon, nitrogen and other goodies you need to form life and this information sounds very exciting as it can be followed by the news of a new developed life form if investigated more thoroughly.
Another, Mimas, represents Earth's hydrosphere as Enceladus. It is considered that there is an ocean layer beneath the icy surface which again excites us because water is an indispensable substance for life. The basis of the energy essential for life is procured by sun light and transformed for our use by plants and they use carbon dioxide with water to compose the nutriment to provide us with its appropriate energy for our use so water is a vital substance for life.
The last satellite, Tethys, has a similar structure to Enceladus and Mimas. There are lots of things still unknown about it like the unidentified black material on its surface which can also be seen on the surfaces of the other Saturnian moons Lapetus and Hyperion. Also it is unknown whether its plains are cyrovolcanic and whether it is differentiated into a rocky core and icy material. In short, the similarities between the planet Earth and Saturn with its satellites I mentioned are worth investigating as it will produce a fruitful environment for a wide range of researching field.
In conclusion the increasing population of our planet, the chemistry at the Earth's surface, the rate of cooling of the planet's interior, the gravitational interactions with other objects in the solar system, global warming etcetera with their effects are growing serious and they are worrying the experts. Some of them can even be discerned by a huge range of the population untrained in that area worldwide. And if we consider the problem through a future time period of 1,75 - 3,5 billion years, the result is pathetic. Consequently we have to be in search of some other planets that are convenient for our habitation. So I think it is essential trying to learn about the planets apart from earth. They are our neighbour and it may help us to understand things related with the past and future of the Earth."
