Science for Kids — July 23: Fiery moons, phantom squid, and desert cats

Professor Pip patted his bulging green lab-coat pockets and pulled out a soft blob of orange clay. His crooked spectacles slid down his nose, and he pushed them back up with one paw.

"Ah! Just the thing," he said, setting the clay on the wooden lab table. Around him, Mia, Leo, and a new friend named Asha sat cross-legged in the warm amber lamplight.

"Today, my fellow scientists," Pip announced, "we're going to explore a moon that is on fire."

"On fire?!" gasped Mia.
"A whole moon?" said Leo, eyes wide.

"Precisely!" Pip's tail swished. "Its name is Io. It circles the giant planet Jupiter, and it has more erupting volcanoes than any other place we know."

He held up a striped tan-and-cream model of Jupiter, and beside it, a tiny orange model moon. "This week, a spacecraft called Juno peeked underneath Io's skin — like a doctor listening to your tummy. And guess what it heard?"

"What?" whispered Asha.

"Io is HOT beneath its surface. Much warmer than we thought. Toasty deep down inside."

Pip picked up the clay. "But why? Let's see." He began to squeeze and stretch it — SQUISH, PULL, SQUISH, PULL — rolling it fast between his paws. After a minute he held it out. "Touch it. Gently now."

Mia poked. "Whoa! It's warm!"

"Exactly right!" Pip beamed. "When something is squeezed and stretched over and over, its tiny pieces inside rub against each other. That rubbing makes heat. We call that friction."

He pointed at the model. "Now — Jupiter is enormous. So enormous that its gravity gives poor little Io a squeeze and a stretch every single time Io swings around it. Not once. Not twice. All the time. Forever."

"So Io is like a stress ball Jupiter keeps squishing?" Leo asked.

"OH MY WHISKERS! Yes, Leo! Precisely!" Pip clapped his paws. "That's called tidal heating. Jupiter's giant gravity keeps stretching Io into a slightly egg-shape, and all that squishing heats up the moon's insides until the heat bursts out — as volcanoes."

Asha's eyes went round. "So many volcanoes."

Pip looked out the window at the deepening dusk. "It's funny to think that big things nearby can change small things — even from a whole planet away. That's how the solar system talks to itself."

He handed each child a lump of clay. "Now you try. Squeeze, stretch, squeeze, stretch. Then feel."

Professor Pip crouched beside a big glass tub full of icy water. A tiny paper iceberg bobbed on the surface, and floating on the bottom of the tub was a bright-yellow toy submarine with a little camera on its nose.

"Come close, my fellow scientists," Pip whispered, pushing his crooked spectacles up. "Today we're going to meet a squid who has been hiding from us for a hundred years."

Mia leaned over the tub. Leo held the remote-control antenna. Their friend Theo grinned.

"Hiding?" Leo asked. "How do you hide from everybody?"

"Ah!" Pip's whiskers twitched. "This squid — the Arctic bobtail squid — lives very deep, in freezing cold water underneath the ice near Greenland. Humans can't swim there. It's too cold, too dark, and the pressure would squish us like grapes. So we've only ever caught them in nets. Nobody had ever seen a live one at home."

"That's so sad," said Mia. "Poor squid, never having a visitor."

"Ah, but this week — a visitor arrived!" Pip beamed. "Watch."

He nodded at Leo, who wiggled the remote. The yellow submarine hummed to life and slid gently down into the icy water. On a little screen beside the tub, they could see everything the sub's camera saw — bubbles, glimmering blue water, and then, tucked between two pebbles, a plump, big-eyed little squid.

"There she is!" gasped Theo.

"Precisely!" Pip whispered. "That's an underwater robot. Scientists call it an ROV — a Remotely Operated Vehicle. It carries a camera down where people can't go, and it sends pictures back up through a long cable. It's how a scientist can 'visit' the deepest, coldest, darkest places without ever leaving the ship."

Mia snapped her fingers. "It's like a doorbell camera! But for the ocean!"

"OH MY WHISKERS!" Pip laughed and clapped his paws. "Exactly right, Mia. A doorbell camera for the sea floor. And this week, the doorbell rang, and a little squid was standing on the porch."

He looked at the softly rippling water in the tub. "For a hundred years, that squid was going about her life — hunting, hiding, sleeping — and nobody knew what she looked like when she wasn't scared. Then one small robot went and said hello, quietly. And now we know."

Pip pulled three tiny paper notebooks from his pocket. "Now you try. Draw a creature you think might live somewhere nobody has ever looked. What color is it? Does it glow? Later, we'll compare."

Professor Pip knelt in the warm sand of a golden desert dune. His fluffy tail curled behind him, and his crooked spectacles glowed rose in the sunset light. From one bulging pocket he pulled out a small camera, and from another, a battered notebook labeled Notes.

"Sssshhh," he whispered. "Mia. Leo. Beatrix. Look — over there. Behind that little bush."

The children peered through their binoculars. Poking out from behind a scrubby desert bush was a small, sandy-colored face with enormous furry ears and huge, cautious eyes. A tiny paw pad flexed against the ground.

"A sand cat!" whispered Beatrix. "A real one!"

"Precisely!" Pip whispered back, tail swishing. "They're some of the shyest little cats in the world. They live in the desert, hide during the day, and hunt at night. For a hundred years, people wondered if they lived in the Libyan Sahara. But nobody could prove it."

"Why not?" Leo asked. "Just… tell people?"

Pip smiled, spectacles slipping. "Ah! But that's not enough in science, Leo. In science, we need evidence. We need something we can show. If I tell you a dragon lives in my closet, would you believe me?"

Mia giggled. "Nooo!"

"But if I showed you a photograph of the dragon?"

"Then I'd believe you!" she said.

"Exactly right!" Pip nodded. "A picture — or a video — is called photographic evidence. It's science's way of saying, 'I was here. This was real.'"

He raised his little camera. CLICK. "Now — a few years ago, a real photographer named Mohammed was in the Libyan desert, and he filmed a sand cat for just eighteen seconds. He put the video on the internet. Scientists saw it. Their whiskers stood on end! They knew — proof. Then, for eight years, more people helped find more sand cats, and now we know these little ghosts live in thirteen different parts of Libya."

Beatrix's eyes widened. "So Mohammed was a scientist too? Even with just a phone?"

"OH MY WHISKERS, yes!" Pip clapped. "When ordinary people help find and record real animals and plants, we call it citizen science. Anyone with a curious eye and a camera can help."

The desert breeze rustled the little bush. The sand cat blinked once, twice — and slipped silently away.

Pip looked at the dunes. "Sometimes the most important scientist in the world is a person with a camera at the right moment."

He handed each child a fresh page from his notebook. "Now you try. Next time you see a creature you can't name — a beetle, a bird, a squirrel — draw it, or ask a grown-up to photograph it. Write down where you were, and when. You may be helping a scientist too."