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Teachable Moments | March 9, 2023

10 Years of NASA's Pi Day Challenge

By Lyle Tavernier

Collage of illustrations featured in the 2023 NASA Pi Day Challenge

In this cartoonish illustration, various spacecraft are shown with notations such as circles and pi formulas. Text reads, NASA Pi Day Challenge Answers

Learn how pi is used by NASA and how many of its infinite digits have been calculated, then explore the science and engineering that makes the Pi Day Challenge possible.

Update: March 15, 2023 – The answers are here! Visit the NASA Pi Day Challenge page to view the illustrated answer keys for each problem.

This year marks the 10th installment of the NASA Pi Day Challenge. Celebrated on March 14, Pi Day is the annual holiday that pays tribute to the mathematical constant pi – the number that results from dividing any circle's circumference by its diameter.

Every year, Pi Day gives us a reason to celebrate the mathematical wonder that helps NASA explore the universe and enjoy our favorite sweet and savory pies. Students can join in the fun once again by using pi to explore Earth and space themselves in the NASA Pi Day Challenge.

Read on to learn more about the science behind this year's challenge and find out how students can put their math mettle to the test to solve real problems faced by NASA scientists and engineers as we explore Earth, Mars, asteroids, and beyond!

Jump To
Infographic of all of the Pi in the Sky 10 graphics and problems

Visit the Pi in the Sky 10 lesson page to explore classroom resources and downloads for the 2023 NASA Pi Day Challenge. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

The Perseverance rover approaches a lander on the surface of Mars. A small rocket flies toward an orbiter overhead while a Mars helicopter flies in the background. A partially illuminated Earth appears in the distnace.

This illustration shows a concept for multiple robots that would team up to ferry to Earth samples of rocks and soil being collected from the Martian surface by NASA's Mars Perseverance rover. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | › Full image and caption

An illustration shows the 18 hexagonal pieces that make up the primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope next to the primary mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope. The James Webb Mirror stands taller with a label that reads 6.5 meters in height, while the Hubble mirror is labled with a diameter of 2.4 meters. Two human figures are shown smaller than the Hubble mirror for comparison.

Image from animation comparing the relative sizes of James Webb's primary mirror to Hubble's primary mirror. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center . | › Full animation

An illustration shows the Psyche asteroid in a star field. The asteroid ranges in color from light grey to dark grey to brown and is covered with a rocky, cratered surface.

This illustration depicts the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, which is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU | + Full image and caption

A composite of four images of the sun, each being covered by progressively more of the sun. The final image shows the sun eclipsed by the moon with a ring of light showing behind the moon that is too small to cover the entire disk of the sun.

This image sequence shows an annular solar eclipse from May 2012. The bottom right frame illustrates the distinctive ring, or "annulus," of such eclipses. A similar eclipse will be visible from the South Pacific on May 10, 2013. Credits: Brocken Inaglory, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons | + Expand image

How It Works

Dividing any circle’s circumference by its diameter gives you an answer of pi, which is usually rounded to 3.14. Because pi is an irrational number, its decimal representation goes on forever and never repeats. In 2022, mathematician Simon Plouffe discovered the formula to calculate any single digit of pi. In the same year, teams around the world used cloud computing technology to calculate pi to 100 trillion digits. But you might be surprised to learn that for space exploration, NASA uses far fewer digits of pi.

Here at NASA, we use pi to measure the area of telescope mirrors, determine the composition of asteroids, and calculate the volume of rock samples. But pi isn’t just used for exploring the cosmos. Since pi can be used to find the area or circumference of round objects and the volume or surface area of shapes like cylinders, cones, and spheres, it is useful in all sorts of ways. Transportation teams use pi when determining the size of new subway tunnels. Electricians can use pi when calculating the current or voltage passing through circuits. And you might even use pi to figure out how much fencing is needed around a circular school garden bed.

In the United States, March 14 can be written as 3.14, which is why that date was chosen for celebrating all things pi. In 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution officially designating March 14 as Pi Day and encouraging teachers and students to celebrate the day with activities that teach students about pi. And that's precisely what the NASA Pi Day Challenge is all about!

The Science Behind the 2023 NASA Pi Day Challenge

This 10th installment of the NASA Pi Day Challenge includes four noodle-nudgers that get students using pi to calculate the amount of rock sampled by the Perseverance Mars rover, the light-collecting power of the James Webb Space Telescope, the composition of asteroid (16) Psyche, and the type of solar eclipse we can expect in October.

Read on to learn more about the science and engineering behind each problem or click the link below to jump right into the challenge.

› Take the NASA Pi Day Challenge

› Educators, get the lesson here!

Tubular Tally

NASA’s Mars rover, Perseverance, was designed to collect rock samples that will eventually be brought to Earth by a future mission. Sending objects from Mars to Earth is very difficult and something we've never done before. To keep the rock cores pristine on the journey to Earth, the rover hermetically seals them inside a specially designed sample tube. Once the samples are brought to Earth, scientists will be able to study them more closely with equipment that is too large to make the trip to Mars. In Tubular Tally, students use pi to determine the volume of a rock sample collected in a single tube.

Rad Reflection

When NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990, scientists hoped that the telescope, with its large mirror and sensitivity to ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light, would unlock secrets of the universe from an orbit high above the atmosphere. Indeed, their hope became reality. Hubble’s discoveries, which are made possible in part by its mirror, rewrote astronomy textbooks. In 2022, the next great observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, began exploring the infrared universe with an even larger mirror from a location beyond the orbit of the Moon. In Rad Reflection, students use pi to gain a new understanding of our ability to peer deep into the cosmos by comparing the area of Hubble’s primary mirror with the one on Webb.

Metal Math

Orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, the asteroid (16) Psyche is of particular interest to scientists because its surface may be metallic. Earth and other terrestrial planets have metal cores, but they are buried deep inside the planets, so they are difficult to study. By sending a spacecraft to study Psyche up close, scientists hope to learn more about terrestrial planet cores and our solar system’s history. That's where NASA's Psyche comes in. The mission will use specialized tools to study Psyche's composition from orbit. Determining how much metal exists on the asteroid is one of the key objectives of the mission. In Metal Math, students will do their own investigation of the asteroid's makeup, using pi to calculate the approximate density of Psyche and compare that to the density of known terrestrial materials.

Eclipsing Enigma

On Oct. 14, 2023, a solar eclipse will be visible across North and South America, as the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, blocking the Sun's light from our perspective. Because Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the Moon’s orbit around Earth are not perfect circles, the distances between them change throughout their orbits. Depending on those distances, the Sun's disk area might be fully or only partially blocked during a solar eclipse. In Eclipsing Enigma, students get a sneak peek at what to expect in October by using pi to determine how much of the Sun’s disk will be eclipsed by the Moon and whether to expect a total or annular eclipse.

Teach It

Celebrate Pi Day by getting students thinking like NASA scientists and engineers to solve real-world problems in the NASA Pi Day Challenge. In addition to solving this year’s challenge, you can also dig into the more than 30 puzzlers from previous challenges available in our Pi Day collection. Completing the problem set and reading about other ways NASA uses pi is a great way for students to see the importance of the M in STEM.

Pi Day Resources

Plus, join the conversation using the hashtag #NASAPiDayChallenge on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Related Lessons for Educators

Related Activities for Students

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TAGS: Pi Day, Pi, Math, NASA Pi Day Challenge, sun, moon, earth, eclipse, asteroid, psyche, sample return, mars, perseverance, jwst, webb, hubble, telescope, miri

  • Lyle Tavernier
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Lyle Tavernier, Educational Technology Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

    Lyle Tavernier is an educational technology specialist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When he’s not busy working in the areas of distance learning and instructional technology, you might find him running with his dog, cooking or planning his next trip.

READ MORE

Teachable Moments | May 6, 2016

A Teachable Moment You Can See! The Transit of Mercury

By Lyle Tavernier

UPDATE - May 9, 2016: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, spacecraft captured stunning images of the May 9, 2016 transit of Mercury. Visit the mission's Transit of Mercury page to see a collection of videos of the transit compiled using SDO images. And have students play "Can You Spot Mercury?" in our educational slideshow. 

In the News

It only happens about 13 times per century and hasn’t happened in nearly a decade, but on Monday, May 9, Mercury will transit the sun. A transit happens when a planet crosses in front of a star. From our perspective on Earth, we only ever see two planets transit the sun: Mercury and Venus. (Transits of Venus are even more rare. The next one won't happen until 2117!) On May 9, as Mercury passes in front of the sun, viewers around Earth (using the proper safety equipment) will be able to see a tiny dark spot moving slowly across the disk of the sun.

CAUTION: Looking directly at the sun can cause permanent vision damage – see below for tips on how to safely view the transit.

Why It's Important

Then and Now

In the early 1600s, Johannes Kepler discovered that both Mercury and Venus would transit the sun in 1631. It was fortunate timing: The telescope had been invented just 23 years earlier and the transits wouldn’t happen in the same year again until 13425. Kepler didn’t survive to see the transits, but French astronomer Pierre Gassendi became the first person to see the transit of Mercury (the transit of Venus wasn’t visible from Europe). It was soon understood that transits could be used as an opportunity to measure the apparent diameter – how large a planet appears from Earth – with great accuracy.

In 1677, Edmond Halley observed the transit of Mercury and realized that the parallax shift of the planet – the variation in Mercury’s apparent position against the disk of the sun as seen by observers at distant points on Earth – could be used to accurately measure the distance between the sun and Earth, which wasn’t known at the time.

Today, radar is used to measure the distance between Earth and the sun with greater precision than can be found using transit observations, but the transit of Mercury still provides scientists with opportunities for scientific investigation in two important areas: exospheres and exoplanets.

Exosphere Science

Some objects, like the moon and Mercury, were originally thought to have no atmosphere. But scientists have discovered that these bodies are actually surrounded in an ultra-thin atmosphere of gases called an exosphere. Scientists want to better understand the composition and density of the gases that make up Mercury’s exosphere and transits make that possible.

“When Mercury is in front of the sun, we can study the exosphere close to the planet,” said NASA scientist Rosemary Killen. “Sodium in the exosphere absorbs and re-emits a yellow-orange color from sunlight, and by measuring that absorption, we can learn about the density of gas there.”

Mercury transits the sun in 2006
This image of Mercury passing in front of the sun was captured on Nov. 8, 2006 by the Solar Optical Telescope, one of three primary instruments on the Hinode spacecraft. Image credit: Hinode JAXA/NASA/PPARC

Exoplanet Discoveries

When Mercury transits the sun, it causes a slight dip in the sun’s brightness as it blocks a tiny portion of the sun's light. Scientists discovered they could use that phenomenon to search for planets orbiting distant stars, called exoplanets, that are otherwise obscured from view by the light of the star. When measuring the brightness of far-off stars, a slight recurring dip in the light curve (a graph of light intensity) could indicate an exoplanet orbiting and transiting its star. NASA’s Kepler mission has found more than 1,000 exoplanets by looking for this telltale drop in brightness.

illustration of how transits are used to find exoplanets
This diagram shows how scientists use the light curves of distant stars to search for planets outside our solar system. A drop in the light curve, as illustrated here, is a good indication that there's a planet orbiting the observed star. Credit: NASA Ames

The Kepler mission measures the brightness of stars. The data will look like an EKG showing the heart beat. Whenever a planet passes in front of its parent star as viewed from the spacecraft, a tiny pulse or beat is produced. From the repeated beats, we can detect and verify the existence of Earth-size planets and learn about the orbit and size of the planet. Video credit: NASA Ames and Dana Berry

Additionally, scientists have begun exploring the exospheres of exoplanets. By observing the spectra of the light that passes through an exosphere – similar to how we study Mercury’s exosphere – scientists are beginning to understand the evolution of exoplanet atmospheres as well as the influence of stellar wind and magnetic fields.

Watch It

Mercury will appear as a tiny dot on the sun’s surface and will require a telescope or binoculars with a special solar filter to see. Looking at the sun directly or through a telescope without proper protection can lead to serious and permanent vision damage. Do not look directly at the sun without a solar filter.

The transit of Mercury will begin at 4:12 a.m. PDT, meaning by the time the sun rises on the West Coast, Mercury will have been transiting the sun for nearly two hours. Fortunately, it will take seven and a half hours for Mercury to completely cross the sun’s face, so there will be plenty of time for West Coast viewers to witness this event. See the transit map to learn when and where the transit will be visible.

Don’t have access to a telescope, binoculars or a solar filter? Visit the Night Sky Network website for the location of events near you where amateur astronomers will have viewing opportunities available.

NASA also will stream a live program on NASA TV and the agency’s Facebook page from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. PDT (10:30 to 11:30 a.m. EDT) -- an informal roundtable during which experts representing planetary, heliophysics and astrophysics will discuss the science behind the Mercury transit. Viewers can ask questions via Facebook and Twitter using #AskNASA.

Teach It

Here are two ways to turn the transit of Mercury into a lesson for students.

  • Exploring Exoplanets with Kepler - Students use math concepts related to transits to discover real-world data about Mercury, Venus and planets outside our solar system.
  • Pi in the Sky 3 - Try the "Sun Screen" problem on this illustrated math problem set that has students calculate the percentage drop in sunlight reaching Earth when Mercury transits.

Explore More

Transit Resources:

Exoplanet Resources:

TAGS: Transit, Transit of Mercury, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Exoplanets, Teach, Classroom Activities, Lessons,

  • Lyle Tavernier
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Lyle Tavernier, Educational Technology Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

    Lyle Tavernier is an educational technology specialist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When he’s not busy working in the areas of distance learning and instructional technology, you might find him running with his dog, cooking or planning his next trip.

READ MORE