Stretch and Challenge Articles For IGCSE Physics Topics 5-8

Physics International GCSE | Edexcel | 4PH1
2017 specification
first exams in 2019
Stretch and Challenge Articles

for Edexcel International GCSE Physics
Topics 5–8
T Brown
zigzageducation.co.uk POD
9845
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Contents
Thank You for Choosing ZigZag Education.....................................................................................................................ii

Teacher Feedback Opportunity...................................................................................................................................iii
Terms and Conditions of Use.......................................................................................................................................iv
Teacher’s Introduction.................................................................................................................................................1
Specification Information.............................................................................................................................................2
Articles........................................................................................................................................................................3
How Deep is Your Sub?...............................................................................................................................................................3
Go with the Flow.........................................................................................................................................................................6
Out in the Cold............................................................................................................................................................................ 9
Top of the World.......................................................................................................................................................................11
Magnetic Magnitudes............................................................................................................................................................... 14
Defying Gravity..........................................................................................................................................................................17
Particle Zoo............................................................................................................................................................................... 20
Getting into the Carbon Dating Scene.......................................................................................................................................23
Nuclear and Present Danger.....................................................................................................................................................26
Fusion Confusion.......................................................................................................................................................................29
Catast-eroids.............................................................................................................................................................................32
Absolute Luna-cy.......................................................................................................................................................................36
Out of This World......................................................................................................................................................................39
Going Out with a Bang.............................................................................................................................................................. 43
Comprehension Answers............................................................................................................................................47
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Terms and Conditions of Use
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Acknowledgements
The following images are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. These are reused and distributed under the terms and
conditions found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
 Particles courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory
 Syrup courtesy of FotoosVanRobin (Flickr)
Stretch and Challenge Articles for International GCSE Edexcel Physics Topics 5–8 Page iv of lix50 © ZigZag Education, 2019
The following images are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. These are reused and distributed under the terms and
conditions found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 Climber courtesy of Sandra Leduc
 Frog 1 courtesy of Lijnis Nelemans
 Frog 2 courtesy of Yosemite (Commonswiki)
 MRI courtesy of Erik1980
 Eupharynx courtesy of Alexei Orlov
The following images are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. These are reused and distributed under the terms
and conditions found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
 Photo of Leaning Tower of Pisa courtesy of JJ Harrison
 Photo of albatross courtesy of Johann H. Addicks
 Photo of Lincoln Cathedral courtesy of Tilman2007
 Photo of Vantablack grown on tinfoil courtesy of Surrey NanoSystems
 Photo of Eiffel Tower courtesy of Benh LIEU SONG
 Image of Crystal on graph paper courtesy of APN MJM
The following images are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. These are reused and distributed under the
terms and conditions found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
 Chernobyl courtesy of Tim Porter
 Deepsea Challenger courtesy of Z22 (Wikimedia)
 Photo of Cosmic Fireball courtesy of ESO/C. Malin
 Image of a quasar courtesy of NASA, ESA and J.A. Muñoz (University of Valencia)
 Image of a stellar black hole courtesy of ESO/L. Calçada/M.Kornmesser
Stretch and Challenge Articles for International GCSE Edexcel Physics Topics 5–8 Page v of lix50 © ZigZag Education, 2019
Teacher’s Introduction
These ‘Stretch and Challenge’ articles are designed to be complementary to the new Edexcel International GCSE
Physics specification.
They contain 14 articles that cover areas of topical interest to physicists, and in which there are significant links to
the International GCSE specification. These articles cover the second half of the specification.
They are designed to give higher-ability students a challenge, providing information on physics in the wider world,
and bolstering interest with the subject as a whole.
For each article, the following activities are included:

 Keyword identification to ensure important concepts are recognised
 Comprehension questions to ensure understanding of and participation in the task
 Discussion questions to encourage debate on topical issues and wider scientific and ethical questions
 Extension tasks that encourage students to conduct further research and teach them to structure a written
piece, such as a newspaper article, a letter to government or advice to doctors
 Further reading, in which content is aimed at an appropriate level, allowing enthusiastic students to broaden
their knowledge further.
Each article has a direct link to the specification, which is given on the contents page, but also goes beyond the
specification, including recent discoveries, case studies and applications of theories to the wider natural world.
Each article is between 500 and 1000 words, and is expected to take a student approximately 15 minutes to read.
The keyword activities and comprehension questions are generally short, and the discussion questions can be
whole-class activities, guided by the teacher, or small-group activities to encourage less-confident students to
take part.
Extension tasks can be given as homework together with the suggested further reading tasks that are included.
All resources can be photocopied in black and white.
We hope you enjoy reading and using these resources.
A web page containing all the links listed in the Further Reading sections in this resource is conveniently
 provided on ZigZag Education's website at zzed.uk/9845

You may find this helpful for accessing the websites rather than typing in each URL.
Toby Brown, July 2019
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Stretch and Challenge Articles for International GCSE Edexcel Physics Topics 5–8 Page 1 of 5950 © ZigZag Education, 2019
Specification Information
Article Specification Reference

1. How Deep is Your Sub? 5(b) Density and pressure
2. Go with the Flow 5(c) Change of state
3. Out in the Cold 5(c) Change of state
4. Top of the World 5(d) Ideal gas molecules
5. Magnetic Magnitudes 6(b) Magnetism
6. Defying Gravity 6(c) Electromagnetism
7. Particle Zoo 7(b) Radioactivity
8. Getting into the Carbon Dating Scene 7(b) Radioactivity
9. Nuclear and Present Danger 7(c) Fission and fusion
10. Fusion Confusion 7(c) Fission and fusion
11. Catast-eroids 8(b) Motion in the universe
12. Absolute Luna-cy 8(b) Motion in the universe
13. Out of This World 8(b) Motion in the universe
14. Going Out with a Bang 8(d) Cosmology
Articles
How Deep is Your Sub?

Did you know?
Diving down to the bottom of the ocean
The Challenger Deep may be the deepest part
5(b) Density and pressure of the ocean, but it is not the closest place on
Earth to the centre of Earth.
Keywords
The Earth is not perfectly symmetrical, so the
Challenger Deep The deepest point of the ocean, locatedNorth
in theand
Mariana
SouthTrench
Poles are actually closer to the
Plate boundary The point where two continental plate boundaries meet, where they are either pulling
centre of Earth.
apart, pushing together or sliding sideways
Echo sounding Determining the distance to an object by sending a sound pulse to it and measuring the
time taken for the pulse to return
Pressure The amount of force per area on an object or container. Pressure from water increases
with depth because there’s a greater weight of water above it.
Bathyscaphe A deep-sea vessel which contains a large tank for buoyancy and a small, pressurised pilot’s
sphere
The Mariana Trench is an underwater continental plate

boundary, where the Pacific Plate sinks beneath the
Philippine Plate, creating a valley in the ocean floor. The
Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench, is the deepest
point on the ocean floor at 11,034 m below sea level. If
Mount Everest, the tallest peak on Earth, were dropped into
the Challenger Deep, there would still be almost 2 km of
water above its peak.
Measuring the deeps

The depth of the Mariana Trench was first measured in 1875 by the HMS
Challenger, a British scientific expedition vessel which aimed to take
measurements of ocean depths and temperatures and take samples of the
ocean floor over the course of a journey that went around the globe. The
first measurement of the trench involved dropping a weighted rope into the
ocean floor and seeing how far it sank – this method gave a measurement of
8,200 m.
In the twentieth century, much more accurate measurements would be taken

by echo sounding. This process involves emitting a pulse of sound down to
HMS Challenger, the first ship to
the ocean floor and measuring the time taken for the reflected echo to be
measure the depth of the Mariana
detected. The speed of sound in water is known, so this can be used to Trench
calculate the distance to the ocean floor. Other methods of depth
measurement involve measuring the pressure of the water, which is directly related to depth.
Under pressure
Below the surface of the ocean, pressure increases with depth. More water above a point means more weight
pressing down on that point. Underwater pressure is twice the pressure of the atmosphere at a depth of only 10 m.
At such incredible depths, the pressure is immense. The pressure at the bottom of Challenger Deep is 1,100 atm, or
110 million newtons per metre squared. That’s the equivalent of 8,000 London buses every metre squared, and is
the pressure used in industrial water cutters, which are used to cut steel, or the pressure generated in a handgun
at the moment it is fired.
At these depths, no sunlight can penetrate, and the sea floor is in perpetual darkness (this happens at a depth of
just 1 km) and the average temperature is just 4° C above freezing.
Because of the high pressure, sound travels easily. Molecules forced close together can more easily pass energy to
their neighbours, and pressure waves can travel up to 1,000 km. This is how whales communicate across oceans –
emitting low-frequency sound which carries hundreds of kilometres. Storms above the surface and earthquakes
below the ocean floor can also clearly be heard.
Going under
Only six vessels have ever been down to the bottom of Challenger
Deep, and only two of those have been manned, the other four
being remote-controlled. The first manned dive to the bottom of
Challenger Deep was completed in 1960 by Jacques Picard and Don
Walsh in the bathyscaphe Trieste, with the second not until 2012 by
James Cameron, the director of Titanic and Avatar, in the Deepsea
Challenger vessel.
A bathyscaphe is a type of submarine used in deep-sea diving. A

bathyscaphe consists of a large tank filled with a light material for
buoyancy, with a hollow, pressurised sphere below for the pilot. The
bathyscaphe Trieste used petrol for buoyancy, as it is incompressible
under any pressure found on Earth, while Deepsea Challenger used a The bathyscaphe Trieste being lowered into the
ocean. The pilot sphere can be seen on the bottom.
specially developed synthetic foam for buoyancy. This foam
consisted of millions of tiny hollow glass spheres, and was 0.7 times as dense as water, while also being incredibly
strong.
The pilot sphere of a bathyscaphe has to be pressurised to allow the pilot to remain alive among the pressures at the
ocean floor. The Deepsea Challenger had a pilot sphere with walls 6 cm thick, and had a space inside barely more than
a metre across. A sphere is a very strong shape, with an applied force being spread across the surface evenly, with no
weak points – if the pilot sphere were a cylinder, for instance, the walls would need to be three times as thick.
Deepsea Challenger was built with no rivets, and no

weak seams, as a single weak point would be blown
inwards by the outside pressures, causing the vessel to
implode. The vessel not only needed to be strong, but
also flexible, as both the buoyancy tank and the pilot
sphere contract as it descends.
James Cameron’s descent took two-and-a-half hours in

Deepsea Challenger. The top is to the left, and the pilot’s compartment is
Deepsea Challenger, while his ascent took a little over
in a small section to the right.
an hour. There were several back-up systems in place
for the ascent – if the iron balls used as ballast did not release as expected due to electrical or mechanical failure, a
ship on the surface could send a signal to cause them to release. In case this failed, the ballast was attached to the
vessel by a material which dissolves in saltwater, so would release automatically after around 10 hours. If the vessel
lost all power, the magnets holding the ballast in place would stop working, releasing the iron balls. Once the iron
balls that acted as ballast were released, the vessel was no longer heavy enough to sink, and rocketed upwards
towards the surface.
Deep-sea life
Despite seeming inhospitable, organisms live even at the bottom of
Challenger Deep. Deep-sea organisms face many challenges that sea
creatures at shallower depths do not.
Cells rely on transport systems for survival. Salts, proteins and water
need to be kept at equilibrium, removing excess materials from the cell
and taking in materials in the case of a deficiency. High pressure disrupts
these processes, with even water levels being difficult to maintain; cells Eurypharynx pelecanoides. Deep-sea organisms
have low surface area to volume ratios.
may swell and burst at high pressures. Deep-sea organisms require
incredibly strong cell walls to survive such depths.
Hydrothermal vents provide nutrients to
High pressures increase reaction rates, dissolving minerals such as calcium carbonate, which is used in bones and
shells. This means that deep-sea creatures cannot have bones, and must instead be invertebrates. High pressures
can even affect biological molecules, with proteins and enzymes becoming folded and bent out of shape, slowing
or even stopping reactions.
To cope with the high pressures, many animals have evolved to be as small as possible, with fewer cavities that
could collapse (such as bladders for buoyancy) compared to creatures that live at shallower depths.
In rare cases, however, organisms can grow to much larger sizes than usual, such as the giant tube worm, which can
grow up to 2 m in length – much larger than shallow-water tube worms – as they live in deep-sea hydrothermal vents,
which provide large amounts of nutrients. Recent evidence suggests that microorganisms might thrive in the trench.
 Comprehension questions
1. Why are the pressures in Challenger Deep so high?

2. Describe the structure of a bathyscaphe such as Deepsea Challenger.
3. What are some of the adaptations that life in Challenger Deep has made?
Discussion questions
We know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars. What makes it so much more
difficult to go to the depths of our own planet than reaching another planet entirely? What are the
benefits of studying ocean depths? What might there still be to find?
 Extension
Design a vessel that could reach the bottom of the ocean. What safety features would be needed? What
scientific equipment should it include?
 Further reading
To read about the specifications of Deepsea Challenger and James Cameron’s journey to the
Challenger Deep, go to:
http://www.deepseachallenge.com/ Go to zzed.uk/9845
Go with the Flow
The strange laws of non-Newtonian physics
5(c) Change of state
Keywords
Fluid A substance that can flow and change shape, such as a liquid or gas
Viscosity How thick a fluid is and how well it resists motion through it
Did you know?
Non-Newtonian fluid A fluid with a viscosity that changes based on the force applied; for example,
Swimming in a highly viscousuncooked
fluid suchcustard
as honey is just as easy as swimming in water!
Colloid A solution with suspended particles throughout; for example, cornflour in water
Although the drag forces pushing back on you as you cut through the fluid are increased, so is the force that’s
applied in pushing back on the fluid. The two increased forces balance out!
Most fluids you encounter react in predictable ways. Water has the same thickness whether you’re swimming in it,
drinking it or cupping it in your hands. Others, such as honey, are thicker but still act the same way. Not all fluids
are so predictable, though.
Hot and cold

The viscosity of fluids isn’t fixed. Heating up honey will make it much runnier –
this is why it’s easier to spread honey on toast than it is on bread. This is
because the molecules making up the honey speed up as they get to higher
temperatures, and bonds between molecules get weaker. This has the result of
decreasing density and the resistance of the fluid to an object moving through
it.
All fluids do this, not just honey, and while the effect is less noticeable in
something that’s already less viscous, such as water, you’ll have been
noticing this effect all your life. A recent study recorded the sound of hot
and cold water being poured into a glass. On playing the recordings to
people, over
96 % of the participants could immediately identify which recording was of Viscous fluids such as honey or treacle pour
cold water, and which was of hot water. This is because the hot water has slowly
more energy, so makes a higher sound when it hits a surface. You probably
haven’t realised you’ve noticed this, but most people can do so immediately because our brain has registered the
difference subconsciously so many times.
Ebb and flow

Viscosity doesn’t always only depend on temperature. A special class of fluid, called non-Newtonian fluids change
their viscosity much more readily.
Non-Newtonian fluids will flow just like any other fluids, although they tend to be quite thick. But exerting a large
force on a non-Newtonian fluid – for example, by hitting the surface – causes the fluid to become much more
viscous. When the force stops being applied, the fluid returns to its original, runnier viscosity.
This means that non-Newtonian fluids, such as uncooked custard or cornflour and water mix, have some weird
properties. Apply a strong force to custard and it will harden up, but apply a low force and the custard will act more
like a normal liquid. You might have noticed this while making custard – it’s runny, but can be difficult to stir!
It’s also possible to walk on custard, as long as you’re
fast enough! The impact of your weight on the surface Did you know?
ofDid
the custard
you know?is enough to cause it to thicken; only if Non-Newtonian fluids are strange, but not
you were to stop would you sink. Without any forces uncommon. Custard is the non-Newtonian fluid you’ll
Skiers in the
thickening it up,winter Olympics
the custard use non-Newtonian
becomes thinner and be most familiar with.
fluids
you’ll in into
sink theirit.protective gear. This
This also makes protective
custard armour
very hard to
hardens up in an impact, but is flexible and
swim through – the harder you try and push through it,doesn’t Even water can act like a non-Newtonian fluid with
therestrict
hardermovement under normal conditions.
it pushes back. high enough forces – falling from a great height into
water can be like falling onto concrete. The high
Suspension of disbelief forces of the impact cause the water to briefly act like
a non-Newtonian fluid and toughen up!
How do these strange fluids work? The answer is that
they’re not really fluids at all – or at least not entirely. Non-Newtonian fluids are actually made up of tiny particles
suspended in a solution. This is called a colloidal solution.
When a force is applied to the surface of these colloidal solutions, the particles are forced together, and all the fluid
is pushed out.
Force
Particles with fluid between them

The fluid pushed is out from between the particles, and the
particles form a wall
With all the particles closer together, the friction

between the particles increases and the particles form
into clusters. These clusters lock together, and
essentially make a wall that can’t be penetrated.
Leaving the solution alone allows the particles to spread
out again, so the solution acts as a fluid again.
Quicksandg
Quicksand is another type of non-Newtonian fluid which acts very differently. Unlike custard, quicksand is usually a solid
and becomes a liquid when a force is applied. Walk over quicksand and you’ll sink in, struggle and you’ll only sink faster.
The easiest way to get free of quicksand is to move slowly and carefully, keeping low to spread your weight out
across a large surface. It’s not actually possible to drown in quicksand, since its buoyancy is so high, but you can get
stuck, since, once you’ve fallen into it, the quicksand will solidify around you.
This is because quicksand is sand that’s been saturated with water. Applying a force causes the sand to clump
together, but instead of locking together, the sand clumping together just makes more room for the water, so you
can move through the now less-dense region.
Force
Particles are suspended in fluid, but are close The force makes the particles form clumps, so there is more
enough together to act as a solid fluid between them
Trying to pull your leg out of the quicksand is incredibly difficult – after the sand has set around your leg, pulling
your leg out creates a vacuum beneath your foot, pulling your foot back down.
Comprehension questions

1. How does the viscosity of Newtonian fluids act compared with non-Newtonian fluids?
2. How do non-Newtonian fluids produce this effect?
3. How is quicksand different from other non-Newtonian fluids?
What applications could non-Newtonian fluids be used for? Why are they not a good choice for an airbag?
Would a material like quicksand be better?
 Extension
Make your own non-Newtonian fluid! Mix some cornflour with about the same amount of water and mix
well.
Even water can act like a non-Newtonian fluid. Can you suggest why this might be? Why does water
require a higher force than cornflour or custard to act like a non-Newtonian fluid?
 Further reading
Laminar flow is another cool trick that shows the physics of viscosity. Watch a
demonstration here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p08_KlTKP50 Go to zzed.uk/9845
Did you know?
Out in the Cold
Not all superfluids are Bose–Einstein condensates –
A look at the fifth state of matter superfluidity has also been found in astrophysics,
high energy particle colliders and even black holes.
5(c) Change of state
Keywords
Plasma A state of matter in which electrons are stripped away from atoms in a gas
Absolute zero The temperature when matter loses all thermal energy and atoms are completely still
Quantum mechanics The strange laws of physics that apply at incredibly small scales, very different from the
laws of physics we see in our everyday world
Superfluid A material that has no friction and moves with no loss of energy
Superconductor A material that has no electrical resistance
You’ve heard of solids, gases, liquids and maybe even plasma, but did you know there was a fifth state of matter?
Matter becomes a Bose–Einstein condensate at temperatures just above absolute zero (0 K, -273 °C) and exhibits
some very strange behaviour.
Producing Bose–Einstein condensates

Bose–Einstein condensates were first produced in 1995.
Lasers were used to hold atoms absolutely still,
effectively cooling them. The atoms were bombarded
with laser light from all directions, so that they couldn’t
move in any one direction.
This light trap cools the atoms to around 10 millionths

of a degree above absolute zero – still too hot to
produce Bose–Einstein condensates. The lasers are
turned off and a strong magnetic field is turned on –
this causes the atoms to stay in place, further reducing
their temperature. These three graphs are snapshots in time. The centre of the peak
represents the coolest atoms. As a Bose–Einstein condensate forms,
As atoms are cooled to within a billionth of a degree more and more of the atoms are at the lowest temperatures.
above absolute zero, all the atoms lose their thermal
energy and a Bose–Einstein condensate forms.
A Bose–Einstein condensate follows the laws of quantum mechanics, rather than the laws we’re familiar with.
Super cool
Many Bose–Einstein condensates behave like
superfluids. This means that the atoms move with
absolutely no friction and no loss of energy. Stirring a
superfluid will cause it to spin and spin and spin
without stopping. Superfluids will also ‘creep’ along
any surface – including vertical walls! This means that
a superfluid in a container will eventually climb up the walls of the container and out, until the container is empty.
As materials cool down, their electrical resistance decreases. This can be seen in filament lamps – as the filament
heats up, the increased movement of the atoms stops the flow of electrons. Around 0 K, the movement of atoms is
so low that Bose–Einstein condensates have zero electrical resistance – they display a property called
superconductivity.
Superconductors have some very interesting

properties; they can conduct electricity with no loss
of power, so could be the future of energy
transmission. Magnetic fields can’t penetrate into superconductors, so superconductors float in magnetic fields, like
the Japanese MagLev train. However, superconductors can only be produced at very low temperatures (so far!) so
uses of superconductors are limited.
Light interacts with Bose–Einstein condensates in a very interesting way. Physicists have shown that light can be
slowed to incredibly slow speeds – down to 17 m s–1 (0.000006 % the speed of light in a vacuum)! This is because
of the Bose–Einstein condensates’ incredibly high refractive indice. This method of slowing down light could be
used to improve superconductors and microchips for computing.
In 2017, researchers managed to use Bose–Einstein condensates to create negative mass. This means that when
the condensate
Did you know?experiences a force, it moves towards the force, instead of away from it. Imagine that – a substance
that moves towards you if you hit it!
In a Bose–Einstein condensate, all the atoms have
A exactly
wide range of isotopes
the same and atoms
properties. If onehave
atombeen
gainsused to create Bose–Einstein condensates, for larger samples and
for longer periods of time, allowing
energy, they all do, simultaneously.scientists to learn more about quantum mechanics and even the conditions that
supernovae form. Who knows what other strange properties Bose–Einstein condensates could display next?
1. What happens at low temperatures that allows Bose–Einstein condensates to form?

2. How are the incredibly low temperatures that Bose–Einstein condensates form at achieved?
3. What are some of the strange properties that Bose–Einstein condensates exhibit?
No real-world applications have yet been produced using Bose–Einstein condensates, but research may
lead to applications. Do you think we should invest money in purely theoretical physics research, even if it
is not guaranteed to lead to real-world applications?
 Extension
Design an application that can use one of the strange properties of Bose–Einstein condensates. What
would the issues be with making this in the real world?
 Further reading
To see information on the work on Bose-Einstein condensates that won the 2001 Nobel
Prize, visit: Go to zzed.uk/9845
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2001/popular.html
Top of the World

What happens at the peak of Mount Everest?
5(d) Ideal gas molecules
Keywords
Himalayas A mountain range between the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan plateau containing
some of the highest peaks in the world, including Everest, the highest peak
Altitude Height above sea level
Atmosphere The envelope of air around Earth (or any other planet)
Glaciers Huge sheets of ice that flow like slow-moving rivers down mountains
Acclimatisation The process by which humans become used to extreme altitudes, temperatures, humidity, etc.
At 8,848 m, the peak of Mount Everest (Sagarmāthā in Nepali, Chomolungma in Tibetan) in the Himalaya
mountain range in Nepal and Tibet is the highest point above sea level on Earth. The peak of Everest was first
reached by Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. Climbing to such high heights presents great challenges to
anyone who wants to make the ascent, with many people losing their lives attempting to reach the peak.
Mount Everest is the highest peak on Earth
High rise
As altitude increases, pressure decreases. This means that, per volume, there are fewer molecules of air. With fewer
air molecules, the average temperature decreases, since gases expand at higher altitudes because of the lower
weight of air above, so the air cools down as it does work to expand.
The average pressure of the air at the peak of Mount Everest is 337 kPa (0.333 atm) and the average temperature is
-19 °C in summer and -36 °C in winter. In January, the temperature can drop to -60 °C.
A high-pressure gas (left) compared to a low-

pressure gas (right). Low-pressure gases have
fewer molecules in a given space, so they exert
less force on a surface. Temperatures are also
lower.
At low pressures, the boiling point of water is greatly reduced; at the peak of Everest water will boil at 71 °C –
significantly lower than the usual 100 °C at sea level. This is because there is less pressure acting on the surface of
the water to stop water evaporating off, so the water needs less energy to become vapour and enter the air.
This means that certain foods won’t cook on Everest at all! Egg whites cook at around 85 °C, so if you’re trying to
boil an egg on Everest, all the water will boil away before the egg will cook. It also makes sterilising water difficult –
to sterilise water by heating, the water has to be kept above 80 °C for around five minutes, by which time all the
water will have evaporated off on Everest.
This is the opposite of how pressure cookers work – the increased pressure increases the boiling point of water, so
food can be cooked at temperatures above 100 °C without all the water turning to steam, increasing the rate at
which the food will cook.
Deep breath
Lower air pressures mean less available oxygen. At the peak of Mount
Everest, where the atmospheric pressure is a third of that at sea level,
there is a third of the amount of oxygen available for breathing. Above
2, 000 m, the blood is no longer saturated with oxygen. Altitudes above
8,000 m are considered the ‘death zone’, where the oxygen is so low
that human life cannot be sustained and humans will not acclimatise to
the reduced oxygen levels.
Reduced oxygen levels can cause death directly, with vital organs
shutting down without enough oxygen, or indirectly, with reduced
oxygen levels impairing decision-making and decreasing strength,
leading to accidents. The effect of lack of oxygen is so significant that it
takes
Didan you
average of 12 hours to climb the last 1.7 km to the summit.
know?
ForAcclimatisation
this reason, most expeditions
occurs when the take oxygen tanks and masks above
body
8,000 m – this
produces increases
more the available
red blood oxygen and avoids the risk of
cells to carry Climbers need to wear specialist equipment to
death.
oxygen around the body. People living atthe climb without
However, some climbers have made
climb Everest, including insulating clothes and
supplemental oxygen,
altitudes above instead
2,000 m havetaking
a on the risks of reduced oxygen. oxygen canisters
Even
permanently increased red blood cell have to acclimatise to the
with supplemental oxygen, climbers
high altitudes
count overlive
and may time, so that
longer on the climb can take a total of two months.
average.
Low oxygen levels are not the only danger of high altitude. The reduced pressure results in decreased
temperatures. Climbers can get frostbite on any skin exposed to the air, so thick, full-body thermal insulation must
be worn at all times.
Ethical Everest
Global warming is rapidly changing the landscape of Mount Everest, with glaciers and ice formations shrinking and
even disappearing. As glacial lakes melt, they can burst their natural barriers and destroy everything downstream.
But this does not only present a risk to climbers. Glaciers in the Himalayas contain up to 40 % of the world’s fresh
water, and feed nine major rivers, providing water for one sixth of the population of Earth. The loss of Himalayan
glaciers could lead to difficulties in irrigating crops,
and widespread famine.
The commercialisation of Everest, with companies offering guided trips to the peak of Everest for inexperienced
climbers, has led to tragedies. Avoidable deaths of inexperienced climbers has led the Nepali government to
suggest limitations on who can climb Everest. Additionally, inexperienced climbers will often hire out local climbing
guides; while this provides employment for a poor region, it also puts even experienced guides at extreme risk,
often for the sole benefit of a climber who would otherwise be
unable to make the climb.
With the increasing numbers of climbers on Everest comes an

increasing amount of human pollution and waste. The route up
to the summit is littered with human excrement, spent oxygen
canisters and dead bodies. This is not only causing a spread of
disease and loss of vegetation, but Everest is also an important
site in Tibetan Buddhism. The Sherpa believe that anyone passing
through the region should pay respect and reverence to the
landscape – the pollution of the area is deeply offensive to the
people in the area. The Nepali government has imposed regulations obliging climbers to bring 8 kg of additional
waste down the mountain with them in an attempt to reduce the waste. In 1999 Ken Noguchi, a Japanese climber,
organised a team of climbers who collected over eight tons of litter from the mountainside.
1. Why is the temperature so low at the summit of Mount Everest? How are boiling temperatures
affected at the peak?
2. What risks does increased altitude pose to climbers?
3. Why does it take so long to climb Everest?
Despite the many dangers of attempting to summit Mount Everest, every year an increasing number of
people make the attempt. Should there be limitations on the number of people who can make the
attempt? What factors should be considered? What would the effects of the limitations hopefully be?
 Extension
Plan an expedition to the summit of Mount Everest. What equipment will you need to take? What factors
will you need to consider? How will you cope with the extreme altitude?
 Further reading
For a look at some of the highest peaks in the solar system, and the strange challenges a
climber might find on different planets, go to:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5650306/the-rough-guide-to-solar-system-mountaineering Go to zzed.uk/9845
Magnetic Magnitudes
Magnets, from smallest to largest
6(b) Magnetism
Keywords
Magnetic field The space in which a magnetic material or moving charge feels a force
Motor effect The phenomenon of a moving charge experiencing a force in a magnetic field
Generator effect The phenomenon of a potential difference and current being induced in a conductor in a
changing magnetic field
Tesla The unit for measuring magnetic field strength
You might have learnt how moving charges create a magnetic field and how a moving magnetic field can
create currents in applications such as power generation, but these effects are much more wide-ranging,
from the subatomic level to cosmic levels.
Ironing out the kinks

You may be aware that only three elements are magnetic – iron, cobalt
and nickel. This is only partly true. While these are the only magnetic
elements under normal circumstances, moving to incredibly small scales it
turns out that many other atoms are magnetic.
Moving charges create magnetic fields, and all atoms can be thought of
as charges spinning in place. In most materials, all the atoms are facing in
random directions, so all the magnetic fields cancel out to zero.
An MRI machine uses the magnetic
In magnets, all the atoms are spinning in the same direction, so the tiny fields of hydrogen atoms to produce an
magnetic fields produced by each atom add up to the magnetic fields we image
can measure on more familiar scales.
This means that we can make other elements magnetic, as long as we try hard enough. By applying a very
strong magnetic field, all of the tiny spinning charges in the atoms will experience a force in the same way
as the motor effect works. This causes all the atoms to spin in the same direction, so that the magnetic
field they produce aligns with the one being applied. This requires an incredibly strong magnet – MRI
machines, which work using the same principle, generate magnetic fields of around 1.5 to 3 Tesla, to
cause hydrogen atoms to act in this way.
Some elements can’t be magnetised because the electrons are all spinning in different directions and
cancel each other out.
Jupiter
Juno, a spacecraft designed to study Jupiter and its moons, was launched in 2011
and reached Jupiter in 2017. The probe was designed to withstand Jupiter’s
magnetosphere, but the magnetic field was twice as strong as expected – 10
times stronger than the magnetic field generated by Earth.
While this magnetic field strength is within Juno’s operational limits, the closer it
gets to Jupiter the riskier the magnetic field becomes. The magnetic field could be
strong enough to interfere with Juno’s equipment for collecting and Jupiter’s magnetic field
transmitting data. generates its own aurora
Did you know?
While Earth’s magnetic field arises from its rotating iron core, Jupiter’s magnetic field comes from
Stars experience seismic activity
rotating hydrogen in the enormous planet’s atmosphere, resulting in a constantly changing and non-
just like the kind that produces
uniform magnetic field, constantly expanding and contracting. earthquakes on Earth. A starquake
observed on a magnetar in 2004
On Earth, high-energy streams of particles from the Sun reach Earth’s magnetic
released field
moreand are than
energy channelled
the Sun
to the North and South Poles. There, the high-energy particles excite particles in Earth’s atmosphere and
will release in 100,000 years, over
give out light, creating the aurorae, or Northern and Southern Lights. the course of a tenth of a second.
Aurorae are also visible at Jupiter’s poles, but they have a very different origin. Instead of particles from
the Sun, Jupiter’s magnetic field exerts a force directly on the ions in the hot gases of its atmosphere,
pulling electrons from the pole down towards the equator, so that Jupiter effectively generates its own
aurorae.
Jupiter’s magnetic field extends well over 3 million km, so that it encompasses Jupiter’s moons. One of Jupiter’s
moons, Io, is one of the most volcanic places in the solar system due to the tidal forces from Jupiter, and is
constantly spewing out hot gases and plasma. These hot gases and plasma interact with Jupiter’s magnetic field,
so that they stretch out into a ring around Jupiter at Io’s orbit, like Saturn’s rings; however, they are not reflective
like Saturn’s rings so we cannot see them.
Magnetars
Magnetars are stars which produce the strongest known magnetic
fields in the Universe, around 108 to 1011 Tesla – quadrillions (1015)
times stronger than Earth’s magnetosphere.
Magnetars are the rapidly rotating cores of stars left over after
supernovae – huge explosions at the end of a star’s lifetime.
The currents in the rotating plasma at a magnetar’s surface

produce magnetic fields stronger than any other humans have ever
observed. Near a magnetar, the spinning charges that make up
atoms are literally ripped apart, with atomic nuclei becoming thin,
rotating needles of positive charge.
If you were to approach a magnetar, first all the electrical signals that control your body (your nerve
signals, your heartbeat, your brain) would stop, and as you approached even closer, all the atoms in your
body would get torn apart into their nuclei and electrons. This is because the magnetic field is so strong
that even the tiniest of charges feel huge forces. Thankfully, the closest known magnetar to Earth is 9,000
light years away.
1. How can the atoms of any element act like a magnet?

2. How are the aurorae on Jupiter formed?
3. What would happen to a molecule as it approached a magnetar?
What would life be like on Earth without our magnetosphere? What would be different? What
would be the same?
 Extension
The magnetic poles of Earth flip on average every 500 million years.
Research:
1. How does this happen?
2. How do we know about it?
3. What effect could a magnetic flip have today?
Write a paragraph on each question.
 Further reading
To learn more about the Juno mission to Jupiter, and the science it’s gathering, go
to:
Go to zzed.uk/9845
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o9FiTf1vZE
Defying Gravity
The physics behind levitating a frog
6(c) Electromagnetism
Keywords
Spin A property of atoms which can be thought of as the direction in which an atom is spinning
Diamagnetic A material that is non-magnetic under normal conditions but will act magnetically with a strong
enough magnetic field
Maglev Using magnets to levitate an object (such as a train) above the ground, so that it doesn’t
experience as much friction
You spin me right round…

Magnets work via a strange quantum mechanical principle called Didspin.
youSpin
know?can be thought of as the
direction in which the electrons of an atom orbit. Usually, the spins of atoms are in a random
configuration, all pointing in random directions. Professors Andre Geim and Michael
Berry won the Ig Nobel Prize for their
In magnets, however, the spins are aligned in a single direction. A magnetic
frog levitation.field applies
The Ig Nobela Prize
force awards
to a
moving charge – if all the atoms in a material are spinning in the same direction, the magnetic
research that is fun and a bit silly.field will
produce a force on all the atoms in the same direction, creating a resultant force on the material.
Andre Geim is the only person to win
Magnetic fields can actually change the direction of an atom’s both
spin to
an align withPrize
Ig Nobel the magnetic field. Most
and an actual
magnetic fields in the everyday world are so small that this realignment isn’t
Nobel Prize, fornoticeable,
discoveringbut turning up
graphene.
the magnetic field strength causes more and more atoms to align.
Is it a bird? A plane? A frog?

A strong enough magnetic field will cause the spins of atoms in any
material to align. A material that is usually non-magnetic but that will
become magnetic under a strong enough magnetic field is called
diamagnetic.
In 2000, Andre Geim and Michael Berry produced a magnetic field of 16

T. In comparison, Earth’s magnetic field has a strength of around 50 µT,
and a fridge magnet has a strength of around 5 mT. The magnetic field
was created by running a current through metal coils, making Geim and Berry levitated a frog up a
metal tube
electromagnets.
Applying this 16 T field to a frog produced a very strange effect.
Hydrogen and oxygen are both relatively easy to magnetise compared to other non-magnetic atoms.
Frogs, which contain a lot of water and only have a small
mass, can, therefore, be magnetised easily in a strong
magnetic field. Geim and Berry placed their 16 T magnet
above a frog, magnetising the frog’s atoms and attracting
it. The attractive force of the magnet was enough to
balance with gravity and the frog floated as if it were in
space. A strong enough field could levitate a human in the
same way – the issue would not be magnetising the matter
a person is made up of, but the much larger mass of a
human compared to a frog. In fact, it would be possible to
levitate any object with a strong enough magnetic field.
The frog was levitated for over an hour, and seemed to show no discomfort or pain. Afterwards, the frog
returned to its frog friends with no ill effects or problems readjusting to post-magnetic life. Similarly,
Did you know?
strong magnetic fields have been shown to have no lasting effect on humans’ health, but people with
pacemakers
Our floatingneed to avoid
froggy friendstrong magnetic
isn’t the fields, as magnetic fields can affect these.
only animal
that uses magnetic fields.
Bees and certain birds such as homing pigeons
Maglev train
navigate using Earth’s magnetic field – they
While it takes incredibly strong magnets to levitate something that’s
get confused and lost when there are other
non-magnetic in the first place, materials that are already magnetic
magnetic fields around!
don’t need as strong magnetic fields. Superconductors – materials
with no resistance – can levitate in relatively low-strength magnetic
fields of less than 0.1 T.
The strong response of superconductors to magnetic fields has been

utilised to rest an entire train above the tracks. The Japanese Maglev trains float above magnetic fields
on the tracks
superconducting maglev train experiences less friction as it moves
along the tracks, so that it can reach incredible speeds of up to 300 km/h.
The superconductors that allow maglev trains to

float above the tracks need to be kept very cold, but
the expense of achieving and maintaining these low
temperatures is made up for by the ability to move
from city to city in record-breaking times.
A proposed Hyperloop will be a train route between

Los Angeles and San Francisco, and will complete the
560 km route in 35 minutes, at a top speed of 1,200
km/h, faster than an aeroplane. To achieve this, the
Hyperloop will not only levitate above the tracks using maglev technology, but also run in a low-pressure
tunnel. The reduced pressure in the tunnel will reduce air pressure so that the loss of kinetic energy to
friction and air resistance will be almost zero. This means that the train will be highly efficient, wasting very
little energy. This efficiency means that the Hyperloop will be able to run on solar panels, making it one of
the most environmentally friendly forms of transport in the world.
A Hyperloop has been suggested as the main form of transportation on Mars, if humans ever land there. The
atmosphere is so thin that a combustion engine would never work because of a lack of oxygen, so the
propulsion would have to be electric. There wouldn’t be any need for a low-pressure tunnel either – Mars’s
atmosphere is already thin enough, at around 1 % the density of Earth’s atmosphere.
Comprehension questions
1. How does a magnetic material such as iron produce a magnetic field?
2. How did Geim and Berry float a frog using magnets?
3. What is the advantage of a maglev train over a conventional train?
Magnetic levitation could be used in engines or axels.
• What other industrial applications of being able to float objects using magnets can you think
of?
• What are the advantages or disadvantages of these applications?
 Extension
Estimate how strong a magnet would need to be to lift you off the ground! 16 T was used to
levitate a frog (about 20 g). What assumptions have you made?
 Further reading
For a demonstration of magnetic levitation, go to: Go to zzed.uk/9845
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJeqriqRYYE
Particle Zoo
Diving into the subatomic world
7(b) Radioactivity
Keywords
Fundamental particles Particles that cannot be divided into smaller constituents
Leptons Fundamental particles such as electrons and muons
Hadrons Particles made of quarks, such as protons and neutrons
In the 1800s, it was believed that all matter was divisible into atoms, and nothing smaller. However, as electrons,
protons and neutrons were discovered, it was found that atoms can be split even further. Over the course of the
twentieth century, more and more particles were discovered.
Inside the atom

The atom is made up of a nucleus at the centre
and electrons orbiting the nucleus. The nucleus is Electrons orbiting
made up of positively charged protons and the nucleus Nucleus at
uncharged neutrons and contains most of the the centre of
the atom
mass of the atom, while having a diameter 10,000
to 100,000 times smaller than the atom as a whole.
10–15 m – 10–16 m
Electrons have masses 1,800 times less than
protons or neutrons, and are negatively charged.
When protons, neutrons and electrons were

discovered, the scientific community believed they
were fundamental, meaning that they cannot be 10–10 m
split up further.
Cosmic rays and the particle zoo

As solar winds and high-energy light reaches Earth from space, particles are produced in our atmosphere which
stream down to Earth.
Examples of these particles include muons, negatively charged particles which have higher masses than electrons
but lower masses than protons or neutrons; pions, which can either be positively or negatively charged or neutral
and have a similar mass to muons; and kaons, which can be positive, negative or neutral and have a mass of
roughly half that of protons or neutrons.
As particle accelerators could reach higher energies, and smash together particles at higher and higher energies,
many more particles were discovered and a problem arose – these hundreds of particles couldn’t all be
fundamental!
Particle hierarchy
Particles were eventually categorised in one of two categories: leptons or hadrons.
Electrons, muons and tiny, almost undetectable particles called neutrinos are all leptons. All leptons are
fundamental.
Hadrons are again split into two categories – baryons and mesons. Protons and neutrons are baryons, while pions and
kaons are mesons. Protons are the only truly stable hadrons and all other hadrons will eventually decay into protons.
All particles have an antimatter equivalent. Antimatter seems identical

to matter but with the opposite charge, so the electron’s antiparticle
e- e
γ (the positron) has the same mass as an electron but is positively
charged. When matter and antimatter meet, they are destroyed in a flash of electromagnetic waves, or photons
(particles of light).
If you were to collide with an antimatter equivalent of yourself, you and your antiperson would both be annihilated
and turn into pure energy! This would produce around 5 × 1018 J!
Baryons and mesons are not fundamental and are made up of particles called quarks.
Quark soup
Quarks are the fundamental particles which make up hadrons – it’s impossible to isolate quarks, and their existence
is instead inferred from particle interactions. Baryons are made up of three quarks, and mesons are made up of a
quark and an antiquark.
Quarks come in different flavours – up, down, strange, charm, top and bottom. Protons, neutrons and pions are
made of up and down quarks, while kaons are made up of either an up quark, down quark or antiquark and a
strange quark or antiquark.
ConCERNing particle physics

To discover new particle physics, scientists have to smash particles
together at incredibly high energies to get them close enough to
interact. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is the highest-
energy particle accelerator in existence, producing hundreds of
new particles by accelerating protons towards each other at
velocities near the speed of light.
Vast computer arrays log all the products of the interactions and
put together models of particles that could have been created for
fractions of a second before decaying. Scientists have to repeat the
experiments over and over again to make sure any such
interactions are due to the particle they’re looking for, and not due
to chance. The LHC investigates subatomic particles by smashing
particles together, creating thousands of interactions.
Particles that have been discovered at the LHC include This is a snapshot of all the interactions produced by
pentaquarks (weird hadrons that contain four quarks and an two gold ions colliding.
antiquark) and the Higgs boson, a particle which gives all other
particles mass.
1. How are new particles discovered?

2. Complete the diagram below to show how particles are categorised.
Matter
______________________________ ____________________
_____ (e.g. ____________________,
____________________,
neutrinos)
__________________ Mesons
_____________ (e.g.
(e.g. protons, ____________________
neutrons) _______________,
____________________,
)
3. What are the properties of an antiproton and antineutron?
The LHC cost £3.7 billion to build and costs £775 million every year in operating costs, but developments
from similar particle accelerators led to the invention of the Internet. Do the benefits of learning more
about our world and universe outweigh the monetary costs? Could this money be better spent by
governments?
 Extension
Can you determine the quark compositions of protons and neutrons?

Use the following rules to help you:
 Protons and neutrons are each made of three quarks
 Protons have a charge of +1, neutrons have a charge of 0
+2 −1
 Up quarks have a relative charge of ; down quarks have a relative charge of
3 3
 Further reading
For more information about the experiments at CERN, go to:
https://home.cern/ Go to zzed.uk/9845
Getting into the Carbon Dating Scene
Where have you been all my half-life?
7(b) Radioactivity Did you know?
Keywords Carbon dating can’t be used for inorganic
material, but other elements can be used instead.
Isotopes Atoms with the same number of protons but with different numbers of neutrons,
changing the mass Uranium–lead dating measures the ratio of 238U to
206
Pb to date rock formations. The half-life of
Nuclear decay Nuclei ejecting small particles or energy,
238
usually changing to a different element
U’s decay to 206Pb is about 4.5 billion years, so
Half-life The amount of time it takes for half of a radioactive sample to decay
has been used to date ancient volcanic eruptions,
meteor strikes and even the moon!
Carbon dating
All living things are partly made of carbon. This carbon comes in the
form of three naturally occurring isotopes: 12C, 13C and 14C. 12C is the 14
C → 14N + e– + νe
most common form of carbon, while 14C is less common and unstable,
decaying into 14N via beta decay. 14C is constantly replenished in
Earth’s atmosphere by cosmic rays.
As organisms go through their lives, they take in and expel 12C and
14
C, meaning that all living organisms have the same proportion of
14
C to 12C in their bodies, roughly 1 part per trillion (1 in 10 12). While
this may not seem like much, the activity of the 14C in an organism can
be detected as it decays.
Once an organism dies, it stops taking in and giving out carbon. As The decay of 14C by giving of an electron (beta
the 14C in the organism’s remains decays, the proportion of 14C to 12C particle), and a graph showing the half-life of 14C
decreases, leading to a decrease in activity detected.
The half-life of 14C is 5,730 years. This means that every 5,730 years the amount of 14C in a sample halves as it
decays to 14N.
Carbon dating has some limitations.
 Biological material – Carbon dating can only be used on material that was once alive, so that it was constantly
taking in carbon from the atmosphere. This means that the ratio of 12C and 14C was the same at the time of
death as in the atmosphere.
Carbon dating can’t be used to date inorganic material, even if it’s made of carbon, because the carbon isn’t
from the atmosphere, so we don’t know the original ratio of 12C and 14C.
 Archaeological finds – The half-life of 14C means that carbon dating is perfect for looking across human history,
so is a great tool for archaeologists. Any older than 60,000 years, however, and there is not enough 14C in the
sample to get an accurate estimate of the sample’s age.
Since the 1940s, nuclear testing has dramatically

increased the amount of 14C in the atmosphere,
further complicating carbon dating in more recent
samples.
 Time and place – Carbon dating can also be

unreliable as the amount of 14C in the atmosphere can
vary over time and by location – it is important to
calibrate the amounts of 14C in samples where
possible using events and artefacts with a known
date.
Oxygen isotope analysis
There are three different naturally occurring isotopes of oxygen: 16O, 17O and 18O. The majority of the oxygen in our
atmosphere is 16O, with trace amounts of 17O and 18O. The proportions of these isotopes in water in a particular
location depends on a variety of factors, such as distance from the coast, amount of precipitation (rain and snow),
altitude, latitude and climate.
Most of the oxygen in our bodies comes from water, and is used to create the building blocks of our bodies. By
comparing the oxygen isotopes in a sample of body tissue, it is possible to determine where a person is likely to be
from. If we analyse the oxygen in tooth enamel this can tell us where a person spent their childhood, as their teeth
will have formed during that period, setting the proportion of oxygen isotopes for the rest of their lives. In
particular, scientists compare the proportions of 16O and 18O to determine where someone might be from.
The discovery
In 2002, during an archaeological excavation on the proposed
site of a new school in Amesbury, an incredible discovery was
made: a Roman cemetery, one of the largest ever found in
Britain, just three miles from Stonehenge. One of the graves was
particularly notable, containing a man in his 30s who would
come to be known as the Amesbury Archer.
The grave of the Amesbury Archer was different from the

surrounding graves, and, in fact, different from any other grave
from the same period discovered in Britain. The grave was much
larger than the other graves, and much more ornate. The Archer
had been buried with tools and symbols of status, including the
earliest worked gold objects ever found in Britain, and a number The Amesbury Archer, now on display in the Salisbury and
of flint arrowheads, from which the Amesbury Archer gets his South Wiltshire museum
nickname.
Before this discovery, there had been little to no evidence of class structure in Roman-era Britain, and yet the
Amesbury Archer was clearly a figure of high status to be buried in such a highly decorated grave. Could he have
been a king or priest?
Where, when and how?

For such an interesting find, archaeologists wanted to gather as much information as possible about the life of this
man. They sent bone samples to labs for carbon dating and oxygen isotope analysis, which came back with some
interesting finds.
To date the Archer, collagen was extracted from bone powder of the remains. This was vaporised into carbon
dioxide, and the activity of the 14C in the sample was measured. The analysis dated the Archer to around 2200–
2400 BC, 4,200–4,400 years ago, or three-quarters of the half-life of 14C. This would have been around the same
time that Stonehenge was being built, increasing the connection of the Archer to the famous site.
Oxygen isotope analysis found higher amounts of 18O than is typical for people living in Britain at the time. The 18O
levels were much more typical of someone from the Swiss Alps, probably placing the Amesbury Archer in that
region during his childhood. This kind of travel across the continent, while not unheard of, was rare at the time, and
raises further questions about the Amesbury Archer.
There are still many mysteries regarding the life and death of the Amesbury Archer, and the more answers we learn, the
more questions arise. Why was he buried in such a high-status grave? What was his connection to Stonehenge? How
and why did he travel from the Alps to Salisbury plain? Was he a pilgrim of some kind, or had he moved to the area?
1. How does carbon dating work?

2. What are the limitations of carbon dating?
3. How does oxygen isotope analysis work?
Is it ethical to excavate and perform tests on dead bodies, which frequently involves disturbing sacred
sites? Is the knowledge we gain from such studies worth any disrespect scientists and archaeologists might
cause?
 Extension
U decays to 206Pb over 4.5 billion years. Is uranium–lead dating a good tool for dating objects? What
238
might it be used for? What limitations will it have?
 Further reading
For more information on the Amesbury Archer can be found at:
http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects/amesbury/archer.html Go to zzed.uk/9845
Nuclear and Present Danger
The dangers of nuclear power
7(c) Fission and fusion
Keywords
Nuclear reactor A power generator that uses the heat from nuclear reactions to produce electricity
Nuclear fuel The nuclear material in a reactor, usually uranium or plutonium
Control rods Tubes made, for example, of boron which absorb neutrons, slowing down or stopping nuclear
reactions in the reactor
Moderator A material which slows down neutrons, allowing them to sustain nuclear reactions in the fuel
Nuclear power has been in use since the 1950s, with some countries, such as France, getting most of their electricity
from nuclear power plants. But nuclear power presents dangers that no other type of power generation can.
Chernobyl reactor
On 26th April 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat,
Ukraine went into meltdown. Chernobyl is the largest and most
significant nuclear accident to date.
 During a safety test, power to the reactor was reduced, to see

whether safety features would immediately engage in the case of
a power failure.
 Several design flaws in the reactor meant that the control rods
did not drop down into the reactor. If the control rods had
dropped down, they would have absorbed all the neutrons
produced by the fuel, stopping the chain reaction and shutting
down the reactor.
 The uranium core of the reactor produced more and more heat
until all the water in the reactor turned into steam in a large
explosion, and the graphite moderator caught fire.
 The explosion and subsequent fire threw radioactive material
into the atmosphere, which eventually blew across the western
USSR and much of Europe.
The explosion blew apart the roof of the reactor building
Fallout
The effective amount of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster was 400 times that released in the nuclear
bombing of Hiroshima, with most of the nuclear material falling onto Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
Radioactive dust spread across Europe, leading many countries to take measures to stop their citizens becoming
affected.
The effect The solution

Water supplies across Europe became
contaminated.  Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, switched water supplies.
Food supplies across Europe became  Animal feed and food supplies were tested for radiation.
contaminated.  Food imports were restricted from the most affected countries.
Radioactive dust spread across Europe.  People across Europe were given iodine tablets to prevent radioactive 131
I
being taken into their thyroid gland.
People in the surrounding areas developed  Any external radioactive materials were washed off skin and clothes.
radiation sickness.  Blood transfusions were administered.
 Medication to promote white blood cell production was given.
 Medication which binds to heavy metals was provided.
Unfortunately, these measures weren’t enough to prevent everyone from being affected, and 237 people were
treated for acute radiation sickness after the disaster, of whom 31 died. An estimated 1 million people received
increased radiation doses due to the disaster, which led to an increase in thyroid cancer of over 6,000 cases
following the disaster. After the disaster, the incidence of birth defects in Belarus rose by up to 40 %. However,
there is a great deal of debate surrounding the attribution of these effects to the radiation from Chernobyl.
Clean-up
An estimated 600,000 workers were involved in the clean-up of nuclear material in the years following the accident.
Of these workers, 28 died from radiation sickness, and the rates of cancer are four times higher than in the general
population. In the hours following the disaster, the responding emergency workers were not made aware of the
dangers associated with the leaking reactor, and it was these workers who suffered the most fatalities.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was decommissioned after the explosion, and the nuclear reactor was encased
in concrete. 270,000 people were evacuated from the immediate area, including the city of Pripyat.
Today
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is an area with
a radius of 30 km around the reactor in which
access is strictly limited. However, the region is
not completely abandoned; people work in the
area to control the radioactive fallout of the
disaster, and tourists frequently visit the area.
People working in the exclusion zone are closely
monitored for radiation levels, and the time
they spend in the zone is restricted.
The wildlife in the area around the reactor was

significantly affected by the radiation. Many
plants animals died, and the soil in the area
became contaminated. Biodiversity has fallen
dramatically and many animals are born
The New Safe Confinement is an enormous concrete shell placed over the entire
deformed or significantly smaller than usual. reactor at Chernobyl
However, wildlife is returning to the area, and some argue that the impact of the disaster on wildlife was less
dramatic than the impact of humans building up the area. Radiotrophic fungi which can convert radiation into
energy, in a process similar to photosynthesis, have been found within the reactor itself.
Following the disaster, a sarcophagus was placed around the reactor to prevent nuclear waste escaping; however,
this was not intended to be a permanent facility and fell into disrepair. In 2016, an enormous concrete shell was
placed over the reactor and sarcophagus. The shell is intended to stand for 100 years, during which time the
remaining nuclear fuel will be collected and stored.
Fukushima Daiichi
On 11th March 2011, an earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami. While the reactor shut down
following the earthquake, the tsunami damaged the generators for the cooling pumps to the reactors. The lack of
cooling led to a conventional explosion. The explosion released the second largest amount of radiation released in
a single event after the Chernobyl disaster.
150,000 thousand residents were evacuated from a 30 km radius surrounding the power plant. While there have
been no deaths due to exposure to radiation, it is estimated that the increased rate of cancer due to radiation
exposure could kill several hundred people.
Seafood and vegetables from the area around the power plant showed increased levels of radiation for some time;
however, by 2012 this increase in radiation had become small enough to be negligible.
1. What was the common cause of both the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters?
2. Were the effects of the disasters short-term or long-term? Give examples.
3. What is the most important short-term response to managing nuclear disasters?
It’s important for society to move away from fossil fuels for energy production, and nuclear power
provides an effective alternative – do the benefits of nuclear power outweigh the potential risks?
 Extension
Do some research and make a poster of all the safety features that are used in nuclear reactors to stop
nuclear disasters such as those at Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi.
 Further reading
For more information on the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement covering, go to:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170101-a-new-tomb-for-the-most-dangerous-disaster-site-
Go to zzed.uk/9845
in-the-world
Fusion Confusion
Achieving energy from nuclear fusion
7(c) Fission and fusion
Keywords
Nucleus The centre of the atom, containing protons and neutrons and making up most of the mass
of the atom
Nucleon The component parts of a nucleus: protons and neutrons
Nuclear fission A single large nucleus splitting into two lighter nuclei and releasing energy
Nuclear fusion Two light nuclei joining together to make a larger nuclei, releasing energy
Tokamak A machine which creates huge magnetic fields to contain the plasma required for fusion
In 1905, Albert Einstein put forward his theory of special relativity. Not only did this theory revolutionise the way
scientists understand space and time, but it also changed the way matter was understood through a simple equation.
Mass–energy equivalence
E=m c states that energy and mass are the same and it’s
2
possible to convert mass into energy, and create matter from

pure energy. This effect doesn’t affect the world on a large scale,
but rather on the atomic scale.
Heavy nuclei release energy by undergoing fission, whereby a

nucleus splits into two or more smaller nuclei. In fission, the sum
of the masses of these products doesn’t add up to the mass of
the original nucleus, though – there is missing mass! This missing
mass has been converted into energy.
Light nuclei can release energy through another process called

fusion, whereby light nuclei join to create a single, larger nucleus.
In fusion, the masses of the lighter nuclei add up to a greater
mass than the resultant nucleus – again, this missing mass has
been converted into energy. The enormous gravitational pressures at the core of the
Sun and other stars are high enough to ignite fusion.
Fusion releases enormous amounts of energy – the energy from
the Sun and all other stars comes from fusion of hydrogen at their cores.
But where does this energy come from? As the stars shine, they lose mass, converting the mass directly into light.
Nuclei are held together with binding energy. Higher binding energies per nucleon mean that the nucleus is more
energetically stable. As the atoms are joined together, they lose mass and binding energy, which is carried away by
light.
Breaking barriers
So why don’t all light nuclei fuse and all heavy nuclei break apart, if it’s energetically favourable?
Fusion can’t just happen spontaneously and requires incredibly high temperatures. This is because all nuclei are
positive, so they repel. For light nuclei to fuse, they first have to break through the barrier set up by this repulsion,
and get close enough that the attractive forces holding the nucleus together become dominant.
+¿ +¿
Magnetic fields are produced around a tokamak.

Plasma follows the magnetic field lines, and is +¿
contained in the tokamak. +¿
Like charges repel each other, so they can’t be brought together very easily.
The top diagram shows the electric field lines between two positive particles; the bottom one shows the path of two
positive charges fired close to each other.
Fission only occurs in large, unstable nuclei with a lot of energy. Other nuclei are held together by a force called the
strong nuclear force, which only affects particles such as protons and neutrons.
The Big Bang

During the Cold War, the USA and the USSR were in a race to harness
the energies released in fusion processes. On 1 st November 1952, the
first fusion bomb was tested. To create the conditions necessary to
allow fusion, a fission bomb was detonated, which compressed
deuterium (hydrogen with an additional neutron) to the enormous
temperatures and pressures required for fusion.
This explosion was enough to force the deuterium nuclei together to

create helium and lithium, which in turn released even more energy
and created an even larger explosion. The force of the fusion bomb was
great enough to create a crater with a diameter of 1.9 km and a depth Fusion has been achieved in hydrogen bombs, but
of 50 m. this isn’t a very good method of generating energy!
Energy of tomorrow
Having seen the energy available from nuclear fusion, scientists were
determined to use fusion not just for its potential destructive properties but as
a means of producing clean, safe energy.
But setting off an explosion to generate energy isn’t very efficient at all!
Scientists had to release the energy slowly over time in a way that didn’t waste
the energy released.
In tokamaks (nuclear fusion reactors), light nuclei such as hydrogen or

helium are raised to incredibly high temperatures using pulsed radio
waves to vibrate atoms (in the same way as a microwave heats up food)
to turn them into plasma, a state of matter in which atoms are stripped
of their electrons. Tokamaks are doughnut-shaped chambers with
incredibly high magnetic fields – the charged plasma is contained by the magnetic fields in the tokamak, so that
the heat and pressure of the plasma are kept high.
The heat and pressure of the plasma are enough to initiate fusion, releasing huge amounts of heat – this heat can
be converted to electricity by converting water to steam and turning huge turbines, much like a conventional
power generator.
Other fusion reactors use high-power lasers to crush samples of light elements under huge pressures, initiating
fusion. These lasers are produced in short bursts, so the fusion occurs in pulses.
Overcoming obstacles
All this isn’t easy, and several problems need to be solved before fusion could be a viable energy source.
 While fusion releases large amounts of energy, even more energy is used in creating the conditions needed
for fusion than can be released by fusion. If fusion is ever to become a viable method of generating energy,
the techniques used to generate and contain plasma will need to become much more efficient.
 The conditions for fusion pose a risk to the reactor itself. Any tokamak will have to be able to withstand the
same temperatures as the core of the Sun, at which most conventional materials stop having any kind of
structural integrity. A tokamak will also be affected by the magnetic fields it generates – any magnetic materials
used in the structure will be pushed and pulled by the magnetic fields required to keep the plasma together. A
tokamak might be able to withstand short periods of fusion, but over sustained use will be likely to fall apart.
 Most fusion generators can only work for short periods of time, while electricity is needed constantly. For
fusion to meet society’s energy needs, fusion will have to become sustained or the energy will need to be
stored between these periods.
 Finally, the materials needed for fusion themselves pose hurdles to fusion as a power source. Some, such as
helium-4, helium-3 and tritium, are either rare or need to be produced by neutron bombardment. Helium-4
reserves are already critically low and are becoming more and more important for applications such as cooling
superconductors and arc welding. Helium-3 is even rarer than helium-4, although there is more of it on the
Moon than on Earth!
1. How does nuclear fusion release energy?
2. How does a tokamak initiate fusion?
3. What are the main obstacles to producing power via fusion?
Despite the challenges of generating power through fusion, research into fusion has been a top priority for
many countries. Why is fusion research so important?
 Extension
Given below are two nuclear reactions and the masses of the reactants and products.
2 3 4 1
1 D + 1T → 2 He+ 0n
3 3 4 2
2 He + 1 T → 2He + 1D
1 3
0 n =¿ 1.008664 u 2 He=¿ 3.016029 u
2 4
1 D=¿ 2.014101 u 2 He=¿ 4.002602 u
3
1 T =¿ 3.016049 u
Which of the reactions releases the most mass? What does this mean for the amount of energy released?
 Further reading
For information on fusion, including specific fusion experiments, go to: Go to zzed.uk/9845
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-
power.aspx
Catast-eroids
Asteroids – they’ve killed before and they’ll kill again
8(b) Motion in the universe
Keywords
Asteroid A rocky or metallic object in space. Many asteroids are in the asteroid belt between Mars and
Jupiter.
Meteoroid A rocky or metallic object in space, somewhat smaller than an asteroid
Meteor A meteoroid that has entered Earth’s atmosphere. Also known as a ‘shooting star’.
Meteorite A meteor that reaches Earth’s surface
Impact event An object entering Earth’s atmosphere and either striking Earth or disintegrating in an airburst,
so that the effects are felt on Earth
Impact crater The site of an impact event on the ground, where rock and dust were thrown up, leaving a crater
On the morning of 30th June 1908, near the Stony Tunguska River in Siberia, a group of indigenous
Evenki people and Russian settlers in the hills near Lake Baikal saw a streak of blue light falling from the
sky, said to be brighter than the Sun. This was followed by a flash and the sound of an explosion, and a
shockwave that knocked people to the ground and shattered windows several kilometres away.
When an expedition went to investigate the site of the

apparent explosion, over 2000 km2 of trees had been
completely flattened, although no human casualties were
recorded. The event would come to be known as the
Tunguska event, and is the largest observed impact event in
recorded history.
The Tunguska event

It is believed that a meteoroid with a diameter of around 60
m (or a less dense comet with a diameter of 190 m) struck
through the atmosphere above the Tunguska region, and The Tunguska event flattened an entire forest
disintegrated at an altitude of 8.5 km. Because the meteor
didn’t strike Earth, no impact crater was created, instead
producing the large explosion and damage to the forest
observed.
The meteor entered the atmosphere at an estimated speed

of 15 000 m/s. The friction of the air hitting the meteor
caused it to heat to 2000 K and burn up, vaporising the
surface of the meteor and ionising the air around it, causing
the column of light seen. As the hot vapour hit the
atmosphere, it rapidly cooled and expanded, causing the
huge explosion. The event is estimated to have released over
60 000 TJ (60 × 1015 joules), equivalent to 15 megatons of
TNT being detonated – five times more than the combined
explosives used over the course of World War II.
A meteor burning up in the atmosphere
Did you know?
The explosion didn’t just affect the immediate surroundings, or even just Siberia. The explosion caused
Between Mars and Jupiter there is a wide ring of
tremors equivalent to those produced by an earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale, with
asteroids called the asteroid belt.
pressure waves experienced as far away as Great Britain. The increased amount of ice and dust particles
in the atmosphere caused the skies across Europe and AsiaFurther out, past
to glow Neptune,
for several the Kuiper
nights, belt
as light is
reflected
another ring of asteroids.
back to Earth, and in the United States, at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, there was reduced
visibility for around a month. At the very edge of our solar system there might be
an enormous cloud of icy bodies called the Oort
Although the Tunguska event was the largest cloud, where all comets originally come from.
observed impact event in recorded history, it
was by no means the last. Tens of thousands
of meteors enter Earth’s atmosphere every year,
but most are far too small to reach Earth before
burning up, or even to be seen. In fact, only 500
meteorites reach the surface of Earth every
year, and events that cause significant
explosions in the upper atmosphere occur
about once a year.
In 2013, a meteor entered Earth’s atmosphere

above the city of Chelyabinsk in the Ural
Mountains region of Russia. It disintegrated, Did you know?
causing an explosion which injured over 1500
Meteors and meteorites are more common than you
people. This was the largest recorded observed might think! Most meteors aren’t observed because
impact event since the Tunguska event, and the most of Earth is unpopulated.
largest to occur above a populated region.
Similarly, many meteors are so small that the
human eye can’t see them falling.
What killed the dinosaurs?
Meteors that disintegrate in Earth’s atmosphere
can cause massive damage, but they can cause
much more damage if they reach Earth’s
surface.
On the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, there is an

enormous circular basin, around 20 km in
depth and 180 km in diameter, extending into
the sea. This is the impact crater of an
enormous asteroid that struck Earth 65 million
years ago. This is the Chicxulub crater and is The location of the Chicxulub crater in Mexico
likely to be the impact crater left from the
asteroid that could have killed the dinosaurs.
Ridge
Dome
Basin
The shape of the Chicxulub crater
An asteroid 10–15 km across hit the surface of Earth, causing a massive explosion and triggering
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions around the globe. Rocks and dust were thrown into the atmosphere,
and a tsunami over 100 m high was triggered, spreading all the way to what is now Texas and Florida.
The impact would have made Earth’s surface briefly act like a liquid, rippling outwards from the centre of
the impact like the surface of a pond after a stone is dropped in. It is this that caused the shape of the
impact crater, with its ridges and central peak.
Aside from the initial impact and effects immediately killing plants and animals for many kilometres
around, the dust and gases thrown up from the impact and subsequent volcanic eruptions would have
smothered Earth. This would have caused a massive drop in both temperature and light levels, killing not
only many cold-blooded animals such as dinosaurs, but
disrupting photosynthesis, killing off plants and massively Did you know?
disrupting the food chain. Small animals, which need less
food, could outcompete the larger dinosaurs. The asteroid that created the Chicxulub
crater wouldn’t have necessarily killed the
The Chicxulub crater is not even the biggest impact crater dinosaurs under the right conditions. If it had
on Earth. The largest impact crater, the Vredefort crater hit marginally sooner or later, the impact
zone would have been in the deep ocean,
in South Africa, was 300 km in diameter, much of which
lessening the effect the impact had.
has been covered by sediment over the years. This crater
was formed 2 billion years ago by an asteroid 15 km across.
Asteroid deflection
With the potential damage of any impact with Earth, the search for ways to protect ourselves is
underway. Several space agencies such as NASA and the European Space Agency keep track of near-
Earth objects in the hopes of detecting any that are on a collision course with Earth.
If an asteroid were to be on track to strike Earth, there could be a number of ways to deal with the threat.
Some, such as crashing a spacecraft into the asteroid, would hope to change the momentum in a sudden
impact, enough to deflect the asteroid away from Earth, but any spacecraft is likely to be far too small to
make enough of a difference. The solution could be to detonate a nuclear weapon on the spacecraft after
the impact to increase the change in momentum, but this too might not be enough, or might simply break
up the asteroid into several deadly pieces.
Other methods involve a more gradual change of momentum, such as several spacecraft using their thrusters
to nudge the asteroid out of the way, an ion beam pushing it bit by bit, or a laser could be used to slowly
vaporise the asteroid, removing its mass and destructive capabilities. However, any of these options might be
too slow in an emergency situation.
1. How can meteors cause damage and destruction without even reaching the ground?
2. What were the effects of the asteroid impact that created the Chicxulub crater in Mexico?
3. What methods could be used to deflect asteroids from Earth?
The chances of an asteroid hitting Earth and creating a catastrophe are low, but the consequences
could be massive. Should countries spend potentially billions of pounds in researching
technologies that might never be used?
 Extension
In 2016, the Philae lander from the Rosetta probe landed on the asteroid 67P. Do some research,
and write three paragraphs on:
• what information the Philae lander gathered from the asteroid
• what asteroids can tell us about the formation of the solar system
• why landing on an asteroid can give us more information than studying meteorites that have
fallen to Earth
 Further reading
To learn about how asteroids could affect Earth, and what scientists are doing to prevent it,
watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjECbQ1r-k0  Go to zzed.uk/9845
Absolute Luna-cy
How the Moon formed
Keywords
The Moon Earth’s only natural satellite
Natural satellite An object orbiting a planet, that isn’t man-made
Tides The effect of the Moon pulling on Earth’s oceans, causing them to rise and fall
Theia A hypothetical planet that might have crashed into Earth millions of years ago, and later
formed the Moon
Angular momentum A property that rotating objects have. Angular momentum is always conserved.
Luna mare A dark patch of rocks on the Moon from ancient volcanic eruptions (plural: maria)
For thousands of years Earth’s only natural satellite, the Moon, has been the subject of wonder and
even worship, with many religions and mythologies putting the Moon, and its relationship with tides, the
Sun and time, at their very centre. All of these peoples wanted to understand what the Moon was, and
where it had come from – questions which can now be answered.
Catastro-Theia
There are many theories about how Earth’s moon formed. Early Earth would not have had a moon, but
rather captured the object that would later become the Moon. For many years it was assumed that the
gravity of early Earth had captured a nearby object in the solar system, which then fell into orbit.
However, samples taken during the first Moon landing, Apollo 11, showed that the composition of the
Moon’s crust is very similar to Earth’s. The chances of two unrelated bodies in the early solar system
having the same composition are very low, suggesting that the two were once closely related.
A planet called Theia was proposed to account for this. Did you know?
Theia could have been a planet about the size of Mars
Some of the moons of Saturn were created
which shared a similar orbit to early Earth. Over time, the by material in Saturn’s rings (below)
gravitational influence of Jupiter and Venus brought clumping together.
early Earth and Theia close together, until Theia crashed
into Earth. Meanwhile, the moons of Mars may slowly
be falling apart, and may one day form rings
This collision threw debris from both Theia and early around Mars.
Earth into orbit around early Earth, while some material
from Theia was incorporated into early Earth. This
explains why the crust of the Moon and Earth are so
similar – they both have the same origin.
Floating away
Angular momentum comes from an object rotating. An
object’s angular momentum depends on:
 the rate of the object’s rotation
 the radius of the object’s rotation
 the object’s mass
Angular momentum is always conserved – the angular momentum before and after an event should add
up to the same amount.
When the Moon first formed, it would have been much closer to Earth. To conserve angular momentum,
the orbit of the Moon and the length of a day on Earth would have been much shorter.
One theory of the development of life on Earth depends on this shorter day. The proximity of the Moon
would have caused extreme tides on Earth, drawing the sea inland and back out on a much more rapid
scale than the current tidal system.
This quick changing of tides on such a large Did you know?

scale would have provided a constant flow of
chemicals. At high tide, these chemicals could Solar eclipses happen when the Moon aligns so that it
mix and react – the seawater acting as a covers the Sun, as viewed from Earth.
solvent. However, large molecules, such as The Moon appears to fit perfectly over the Sun during
amino acids, need a solid surface to form on – an eclipse because the ratio of the distance between the
this was provided when the tide receded, and Sun and Moon to the Earth is exactly the ratio of the size
the chemicals were left on the ground, and of the Sun to the size of the Moon.
could form larger molecules. These large
molecules could have gone on to be the This doesn’t happen anywhere else is the solar system!
building blocks of life.
One of the biggest effects the Moon has had on Earth is stability – the Moon’s gravitational influence has
kept the axis and orbit of Earth relatively stable over its long history, keeping the climate stable and
allowing life to flourish. Other planets have much smaller moons compared to their own mass, which
can’t provide a stabilising effect in the same way.
Lunar craters
Looking up at the Moon, you may have noticed that it’s not a perfectly smooth circle of white – there are
large, dark patches in various shapes over the surface. The largest of these are maria – the cooled
remnants of ancient volcanic eruptions – but the smaller, circular patches are impacts from asteroids
colliding with the surface of the Moon.
As the Moon has no atmosphere, it is at much greater risk of impacts

from asteroids – if the same asteroids were to hit Earth, they would
burn up harmlessly in Earth’s atmosphere, and only the largest
asteroids would be able to reach Earth’s surface.
The Moon may also protect Earth from asteroid impacts. Before any
object reaches Earth, it has to pass the orbit of the Moon. If it passes
too close to the Moon, it can be deflected back into deep space, or
even crash directly into the Moon itself.
It was once believed that Jupiter played a similar role, deflecting

The maria on the Moon’s surface are ancient
asteroids from the outer solar system before they reach Earth. volcanic eruptions and impact craters
However, recent studies have suggested that the exact opposite may
occur – Jupiter may dislodge objects in the asteroid belt as it passes nearby, causing them to scatter into
the rest of the solar system, some towards Earth.
Did you know? Did you know?

Moons aren’t always smaller than planets – Several moons aren’t spherical –
both Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, and Titan, Hyperion (left), a moon of
a moon of Saturn, are larger than Mercury. Saturn, and Deimos and Phobos,
They’re still moons though, as they orbit the moons of Mars, aren’t large
planets rather than the Sun. enough for their gravity to cause
them to form a sphere. All three
However, moons are always smaller than the are elongated and lumpy, and
planet they orbit. rotate erratically.
1. Describe how the hypothetical planet Theia might have led to the formation of Earth’s moon.
2. Describe and explain the effects of the Moon slowly drifting away from Earth.
3. How does the Moon help to make Earth suitable for life?
During the 1960s, America spent billions of dollars putting people on the surface of the Moon.
Are the scientific developments from the project worth the amount of money spent? Could the
same discoveries and innovations have been made without the lunar landing projects?
 Extension
Write a description of what Earth would be like without the Moon.
What would physically be different? Would humans have ever evolved? What effects wouldn’t be
possible?
 Further reading
The Apollo 11 mission saw the first person stand on a celestial body other than
Earth. To find out more, go to: Go to zzed.uk/9845
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo11.html
Out of This World
The search for other planets and life on them
Keywords
Exoplanets Planets orbiting stars other than our sun
Doppler effect The wavelength of light shifting as its source moves towards or away from the observer
Red shift Increased wavelength of light because of a light source moving away from the observer
Blue shift Decreased wavelength of light because of a light source moving towards the observer
Transit method A technique used to discover exoplanets by detecting planets blocking light from a star
Habitable zone The region around a star that liquid water (and so maybe life as well) can exist around a star
It’s one of the oldest questions in science, and the inspiration for countless books, films and TV shows: is
there life on other planets? Or is Earth the only planet with life?
A place to call home

Before scientists can discuss whether there might be life on other planets, they first need to decide
whether there are other planets at all!
Humanity has known about the seven other planets in our solar system for thousands of years, but what
about other solar systems? Are there planets around other stars? For many years scientists could only
guess, but recently many exoplanets have been found.
The Kepler space telescope has discovered thousands of exoplanets since it was launched in 2009.
Kepler has two main ways of detecting planets.
World turning
A planet does not orbit exactly around the centre of a star. Planets are much smaller than stars, but their
gravitational influence is still big enough to have an effect! The combined centre of mass of a planet
and star generally lies within the star, but is offset towards the planet.
Star
Planet
Centre
#
of mass
Star and planet both orbit

around the centre of mass
#
Centre of mass stays in
the same place
This means that both the planet and star orbit their common centre of mass, but the star’s orbit has a much
smaller radius. From Earth, the star appears to ‘wobble’ – move backwards and forwards as it orbits with
the planet. This is due to the Doppler effect – as the star moves towards us its light is blue shifted; as it
moves away, the light is red shifted.
This constant push and pull of the star means a graph like the one below will be produced.
150
Red shift
100
50
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 Time/4 years
-50
-100
-150
The period of the graph above gives the time it takes for the planet to orbit the star. The period of a
planets orbit is related to:
 the planet’s radius of orbit
 the mass of the planet
 the mass of the star
This means that we can learn a lot of information from detecting planets
this way.
Total eclipse of the star

The other way Kepler can detect exoplanets is by detecting the light
from stars. As a planet passes in front of the star it orbits, it blocks the Venus (bottom left) passes in front
light from the star, reducing the amount of light we see from the star. of the Sun and blocks out a small
amount of light
This is called the transit method.
The transit method produces a graph like the one below.

Brightness of star
Time/ days
The amount of light blocked can provide information about the size of the planet compared to the size
of the star.
The transit method also provides information about the planet’s atmosphere. As light passes through the
planet’s atmosphere, different chemicals absorb different wavelengths of light, removing these
wavelengths from the spectrum of light from the star. This means that we can determine the chemical
composition of the atmosphere of the planet (if it has an atmosphere).
Distance from
Exoplanet or star Fact
Earth (light years)
Proxima Centauri b 4.2 Closest exoplanet discovered
SWEEPS-11 and SWEEPS-
28 000 Most distant exoplanets discovered
04
Star system with the highest number of exoplanets
HD-10180 (star) 127
discovered; 9
Star system with the highest number of exoplanets
TRAPPIST-1 (star) 39
discovered in the habitable zone; 3
HD 114762 b 126 First exoplanet discovered; in 1989
First exoplanet discovered not to orbit a star
S Ori 70 1150
(unconfirmed; may itself be a brown dwarf star)
Kepler-22b 600 First exoplanet discovered in the habitable zone
A starman waiting in the sky

Can these exoplanets support life? Are all the factors allowing Earth to sustain life just a fluke? There are
billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars – the chances that we’re the only planet with just the right
conditions for life to develop are slim.
But what are the right conditions for life? Earth exists
Did you know?
in a region around the Sun called the habitable zone
– a region that liquid water can exist in without Liquid water might not be entirely necessary for
automatically freezing or evaporating. Most scientists life – Saturn’s moon Titan has rivers, oceans and
agree that life couldn’t exist without liquid water. lakes of liquid methane that have a similar cycle
to water on Earth. Could this methane cycle
support life?
There are other factors protecting life on Earth. The
Moon protects Earth from devastating asteroid
impacts periodically destroying life on Earth. Earth’s
magnetic field protects Earth from devastating Did you know?
cosmic radiation. If the Sun was even a different
type of star, such as a red dwarf or blue giant, it The habitable zone only describes the region that
might be too cold to sustain life or its radiation liquid water can exist due to the star. Other
might kill all life. effects, such as tidal forces and friction in the
cores of Enceladus and Europa, could potentially
sustain life, even outside of the habitable zone.
If life does exist on other planets, why have we not
found it? Even the nearest stars are so far away that
we may never be able to make physical contact with
alien civilisations. But that doesn’t mean we can’t
make contact.
The SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) programme is a series
of research projects trying to detect signals from intelligent societies
and sending out signals from humanity to these potential other
societies.
SETI primarily searches for patterns of radio signals at specific

frequencies, such as hydrogen absorption frequencies, which are
Kepler-186f is the first rocky exoplanet constant across the universe, so all advanced civilisations would
discovered in the habitable zone understand the significance. Regular, complicated patterns are
unlikely to be found in nature, so point to life among the stars.
1. How does the Doppler method of detecting exoplanets work?

2. How does the transit method of detecting exoplanets work?
3. What is the habitable zone?
Do you think life exists on other planets? What about intelligent life? What factors do you think
are important for life to develop?
 Extension
The Drake equation estimates the chances of contacting extraterrestrial life.
The Drake equation is

N=R ¿ f p n c f l f i f c L
where N=¿ number of broadcasting civilisations, R¿ =¿ rate of star production within our galaxy, f p=¿ fraction of stars which
form planets, n c=¿ number of planets per star that could support life, f l =¿ fraction of these planets that develop life, f i =¿
fraction of planets with life that develops intelligent civilisation, f c =¿ fraction of these civilisations that develop the ability to transmit
signals into space, and L=¿ length of time which such civilisations transmit signals for.
For each of the factors, write a sentence explaining how difficult you think each one is to judge.
If you had to write an equation for the chances of life evolving somewhere, what factors would
you include?
 Further reading
To learn more about the search for extraterrestrial life, watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyF9LLDL6-k
To learn more about specific exoplanets, go to:

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/  Go to zzed.uk/9845
Going Out with a Bang
The start, and end, of the universe
8(d) Cosmology
Keywords
Doppler effect Changes in wavelength as a wave source moves relative to an observer
Red shift The wavelength of light increasing so that it appears more red as the source
moves away from the observer
Big Bang theory The theory describing the start of the universe as an expansion of all matter
from a single point
Cosmic microwave background Radiation left over from the Big Bang
Dark energy Energy from an unknown source which could be increasing the expansion of
the universe
Black hole An object that’s so dense that nothing can escape its gravity, not even light
In the 1930s, an astronomer called Edwin Hubble made an astonishing discovery – distant galaxies were
moving away from Earth, and the more distant they were, the faster they receded. This observation had
huge consequences for the universe, how it was created, and how it might one day end.
Direction of
Seeing red
The Doppler effect is the changing of wavelength due to
the relative motion of the wave source. Light emitted from
a star moving away from us gets stretched so that its
wavelength increases – for visible light this makes the
For a moving wave source, wavefronts
light appear redder, so this light is said to be red shifted. are pushed together in the direction of
Light from a star moving towards us is squashed so that motion, and spread out behind.
the wavelength decreases and the light appears bluer, so

the light is blue shifted.
Edwin Hubble noticed that light from stars from within our own galaxy, the Milky Way, was either blue
shifted or red shifted as the stars orbited the centre of the Milky Way, but light from other galaxies was
all red shifted; and, the further away the galaxy was, the more red shifted light from it was. This suggest
something interesting – all galaxies are moving away from each other, and the further they are, the faster
they move.
This isn’t due to some special property of Earth or the Milky Way that’s repelling all other galaxies.
Instead, it’s the space between all galaxies that’s expanding, so all galaxies are spreading away from each
other, all at the same time, with no centre of expansion.
Origin story
If we imagine going back in time and reversing this expansion, we’d expect the galaxies to instead get
closer and closer together. Following this logic, all of the universe was once incredibly close together –
this is the Big Bang theory.
The Big Bang describes an event approximately 14 billion years ago. Before the Big Bang, all of the
matter in the universe was concentrated in a single, incredibly dense and incredibly hot point in space.
This exploded outwards, cooling as it expanded.
As the universe cooled, hydrogen and helium formed and began to attract to form dust, and, eventually,
stars. These stars fused hydrogen into higher mass elements, until galaxies, planets and everything else
formed.
The Big Bang released an enormous amount of energy – so much that some is still around today.
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is a constant low level of radiation left over from the Big
Bang. It’s been so long since the Big Bang that the CMB now only has a temperature of a few degrees
above absolute zero.
Stuck together
At the start of the universe, all the matter was Did you know?
compressed into a tiny region of space, which then There’s a supermassive black hole at the
expanded outwards. This is similar to a black hole. centre of most galaxies, including our own!
A black hole is the leftover core of a star much more These are black holes that are several billion
massive than our Sun. Black holes are so enormous times more massive than the Sun, and are so
that nothing can escape their gravity – not even light. large that entire galaxies orbit them.
The gravity in a black hole is so large that our
understanding of physics completely breaks down –
and it doesn’t help that we can’t see inside, since no
light can come out!
At the centre of a black hole is a singularity, where the matter

becomes so dense that gravity becomes infinitely high.
Surrounding this is an event horizon, the boundary at which light
can’t escape.
We can’t directly see black holes, but we can see their effects. As matter falls into black holes, a rotating disc
of matter forms. This heats up and gives off
When matter falls into a black hole it heats up so much that it
radiation in two beams.
releases huge bursts of high-energy gamma rays which are some
of the highest energy events we’ve ever detected on Earth.
Another way to observe the effects of black holes is to look at the orbits of stars around certain sections
of space. Stars that orbit around the centre of the
Milky Way move very quickly in
relatively small orbits. These orbits can only fully Did you know?
be explained by the presence of an enormous If you fell into a black hole, you’d get
mass that doesn’t take up much space – a black spaghettified!
hole.
Imagine falling into a black hole feet first. As you
Understanding black holes can give us insight approach the black hole, the gravity at your feet is
into the early universe – it’s the closest thing we so much stronger than the gravity at your head
can study to the incredibly high densities and that you’d begin stretching out – so much so that
temperatures that existed just fractions of a your atoms would be pulled apart!
second after the Big Bang.
End of the world
There are several possible things that can happen to the universe, depending on the amount of mass in
the universe.
The graph below shows the main possible fates of the universe.
Did you know?
Distance
Dark
All of this only energy
applies to our observable universe.
between
galaxies Outside of the region of space we can observe
(the region Open
of spaceuniverse
that light has been able to
travel across Flat
sinceuniverse
the start of the universe), there
may be many other universes that are isolated
from our own. The fate of each of these universes
Now might be different from our own.
Closed universe
Time
In an open universe, the rate of expansion of space is constant, so that galaxies move away from each
other forever at the same rate.
In a closed universe, there’s such a high amount of mass that eventually gravity overcomes the
expansion of space and everything gets attracted together again, in an event called the Big Crunch.
Some people think that this could have happened many times before, with each Big Crunch setting off a
Big Bang and creating a new universe, restarting the cycle.
In a flat universe, the mass in the universe is perfectly balanced with the expansion of space, so that
expansion slows and, over time, eventually stops, until the universe stays at one fixed size.
In the 1990s, another surprising observation
regarding the expansion of the universe was made. Did you know?
Not only were galaxies moving away from us, and
the space between expanding, but this process was Before Hubble’s discovery, most scientists
actually speeding up. thought that the universe had always been how
it is now.
The idea of dark energy was suggested to account
This caused some confusion – what was
for this – a form of energy that we can’t observe
stopping the universe collapsing under gravity?
from Earth, but which makes up 70 % of all the
energy in the universe. Dark energy acts against Einstein suggested a cosmological constant –
gravity, pushing galaxies apart even more than the energy that pushed against gravity and kept
residual expansion from the Big Bang. galaxies apart. This was proved unnecessary by
Hubble’s expansion, but later was used as an
Some physicists think that dark energy is a strange explanation for the accelerating expansion of
effect built into the very fabric of space itself, while the universe.
others believe that it comes from an unidentified
source that we just haven’t observed or properly
understood yet. However, other physicists believe that
dark energy might not exist at all, and the accelerating
universe is just a mistake made in measurements,
which they see as a more sensible explanation than
having to find 70 % of the universe!
If the universe expands forever, whether that’s in an open or flat universe, or one with accelerating
expansion due to dark energy, it will eventually suffer a heat death, where all matter and energy
becomes equally spread out, and no processes can occur.
If the universe is closed and one day collapses back in on itself, several things could happen. All the
matter in the universe might form a single, enormous black hole, or as the matter and energy come
closer together, it could begin to expand outwards again, forming another universe. Some scientists
believe that this Big Bounce could have happened many times, resulting in many different universes,
with each one creating the next.
1. Explain what the red shift of galaxies shows.

2. Describe the Big Bang.
3. Describe a black hole.
No matter how much data scientists gather, they can never look back into the past and observe
the early universe. How much evidence do you think is enough to make claims about things we
can’t see directly? Can scientists ever accurately predict these things?
 Extension
A person who has never really studied science claims that they don’t believe any of the theories
about the universe because there is ‘no evidence’. Using your own knowledge, and some extra
research if you can, write a one-page argument explaining the evidence for various theories about
the universe.
 Further reading
The Big Bang might have been more of a Big Bounce. To find out more, go to:
Go to zzed.uk/9845
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-the-universe-boot-up-with-a-big-bounce/
Comprehension Answers
How Deep is Your Sub?
1. Challenger Deep is the deepest point of the ocean. At increasing depths, there is a greater weight of water pressing
down, and so the water molecules are more compacted.
2. A large, buoyant tank filled with gas or with foam (as in the Deepsea Challenger) is used for buoyancy. Iron balls
are used for ballast. There is a strong, pressurised pilot cabin for the pilot(s) to sit in.
3.  Strong cell walls
 Small as possible
 Few cavities or weak points
Go with the Flow

1. Newtonian fluids have constant viscosity, which only depends on temperature. Non-Newtonian fluids change
viscosity with the force applied.
2. Particles suspended in the fluid get pushed together, increasing the friction between particles. Particles clump
together to form a wall.
3. Quicksand decreases, not increases, viscosity with force, as particles are pushed out of the way.
Out in the Cold

1. At low temperatures, particles lose kinetic energy and become quantum mechanically linked because they have
the same energy state.
2. Lasers are used to bombard particles from all directions, and then a magnetic field holds them completely still.
3. • Superfluidity – condensates do not experience friction or lose energy when moving

• Superconductivity – condensates have zero electrical resistance
• Slow down light to incredibly slow speeds, or even stop it completely
• Can be manipulated to act with ‘negative mass’ – accelerate in opposite direction to force
Top of the World

1. At high altitudes, pressure reduces. The air particles expand and do work, losing kinetic energy and cooling down.
Boiling points are lower that at sea level because there is less pressure on the surface of a liquid.
2. Decreased pressure means decreased oxygen – this leads to lower blood oxygen levels, and less oxygen available
to vital organs.
Decreased pressure also means decreased temperature, leading to a risk of hypothermia.
3. Climbers must acclimatise to oxygen levels, which can take weeks.
Acclimatisation happens when the body produces more blood cells to carry more oxygen.
Magnetic Magnitudes
1. The rotating charges of the atom act like spinning currents, generating a magnetic field. If all the atoms faced the
same way, the magnetic field would add up to one we could measure.
2. The magnetic field pulls electrons from the hot gases at the poles down towards the equator, exciting them and
causing them to release light.
3. The molecule would be torn into its constituent nuclei and electrons. The nuclei would stretch into long, spinning
rods.
Defying Gravity
1. The moving charges of a spinning atom produce a magnetic field. Because the spins of the atoms are aligned, the
magnetic fields add up to a much larger magnetic field
2. The non-magnetic atoms in a frog (such as hydrogen and oxygen) are made to align using a very strong magnetic
field. This then causes them to act like magnetics, and the force produced causes them to float up.
3. It can levitate above the tracks, so there is no friction, and it can reach higher speeds and uses less energy.
Extension
A human is around 70–80 kg – about 375 times more massive than the frog.
This means that a magnet 375 times stronger than the 16 T needed for the frog would be needed – about 6,000 T.
In comparison, the strongest man-made magnetic field ever produced is around 45 T.

This is assuming that humans are composed of similar materials to frogs.
Particle Zoo
1. High-energy particles are accelerated at high energies towards each other so that they interact and new particles
are created.
2.
Matter
Hadrons Leptons
(e.g. electrons, muons,
neutrinos)
Baryons Mesons
(e.g. protons, (e.g. pions,
neutrons) kaons)
3. Antiproton – mass the same as a proton, charge of - 1

Antineutron – mass the same as a neutron, charge of 0
(The difference between neutrons and antineutrons is that antineutrons are made of antiquarks.)
Getting into the Carbon Dating Scene

1. Carbon-14 decays to carbon-12. The proportions of carbon-14 and carbon-12 can be compared to determine the
age of a sample.
2. Carbon-14 levels vary with time. It is not reliable over 60,000 years. Nuclear testing changes levels of carbon-14.
3. Different locations have different proportions of different oxygen isotopes. Comparing oxygen isotope levels in
bones to those in locations can place a person through their life.
Nuclear and Present Danger

1. The reactor overheating after a coolant failure
2. Some were short-term – radiation sickness, increased radiation in food supplies.
However, most are long-term – exclusion zones around the power plants, increased cancer rates.
3. Controlling and cleaning up the fallout of nuclear material.
Fusion Confusion
1. Two nuclei fuse into a nucleus with a lower mass than the two lighter nuclei. The missing mass is converted to energy.
2. Radio frequencies give energy to light atoms, which are stripped of electrons and become a plasma. The plasma is
contained by high-strength magnetic fields. The high temperatures and pressures force nuclei together.
3. • Energy output – higher energies are needed to create the conditions for fusion than can be gained from fusion.
• Reactors – the structure of the nuclear reactor itself is compromised by the conditions required for fusion.
• Time – energy is need continuously, whereas fusion reactors produce energy in short pulses.
• Materials – light nuclei that can undergo fusion are rare or difficult to produce.
Extension
Mass released ¿ starting mass – end mass
2 3 4 1
Reaction 1: 1D + 1T → 2 He + 0n
Starting mass ¿ 2.014101 +¿ 3.016049 ¿ 5.03015 u
End mass ¿ 4.002602 +¿ 1.008664 ¿ 5.011266 u
Mass released ¿ 5.03015−¿ 5.011266 ¿ 0.018884 u
3 3 4 2
Reaction 2: 2He + 1 T → 2He + 1D
Starting mass ¿ 3.016029 +¿ 3.016049 ¿ 6.032078 u
End mass ¿ 4.002602 +¿ 2.014101 ¿ 6.016703 u
Mass released ¿ 6.032078 – 6.016703 ¿ 0.015375 u
Reaction 1 releases the most mass, so releases the most energy.
In fact, reaction 1 releases 2.82 × 10–12 J for every single reaction, while reaction 2 releases 2.30 × 10–12 J.
Catast-eroids
1. As a meteor falls through the atmosphere, it burns up. As its core burns up, the rapid expansion of air causes an
explosion which can cause damage on the ground.
2. The surface of Earth acted as a liquid, and an enormous ripple spread out, causing earthquakes and tsunamis.
Debris was thrown into the air, blocking the Sun and causing global temperatures to drop, maybe killing off the
dinosaurs.
3. A sudden impact such as crashing a spacecraft or bomb onto the asteroid’s surface to knock it off course. Gradually
nudging the asteroid off track with ion beams or thrusters to change its momentum. Vaporising the asteroid using
lasers.
Absolute Luna-cy
1. A planet called Theia which had a similar object to Earth crashed into it, throwing matter into orbit around Earth,
which slowly came together as the Moon.
2. Earth’s rotation has slowed as the Moon has drifted away from Earth so that the angular momentum of Earth and
Moon doesn’t increase. This causes there to be less prominent tides and less extreme weather on Earth.
3. May help to deflect meteors before they crash into Earth. Also stabilises Earth’s axis and orbit, which helps provide
a stable axis for life.
Out of This World

1. As a planet orbits a star, the star ‘wobbles’ as it orbits their common centre of mass. This backwards and forwards
motion causes the light it emits to increase and decrease in wavelength, which can be detected.
2. As a planet passes a star, it absorbs and reflects some of the stars light, periodically reducing the light observed
from the star.
3. The region around a star in which liquid water, and, therefore, life, can exist.
Going Out with a Bang

1. Red shift is due to light sources moving away from the observer, so red shift shows that galaxies are moving away
from Earth. More distant galaxies move away more quickly.
2. At a point in the past, all of the universe occupied a single, incredibly dense and hot point in space. This expanded
outwards, creating the universe. This expansion continues today.
3. An object so massive that nothing can escape its gravity, not even light. The point from which light cannot escape is
the event horizon.

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Article Specification Reference

How Deep is Your Sub?

The Mariana Trench is an underwater continental plate

Measuring the deeps

In the twentieth century, much more accurate measurements would be taken

A bathyscaphe is a type of submarine used in deep-sea diving. A

Deepsea Challenger was built with no rivets, and no

James Cameron’s descent took two-and-a-half hours in

1. Why are the pressures in Challenger Deep so high?

Hot and cold

Ebb and flow

Particles with fluid between them

With all the particles closer together, the friction

Producing Bose–Einstein condensates

This light trap cools the atoms to around 10 millionths

Superconductors have some very interesting

1. What happens at low temperatures that allows Bose–Einstein condensates to form?

Top of the World

Mount Everest is the highest peak on Earth

A high-pressure gas (left) compared to a low-

With the increasing numbers of climbers on Everest comes an

Ironing out the kinks

can measure on more familiar scales.

The currents in the rotating plasma at a magnetar’s surface

1. How can the atoms of any element act like a magnet?

You spin me right round…

Is it a bird? A plane? A frog?

In 2000, Andre Geim and Michael Berry produced a magnetic field of 16

Applying this 16 T field to a frog produced a very strange effect.

The strong response of superconductors to magnetic fields has been

The superconductors that allow maglev trains to

A proposed Hyperloop will be a train route between

Inside the atom

When protons, neutrons and electrons were

Cosmic rays and the particle zoo

All particles have an antimatter equivalent. Antimatter seems identical

ConCERNing particle physics

1. How are new particles discovered?

3. What are the properties of an antiproton and antineutron?

Can you determine the quark compositions of protons and neutrons?

Carbon dating has some limitations.

Since the 1940s, nuclear testing has dramatically