Hopefully you had a chance this month to be dazzled by some amazing fireworks!  Did you know that fireworks are chemical reactions?  There are a lot of different kinds of fireworks.

Here's how one of the most popular kinds of fireworks works.  To set off a firework, you light a fuse.  The heat from the flame travels along the fuse, until it reaches the bottom of the main part of the firework (shell).  When it reaches this point, it ignites a lift charge, which is made out of black powder.  When the heat touches the black powder, it creates hot gases and lots of energy! These forces launch the shell out of the tube it is sitting in (called a mortar).  The shell is full of small pellets.  Once the firework reaches a certain height, a second fuse inside of it ignites and activates a burst charge.  This sets off the pellets, which explode into colors and sounds.

What the explosion from a firework looks like depends on the chemicals inside of the pellets.  Some fireworks contain metal salts, which create bright colors.  Here are the metal salts used and the colors they produce:

Strontium: Red
Calcium: Orange
Sodium: Yellow
Barium: Green
Copper: Blue (This is one of the hardest colors to create in a firework.  For more on this, check out this article.)
Strontium and Copper: Purple
Magnesium, Aluminum, and Titanium: White

Some fireworks have chemical compounds that cause effects like sparkling or strobing lights.  Some even use different chemicals to create sound effects!  For instance, bismuth makes a crackling or popping sound, while potassium chlorate creates a loud boom.

Fireworks can be awesome, but because of the high heats and explosions involved in setting them off, they are also very dangerous!  Unfortunately, sometimes things do go wrong and people get hurt.  Always make sure that you are following proper fire safety measures when you are setting off fireworks at home.  Put enough distance between yourself and a lit firework, never relight a firework that didn't go off, keep flammable liquids away, and have a bucket of water nearby in case of an emergency.  Be safe and enjoy your chemical reactions!

At most of our camps, campers have an opportunity to build and launch a model rocket.  If you love that part of camp and can't wait until next year to have that experience again, here are some model rockets that you can buy now or make at home.

First of all, we want to give a shout-out to our rocket supplier Belleville Wholesale Hobby.  They carry the Starhawk rockets that we use at camp, as well as many other models that you can buy in bulk or individually.  They are a great company and have had a decades long relationship with STAR Camp.  Ron Becker is the owner.  Tell him STAR Camp sent you.

If homemade is more your style, here are a few rockets you can make at home.
With paper, tape, and some PVC pipe, make a stomp rocket.  Click on the link for detailed directions from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

If you want a super simple rocket that you can make with stuff you most likely have at home, check out JPL's instructions for how to make straw rockets.

For a rocket that you can propel with just a rubber band, check out JPL's foam rocket video.

We would absolutely love to see how your rockets turn out!  Share videos and comments below with your results.

With the Summer Olympics fast approaching, athletes are preparing for the games by doing everything they can to build up their strength and stamina.  A lot of science goes into helping an athlete reach their peak performance.  A few ways that science affects the Olympics are:

Biomechanics: Biomechanics is the study of human movement, including the interaction of a person and the equipment they are using.  It is generally broken down into two different areas.  Kinetics is the study of internal and external forces acting on the body.  Kinematics is the study of movements of the body as a result of these forces.  In sports, biomechanics uses a detailed analysis of sports movements in order to reduce injuries and enhance performance.  It can also be used to explain how some athletes excel in different sports.  For example, Simone Biles is 4 feet 8 inches tall, which is a good height for a gymnast.  She has trained her body to have near perfect control.  Combine that with her strength and speed and you can see the results!

Physics: Understanding practical applications of physics helps athletes and coaches develop better techniques in pretty much all sports.  Principles of gravity, force, and momentum, for instance, are at play every time a body is in motion.  One example of physics being applied in the Olympics is with runners.  Newton's second law, often summarized as force equals mass times acceleration, tells us that for something to start moving, a net force must get it going.  Aside from their own bodies, sprinters need a force to kick off their acceleration.  In order to get as large of an acceleration as possible,  they kick off of starting blocks as hard as they can to create as large of a net force as possible.

Nutrition and Physiology: There is no one size fits all method for eating a healthy diet, but science can certainly help us to optimize our diets to the lifestyle we are living.  When it comes to Olympic athletes, they generally tend to eat healthy diets that are designed to help them perform at their best.  Swimmer Michael Phelps famously ate 10,000 calories a day while he was training six hours a day for the Olympics, but that is not appropriate for every athlete.  Canadian boxer Tammara Thibeault is a vegetarian, though when she is competing and travelling, she is not as strict with her diet because it can be difficult to meet her protein needs without meat.  Nutritional science helps all Olympic athletes determine the diet that makes them feel the strongest and provides the proper nutrients to give them strength and stamina.

The 2024 Olympics will begin on Friday, July 26th.

Twenty years ago today, the spacecraft Cassini traveled past Saturn and sent back an unprecedented look at the planet's rings.  Here are a few of those stunning images.  All image credit: NASA