The Mysterious Planet Ziggy

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The Mysterious Planet Ziggy

• Assignment 1 for ASTR1001.

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The USS Drongo

• You are the crew of the Starship USS Drongo.
  Launched by the Australian Space Agency in
  2234AD, its 5 year mission is to explore distant
  parts of the universe.
• Unfortunately, only two years into your mission,
  in an unfortunate incident caused by a drunken
  computer programmer and a bad tempered main
  computer, you crash landed on an unknown planet,
  in an unexplored corner of our galaxy.
• You have decided to call this planet Ziggy

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Your Mission

• You are members of the Astrophysics Team on-board
  the USS Drongo.
• Captain Howard has asked you to try and figure
  out as much as you can about the planet and solar
  system that youve been transported to.
• Dont waste time trying to figure out things
  about Ziggy thats the job for the exobiology
  and planetology teams.
• Your mission is to study the night sky of Ziggy,
  and deduce whatever you can from it.

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Planet Ziggy
The USS Drongo Crash Landed Here.
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A Strange World

• Ziggy is a strange world. It has breathable air,
  and gravity 23 weaker than the Earths.
• It is covered in pink grass-like organisms, with
  occasional giant orange plants that look like
  some cross between tree-ferns and cacti.
• The grass is grazed by vast groups of what look
  like sabre-toothed rabbits pink in colour with
  bright green spots. They appear to be carnivorous
  - several members of the USS Drongos xenobiology
  team have already been bitten.

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Night Time

• You (the astrophysics team) first ventured out
  120 hours after the crash-landing.
• It had been dark at the crash site for all those
  120 hours - you hadnt seen Ziggys sun (you know
  it has one - a fairly normal G-type star, because
  you saw it on the way down).
• What you did see in the sky was many bright
  stars, and a large, bright, featureless silvery
  moon. It appeared twice as big as Earths moon,
  and about ten times brighter.

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A view looking straight up.
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Same view one hour later
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Same view another hour later
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The Moons Motion.

• When you first landed, the moon was almost
  directly overhead, and looked like a full moon.
• Since then, it had seemed to spiral out from the
  zenith (the point directly overhead). When you
  first went out, it was only 30 degrees above the
  horizon.
• As it slowly spiralled away from the zenith, it
  had become less full. The brighter half always
  seems to point downwards, towards the horizon.

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Zenith
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When you first ventured out, it was doing
complete circles around the sky, around 30
degrees above the horizon and dropping.
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One week later.

• You have now been on Ziggy for a week.
• The Xenobiologists have identified a new
  carniverous species they look rather like
  Koalas, but drop from the trees on top of other
  animals heads and then devour them.
• Much progress has also been made in the
  astrophysics section.
• Ziggys sun has still not risen, but Ziggys moon
  has set, making it much easier to see faint
  things in the sky.
• The biggest surprise - two stars were recently
  spotted which appear to be doing something rather
  strange

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Initial View.
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Same view one hour later
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Same view another hour later
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Assignment 1

• The goal of this assignment is to deduce as much
  as you can about Planet Ziggy, and its solar
  system.
• You can work as individuals, or as a team,
  whichever you prefer.
• You should hand in a report, explaining what you
  have deduced about this world, and the reasoning
  that led you to these deductions. If you work as
  a team, the whole team should hand in one
  collaborative report, listing the names of all
  team members. You will all receive the same mark.

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Deadline.

• The report is due at the start of the lecture on
  Tuesday 25th March, ie. by 10.05am.
• The report should be no longer than 1200 words.
• It can be handed in to me on paper at the
  lecture, or e-mailed to me using the WebCT course
  e-mail system.
• The report should be written in the style of an
  executive brief, intended for Captain Howard.
  It should thus concentrate on the most important
  facts, and not digress unnecessarily into
  technical details.

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No Competition

• The reports will be marked on an absolute scale,
  not a relative scale - ie. I will happily give
  you all High Distinctions if I think you deserve
  it (or fail the lot of you).
• This means that you loose nothing by sharing your
  ideas with your classmates.
• You should use the course bulletin board for this
  purpose - posting your ideas and questions there,
  for everyone to read.
• To encourage this, anyone posting particularly
  brilliant ideas or probing questions on the
  bulletin board will win a bonus mark.

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Bulletin Board

• So - if you are stuck or baffled, look at the
  bulletin board and you may find the clue you are
  looking for.
• If you come up with a good idea, post it there.
  But be quick - only the first person to post a
  particular idea can get credit for it.
• If your posting is on behalf of a group of you,
  please place all your names on it.
• This puzzle is too hard for any individual - it
  is only by pooling your ideas that you will get
  it out.