Term Project

________________________________________
TOPIC: Find the first published maps of many worlds
________________________________________
Planetary astronomers, geologists and other scientists have made maps of many different worlds in our solar system. ‘World’ is used here to

mean a planet, a satellite (moon) of a planet, an asteroid or a comet nucleus in our solar system. Note that the Sun, other stars, and

planets orbiting other stars are excluded, and fictional maps (drawn for science fiction or gaming purposes) are excluded.
This project is all about finding the first published map of each world, for as many worlds as possible. The outcome is a big table

containing the name of the world, the bibliographic reference to the first map, and a picture of that map. This is really a project about

using search tools to find information, and assessing the information they turn up. To get the best mark, you need to find the first

published maps of the largest possible number of worlds.
What worlds (planet, moon, asteroid, comet nucleus) can be included? Anything we have been able to make a map of. There are maps of the Moon

and Mars, for instance, and the earliest of them could be several hundred years old. There are maps of the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos.

But they are tiny, so the first maps had to wait until a spacecraft could photograph them up close and see their surfaces. So the few worlds

where early telescopes could see features might need a history-type search, trying to find out who first made a map. But for many of these

worlds we had to have spacecraft data, and the search is for recent scientific literature on that world. For example, the Rosetta spacecraft

is orbiting around a small comet nucleus right now. We had never seen it up close before. The first map must be an illustration in one of the

early scientific papers about the comet. So you will have to search the science literature for the first few papers about the comet and look

through them to find the first one with a map.
So – what is a map? We will use a special definition for this project: a map is a graphic which facilitates a spatial understanding of a

world. In other words, it’s an illustration (graphic) which shows us the surface features of the body, and it’s a creative work made by a

person – not just a picture taken by a camera. So if Rosetta takes a picture of its comet, the picture itself is NOT a map. But if somebody

combines several images or other data to make a global representation of the world, and adds a latitude-longitude grid (or labels around the

sides to show latitude and longitude) – it’s a map. It might also have placenames or geological annotations, or anything elseadded to the

basic picture – but it must have latitude and longitude shown in some way.
OK… find those first maps. As many as you can. Then you have to assemble a report to hand in. There is a VERY SPECIFIC format for this

which you MUST follow. Make a table in Word (or whatever else you are writing in – any word processor will let you make a table). You need 4

columns: a number, the name of the world, a bibliographic reference to the first map, and a small thumbnail-like image of that map. The

number increases with each world. If you find 15 worlds, the last one is numbered 15 in your table. You can use any standard bibliographic

format you like for this project. The image should be small so it doesn’t take up too much space but the instructor can see what map you have

found. This idea is illustrated below.
EXAMPLE (NOTE: the Sun is not in your list of worlds, and the Mars map is not the first, and the Pluto map doesn’t have a grid – so these

maps should NOT appear in your list. This is only shown to illustrate the format.
Number    World    Reference    Map
1    Sun    Carrington, R. C., 1863. Observations of the Spots on the Sun from 1853 to 1861. London: Williams and Norgate.
2    Mars    Proctor, R. A., 1869. The Planet Mars in February 1869. Popular Science Review, vol. 8, pp. 39-50.
3    Pluto    Young, E. F., et al., 1999. Mapping the Variegated Surface of Pluto. Astronomical Journal, vol. 117, pp. 1063-1076.

This is a full term project. Work steadily on it through the term, hand in the ‘Mini-Project’ in the middle of term and hand in the finished

project in the last class.
NOTE these requirements: the report should be kept brief (try for no more than ten pages) and should be printed and stapled. No binding,

folder or extra cover should be added. The instructor does not want to carry and store over a hundred binders or covers at the end of term.

There will be a penalty for projects which break these rules. Ten page limits: this is flexible, but if you found maps of 25 worlds, don’t

have 25 pages, keep the maps small so you can get several on a page. If you get 8 pages, that’s fine. If you get 11, it’s OK, but if you get

more, make your maps smaller to get more on a page.
________________________________________
STEP 1. Get some idea from our course materials or other reading about what might have been mapped. What can telescopes see? What have

spacecraft looked at? For instance, we have never seen the tiny outer moons of Jupiter up close, so there are no maps of them. But we have

seen the small inner moons of Jupiter in Voyager and Galileo mission images, so there might be maps of them. Telescopes couldn’t show surface

features on them so the first map would be based on spacecraft images.
Find the names of the moons and start looking. Search for ‘map of Amalthea’ (one of the moons), or ‘inner satellites of Jupiter’ for general

papers about them which might contain a map. The whole point of this exercise is to make effective searches for elusive information.
________________________________________
STEP 2. Try to find the earliest maps. When did the first astronomical studies of these worlds happen? When did the first spacecraft observe

the world? Amalthea was discovered in the 19th Century but maps had to wait for the first spacecraft – which was it? When was it? Did the

images show surface details? This helps you figure out when a first map might appear, typically several years later. Search for papers on

Amalthea, find the first with a map, you’re done!
________________________________________
STEP 3. Mini-Project
The Mini-Project is intended to get you started early – no leaving this to the last week of term!
Just find what you think are the first maps of five asteroids. This is restricted to asteroids to keep things simple and focus your efforts.

Set up a table like the one above. Hand in a brief report, just a title page with your name and student number on it, and the 1 or 2 pages it

takes to show those five asteroids. There’s no need for anything else. The instructor will give advice during class and is available during

office hours. Marking depends mainly on finding the real ‘first map’, but also on following the format and giving a proper bibliographic

reference. You can use any standard bibliographic format you like for this.
________________________________________
STEP 4. Compile your final project report.
Correct any errors in your Mini-Project, and just keep adding to it. The report should include the following:
1. A title page with your name and student number.
2. The table of information. The order of objects doesn’t matter, but number each world sequentially.
3. NO BINDERS, folders, duotangs, clips or anything else added to the report. Just staple your pages (you can find staplers in the Weldon

library or in most printing places). Why? For you it’s just one binder, for your instructor it would be over 100, so they would be too heavy

and would take up too much room. This is an important specification, and marks will be deducted if it is not followed.
________________________________________
Points to think about:
Marking is based on the largest number of correct results found. If the largest numer of correct identifications is 20, 20 will get an A+ and

the lowest number found will just pass (50%). Other numbers will be distributed accordingly. If the largest number is 30, that gets the A+.
The instructor will not be completely rigid about the ‘first’ map (for instance if several maps were published in different papers in one

journal issue, you don’t have to find the one nearest the front, any of them can be accepted)
We will discuss the report throughout the term. The final project should be given to the instructor in the last class, with a penalty for

being late. You have a whole term to work on this, so don’t leave it to the last week and then have to ask for more time. Remember… NO

BINDERS!