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Astronomy

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.
I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


credit = Cats in Space Quoting Scientists (FB page)

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Sagan: We are made of star stuff.

 


 

New Site

Butterfly Nebula captured by the Hubble space telescope

 

Here’s How to Watch The Taurid Meteor Showers
It's that time again, 2023 edition
"The Northern Taurid and Southern Taurid meteor showers
peak on separate days over the next week. Here's how to
get the most out of the annual display of shooting stars
and fireballs."

 

2023 Astronomy Calendar with Monthly Highlights
Very good and fact-filled article that you you can use all year!

Astronomical Glossary Quick and handy online reference!

 

 

 

New Site

Astronomers Discover Rare Solar System

Where Planets Orbit in Mathematical Harmony

The “resonant” planets could provide insight about how
such systems form and evolve—and why our own solar
system is not synced up.

 

New Site

 

James Webb Space Telescope page

 


The Secrets Of The Universe
"Explore the universe from quarks to quasars!"


This excellent group of sites has amazing videos,
explains astronomy, astrophysics, photos suitable
for slide shows, so much to see!
Explanations of laws of physics, phenomena like
the Bernoulli Effect, comets, meteor, planets,
gravity waves, physics terms, and this:

 

 

 

The dark side of the moon

Rauf Ahmed of The Science Site
·
The moon passed between Nasa's Deep Space Climate Observatory
and the Earth, allowing the satellite to capture this rare image of
the moon's far side in full sunlight. We normally don't see this side
of the moon, as the moon is tidally locked to the earth and doesn't
rotate.

 





Big infographic about the asteroid belt



Asteroid Size Comparison


2:40 video slowly zooms out from a 4.9 meter rock to 939 km
Ceres! Includes other comets and asteroids, too.

 

Asteroids vs Meteors vs Comets A short NASA YouTube
video explains the difference, history, meteor showers,
and meteorites. Good animation and narrative.


COMET, METEOR OR ASTEROID - The REAL difference.
Similar to the previous site with more animation.

 


What Is a Barycenter?
From NASA's kid-friendly Space Place
explains what barycenters are and why they matter.

Nice explanations of centers of mass and centers of gravity.
Also discusses how barycenter mathematics helps the hunt
for new planets.

 

Viewing the Lyrids
Yes, it's from 2020, it's still relevant, lots of
information with amazing zoom-in zoom-out animation

 

 


A crack in the Earth's magnetic field over the weekend
(not uncommon around the Equinox) allowed the Solar Wind to
pour in over Norway. The result? A fantastic display of the
Northern Lights, that look like it's almost flowing to the ground!
Very cool. (spaceweather.com) This image is from
Greenlander Tromsø. Check them out...great stuff!
Credit = Tony Pann, Meteorologist at WBAL-TV



This image is also from Greenlander Tromsø.
credit: American Meteor Society

 

Thanks to all who shared this. It helps us to understand why
ancient peoples who lived way up north believed in sky gods.


credit:Maura Bertotti & Dorothy Rochester
. Meanwhile, in Norway . . .

 

Orion Nebula
Flight Through the Orion Nebula in Visible and Infrared Light
[Ultra HD]
"NASA has released a rather wondrous visualization of what it would be like to fly
through the Orion Nebula. Using data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes,
scientists stitched together a 3D fly-through of the famous nebula, which is in the process
of forming stars. We are treated to glorious glowing clouds being heated by radiation,
huge envelopes of gas around disks of new planetary systems, and new stars being born.
The Orion nebula is about 1,344 light-years away, and just 2 million years old
– a blink of an eye in cosmic terms.
Of course, we didn’t actually send those telescopes through the nebula to make the video.
Instead, using imagery from the telescopes and “Hollywood techniques", according to NASA,
the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and the
Caltech/Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) in California produced the
3-minute video. You can check it out below. It has a rather nice musical backdrop,
so you might want to turn your sound on too." (text from IFLS article)


Foucault Pendulum


"Due to the pendulum's inertia, once started, it will
oscillate in the same plane forever. However, since
the pendulum is on Earth which rotates about its
own axis, from our rotating point of view the
pendulum’s plane of oscillation seems to be what’s
rotating. The period of rotation depends on your latitude
too: at the North Pole the pendulum rotates once a day
but at the equator it doesn’t rotate at all!"
Texas A&M Physics and Astronomy

 

 

Largest Batch of Earth-size, Habitable Zone Planets
From the NASA site comes all the graphics, all the information, and all the wonder of the seven planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system. It's around 40 light years away, about 10 times the distance from here to Proxima Centauri, so NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes are the best there is for a while! Enjoy the wonderful graphics! A little English lesson: What does TRAPPIST mean? What's an acronym?

 

SMALLThis curve is called an analemma and it occurs because of our elliptical and tilted orbit around the sun.png

 

 


 

The World Clock – Time Zones from Time and Date. A site both amazing and superb.
Look towards the bottom of the page to see UTC (GMT/Zulu)-time. UTC (GMT/Zulu)-time = London, UK time.
Use their Time Zone Converter to find your local time from the time in London.

 

100,000 Stars is one of 400+ projects being developed at chromeexperiments This one give a fast tour of the planets, Oort Cloud, Voyager, what a light year's distance looks like, "nearby" stars, and stars named by astronomers. All set against the stunning background of the Milky Way with eerie music.

 

Download Aciqra "(uh-SEE-kruh) is a free and open source virtual sky map and planetarium which tracks and displays astronomical bodies including planets, nebulae and stars to an accuracy of a fraction of a degree for thousands of years into both the future and the past. It's software that generates a virtual sky so you'll always know exactly what's up in the real one. Aciqra includes and displays a wide variety of different objects. It tracks and simulates solar system objects like the Moon, the Sun, the planets, asteroids and comets. It also includes a large database of stars and various other deep space objects including star clusters, nebulae and galaxies." It is really pretty cool. It would have a multitude of uses. One use would be to teach older kids and secondary/university students more about astronomy. This is really professional-level, but easy to use. Need help? There's a page for that. Their Sourceforge project page is here.

All (known) Bodies in the Solar System Larger than 200 Miles in Diameter. 88 known objects in our Solar System that are larger than 200 miles in diameter on one large, extra wide graphic. Pretty interesting for the art alone, and the information is accurate at this time.

 

 

Ancient Astronomy of the North American Indians from the StarTeach Astronomy Education Program. Examples of astronomy as practiced by Native Americans of several different nations: the Anasazi and Pueblo peoples of New Mexico; Medicine Wheels in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming and many others in Alberta and Saskatchewan; the Skidi band of the Pawnee Nation; and the Chumash people in California.

 

Ask an Astronomer From CalTech's Cool Cosmos site. Windows Media or QuickTime videos answering common kid questions.

 

Asteroid 2011 MD is about 10 metres long, and it barely missed Earth in June 2011. Here's a great animation of its path! More information here.

 

Astro for Kids  from Astronomy.com.  Facts on the Solar System, navigating by the stars, and more. For upper elementary and above. Cool photos, too.

 

Pinterest-button.pngASTROfan has nearly 200 pins worth of cool astronomy facts. These include star and planet anatomy, Solar System, Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud, neutron stars, black holes, how the Sun works, stellar evolution, spaceship design, fact graphics for all the planets, galaxies, and much more. Very nice learning aids!

 

Astronomy for Kids  Easy to use, straightforward site with simple astronomy facts for kids.

 

M31 galaxyAstronomy Picture of the Day also called APOD. From NASA. Every day a new astronomy photo or painting, with a narrative under it. The photos are absolutely astounding, breathtaking, stunning, magnificent! The site also has a Glossary, Educational links/resources, more. Cruise the Archives for many more pix!

 

 

 

 

Milky Way over a hot spring @ Yellowstone Astronomy Picture of the Day - 2014 August 27

Milky Way over Yellowstone
Image Credit & Copyright: Dave Lane

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

 

 

 

AstroTour Solar system interactive virtual orrery from Gunn Interactive of New Zealand. "A free, educational, customizable, scriptable model of the solar-system. Have fun! Learn Something!" We took their intro tour and watched the retrograde orbits demo. Pretty cool. A good way to investigate the Solar System. Reddited.

 

AstroViewer "Your night sky map in the internet" This excellent interactive constellations viewer lets you see the names in Latin or English.

 

Atlas of the Universe This site rocks! "This web page is designed to give everyone an idea of what our universe actually looks like. There are nine main maps on this web page, each one approximately ten times the scale of the previous one. The first map shows the nearest stars and then the other maps slowly expand out until we have reached the scale of the entire visible universe." The site does a very good job of it, too.

 

Aurora over Finnish Lapland New Years Eve Original size = 2048x1365 pixels
Posted on reddit by Eddynstain
Northern lights Lappland 31 Dec 16

 

 

big temperature scaleA Billion Degrees of Separation "We take the temperature of the universe from absolute cold to 'absolute hot'. " 883 X 4000 graphic goes from - 273.15C to 1.417x1032C (aka the Planck Temperature). Subdivided into Elements, Living Things, Man-Made, Earth, Solar System, and Universe. So if you need to know the boiling point of iron, the temperature range where tardigrades can live, the melting point of butter, the temperature of lava, the surface of Mercury at night, or the surface temperature of Sirius; they are all on this chart. A BBC project via ScienceAlert.

 

 

'Black Marble' satellite images of Earth unveiled - in pictures "Scientists have unveiled a new image of Earth at night. A global composite image, dubbed Black Marble, was constructed using cloud-free night images from a new Nasa and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite. It shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across the planet in greater detail than ever before." Ten images show pretty much all of Earth at night. Geography classes could work on identifying continents, countries, cities and towns, lakes, oceans, highways, oil fields, fishing fleets, etc.Credit: This slideshow is posted in the Science section of theguardian.

 

 

Blue Origin Crew Capsule Escape Test Goes Flawlessly The latest private attempt at operating a space vehicle is testing a brand new escape capsule! This eight-minute video covers most of the original movie and is much less complicated for munchkins. The new capsule concept is explained, too. "The private spaceflight company's New Shepard rocket and its capsule were both returned to ground after a successful test of its In-flight Escape system. An engine aboard the capsule blasted it away from rocket 45 seconds after launch."

 

 

NASA’s Cassini Mission Prepares for 'Grand Finale' at Saturn This is the central point for dozens
of exciting links to resources, videos, photos, games, models, 3-D Interactives, the parts of the Cassini-Huygens
spacecraft and what they do, the science of Saturn, its moons, and its rings. The Resources section has
Fact sheets, printable materials, spacecraft models, and other resources about the Cassini-Huygens mission.
The Galleries section has all kinds of photos and graphics, and LOTS of videos. The Grand Finale Toolkit explains
the plan to fly the spacecraft between the rings and Saturn, to eventually crash the spacecraft on Saturn itself.
Of course, the section has its own videos, graphics, etc. There is an awful lot of material here!

 

 

 

 

Catching the Light renamed Astropix
Astrophotography by Jerry Lodriguss.
AWESOME photos will make you remember
the wonder that first drew you to astronomy.

 


Snopes discusses this statement.

 

Download Celestia Fantastically cool download! "... The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. " Zoom between planets and constellations, watch Deimos and Phobos fly across the face of Mars, hundreds of other things to see! With data on every object you look at. Download it at the above link or here from SourceForge. Stupifyingly wonderful. (Celestia must be installed on computers, it cannot be played online.)

 

Download Celestia Motherlode is where you can download extensions, add-ons, etc for Celestia.  If it's even possible to improve upon Celestia, this is where to do it. There are some really great things here! Watch the file size, some of these are fairly big for some school computers.

 

Chandra X-ray Observatory from Harvard University. "Discover the images of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Dive into the wonder of everything from Black Holes to X-ray Binaries. Below you can find various ways to find just the image you are looking for. " Browse images by category or date, or..."Explore the X-ray sky with an interactive Sky Map, and learn about Galactic Navigation. Constellations: Background information on selected constellations and links to objects observed within them. 3D Wall: Scroll through the entire library of released Chandra images in a quick-downloading 3d wall format with the Cooliris plug-in. Special Features: Collections of Chandra images to browse through in html & flash formats." Many other goodies as well. This is suitable for elementary through college, easily.

 

 

China Lands Rover on The Moon The Jade Rabbit lunar rover is rolling around Luna's surface. The first soft landing on the moon since the 1970s. China's first rover seems to be doing fine! Why Jade Rabbit? East Asian cultures do not have a Man in the Moon. They have a Jade Rabbit!

 

 

Clearest Way to Teach Moon Phases...EVER! From Science Teaching Junkie. "Essentially, this Moon Phase board allows students to visualize and better understand the cause of moon phases." Home made board with materials cost of about US$5. Explanations of terminology, how to use it, and materials list/instructions included. Plenty of photos to help you make your own. Completed board is modeled by an adorable young lady.

 

Constellation Hunt from KidsAstronomy is like a word search of the sky!

 

Constellation Links for Kids from Athropolis is a good list of astronomy sites.

 

Constellations from Chandra. "Background information on selected constellations and links to objects observed within them." We're giving this its own listing since constellations are a popular elementary school science item.

 

Constellations from Enchanted Learning/Zoom Astronomy! Their usual stellar treatment for elementary and middle school. Subscribe so they'll keep doing sites like these!

 

Constellations and their Stars Great resource site! Information about constellations, stars, much more, also has interactive sky charts.

 

Constellation Photos This site shows photos of the stars and the constellation outline. Lists both ancient Greek and "modern" constellations.

 

Cosmos4Kids! offers a lot of good basic information about astronomy in a highly organized site.

 

Dawn Spacecraft Begins Approach to Dwarf Planet Ceres from NASA and JPL. NASA's ion-powered Dawn spacecraft has entered an approach phase in which it will continue to close in on Ceres, a Texas-sized dwarf planet never before visited by a spacecraft. Dawn launched in 2007 and is scheduled to enter Ceres orbit in March 2015. Located in the Asteroid Belt, Ceres is round like a planet, not jagged like other asteroids. The included video explains ion engine propulsion, which has already let Dawn slow down to explore Vesta, and then speed up to head for Ceres.

 

Dawn Spacecraft Arrives at Dwarf Planet Ceres This Week Dawn has already visited Vesta and is moving up on Ceres, matching speeds to let Ceres' gravity bring it in. There's a great Ceres iconographic here. From Space.com

 

Living On Dwarf Planet Ceres in the Asteroid Belt (Infographic) Excellent infographic explains it all about Ceres. From Space.com

 

The Asteroid Belt Explained: Space Rocks by the Millions (Infographic) Great graphics! From Space.com

 


Dazzling galactic diamonds shine in new Webb telescope image
Billions of new stars, thousands of new galaxies!

This presentation has 17 slides for us to see.

 

 

Dome of the Sky Lists constellations by northern and southern hemispheres and time of year. Has outline of each constellation and the story or myth behind it. Good resource.

 

 

Dusty Black Hole Dusty Surprise Around Giant Black Hole "...dust is being pushed away from the black hole as a cool wind — a surprising finding that challenges current theories and tells us how supermassive black holes evolve and interact with their surroundings."

 

 

 

Earth as seen from the International Space Station – timelapse video "An extraordinary timelapse video created with pictures from the International Space Station shows Earth as it has never been seen before. The video, called Further Up Yonder, was made by Italian film student Giacomo Sardelli using Nasa stills. Sardelli calls the film a message from the ISS to all humankind." Credit: This video is posted in the Science section of The Guardian.

 

 

poster of the universe


Earth in the Universe
Nine-panel poster shows
where Earth fits in the map of the universe.
Starting with Earth and moving through successively
larger "maps", it will leave kids in awe. Link goes to
the poster, on imgur, where you can expand it even more.



New

 

New Site

Seasons This great Australian site is one small part of a bigger
internet education complex called Scootle.
Seasons is designed to teach middle schoolers and up about the
interactions among orbits, axis tilt, rotations, and sunlight.
Students manipulate orbits, tilt, rotations, daylight, etc. to make
seasons.



 

Earth's Seasons from Enchanted Learning. Find out about the Equinox,
the Solstice, and the seasons of the year at this fine offering.

 

equinox graphic

 

Every place on earth experiences a 12 hour day and a 12 hour night
twice a year at the Spring and Fall Equinox.

Learn about Summer and Winter Solstices, and more about the
Spring and Fall Equinoxes, below:

 

https://www.livescience.com/31264-season-season-earth-equinoxes-solstices-infographic.html

Source:OurAmazingPlanet

 

 Equinox: Sun rises due east and sets due west from EarthSky
Also it's one of only two days a year when day and night are 12 hours each.
Another good, fact-filled equinox page with good graphics.
You just can't get enough knowledge!

 

Fact Monster's Solstice for Kids Explains the solstice concept,
the changing angle of the earth, and solstice history and traditions.

 

8 Facts About the Winter Solstice You Need to Know
from MSN. Explains winter solstice. Compares and contrasts it
with summer solstice. Explains how they take place at the same
time on the same day. Explains the equinoxes. Plenty of
infographics to help learning.

 

The Total Solar Eclipse of August 21, 2017 - fly along with the shadow! This video "follows" the moon's shadow
as it sweeps over the surface of the USA on August 21, 2017. Production details are in the end credits.
Check out http://www.eclipse2017.org for more details on the eclipse!
A button on the right side will show you to the minute where the shadow will be as it cruises through the USA,
from Northwest to Southeast from Washington State to South Carolina!
Eclipse of August 21, 2017 This Vimeo video is seven minutes long, including credits.
There is a Download button in case you want to Save the video.

 

eSky The Electronic Sky "Welcome to eSky, a site dedicated to the entire universe. Here you'll find a whole range of articles covering cosmic phenomena of all kinds, ranging from minor craters on the Moon to entire galaxies." This beautiful, huge, well organized site covers everything. Mark Fisher does amazing work.

 

Every Single Satellite Orbiting the Earth

Click on the graphic to see this in all its fullsize glory.

Every single satellite

 

Explore Mars! from NASA/JPL. Take the Curiosity rover out for a spin in this virtual adventure! Scale mountains, drive through large canyons and sand dunes, explore the Gale Crater. It can be slow to load depending on your connection speed and computer age. Worth the wait! See for miles across Mars as you drive the rover like a dune buggy.

 

Exploring Planets in the Classroom hands-on science activities This venerable Hawaiian site has hands-on activities and lesson plans! Now with volcano activities!

 

Eyes on Exoplanets This NASA site will fly you to any planet you wish—as long as it's far beyond our solar system. This fully rendered 3D universe is scientifically accurate, allowing you to zoom in for a close look at more than 1,000 exotic planets known to orbit distant stars. Requires a one-time download of the app. Then, get out there and see what you can find!
exoplanet.jpg

 

Eyes on the Solar System from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. ""Eyes on the Solar System" is a 3-D environment full of real NASA mission data. Explore the cosmos from your computer. Hop on an asteroid. Fly with NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft. See the entire solar system moving in real time. It's up to you. You control space and time." This is great! Think of a 3-D Celestia program, very hands-on and easy to use! Loved zooming around and rotating planets & moons. Needs the Unity Web Player to be installed.

 

"The Falcon has landed" | Recap of Falcon 9 launch and landing, 3:37 video. "On December 21, 2015, SpaceX's Falcon 9 delivered 11 satellites to low-Earth orbit and landed the first stage of the rocket back on land." Watch this and see what that looked like!

 

Fly Over Dwarf Planet Ceres 1:15 video with music. Downloads are available. "A new video animation of dwarf planet Ceres, based on images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, provides dramatic flyover views of this heavily cratered, mysterious world."

 

Galaxy Size Comparison Chart

Galaxy Size Comparison Chart

"A selection of galaxies shown to the same scale"
doesn't begin to describe this giant infographic's
sublime awesomeness. We have a teeny copy
shown here. The thing will fill up your screen.
The wonder increases with the size.
There are control buttons in the original's upper
left corner. Go see!

 

Gaze upon all of Mercury for the first time ever
Watch the closest planet to the sun as it rotates, in
high-contrast false color! "This video is based on images
taken by the MESSENGER probe, the first spacecraft to
actually orbit Mercury."

 Mercury

 

 

Globetarium "Know the ecliptic, know the sky"


Frustarium star-finder, celestial globe, and pinhole planetarium
20 different printouts for you
Dodecatarium sit-under pinhole planetarium
Cubetarium stand-under pinhole planetarium
Star Quizzes and links

 

Gravity from the NSTMF Lab "How do celestial bodies warp
the fabric of space-time and interact with each other?" Explore.
Make your own objects in 2-D space! See how the big, massy
ones attract smaller ones. More mass = more attraction.
Click the Create Your Universe button. Read the Observations
when they pop up to learn more about gravity.

nstmf lab.png

 

 

Gravity Wells This large, well done PNG image explains the idea
of gravity wells in easy to understand cartoon form. It's from xkcd,
a well known ubergeek site with cartoons of interest to, well,
MIT/Caltech undergrads, shall we say. This one is appropriate for
kids old enough to grasp the concepts it explains, but we cannot
recommend you let your kids go to xkcd by themselves.

 

The Green Comet "Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), ...
Canon EF 100-400mm L IS II, 20x 30 sec, f/5.6, ISO-3200,
Celestron AVX mount, Stellarium and the SAO database on
the Nexstar came in very handy to find the Comet."
credit = Martin Brown

 

Horsehead Nebula (NASA photo)
Horsehead Nebula in Infrared from Hubble 50.png

 

Hubble's High-Definition Panoramic View

of the Andromeda Galaxy

Hubble's ginormous photo of Andromeda

"The largest NASA Hubble Space Telescope image ever
assembled, this sweeping view of a portion of the Andromeda
galaxy (M31) is the sharpest large composite image ever taken
of our galactic neighbor." This image may be downloaded free
in various sizes, and there are shot videos to download as well.
The largest, ginormous image (7038 x 4692, > 32 megapixels)
can crash your browser. "These images should be downloaded,
not viewed with a browser...the number of pixels these images
contain can be problematic for a browser...it may cause your
browser to lock up, or it may crash your computer." Find a pic
in a size you can use and go zooming in. It is astounding.

 

 

If the Moon were only 1 pixel - "A Tediously Accurate Scale Model of the Solar System."

  • "The size of our solar system and vastness of the space between planets is nearly unfathomable. This site puts it into perspective."- redditor Sixteen_Down.
  • "On his proportional to scale site, you can let it auto scroll at speed of light (hit the little "c" in the bottom right corner), and it takes about 80 minutes to get to Saturn. If you use the arrow keys, about 15-20 minutes. Really impacts just how much space there actually is between the planets." - redditor pixelObserver.
  • "I guess this is why most maps of the solar system aren't drawn to scale. It's not hard to draw the planets. It's the empty space that's a problem." - Josh Worth, the site builder.
  • "It really puts into perspective how slow 1c* is, even in just a single solar system. Now imagine scrolling to another solar system."- redditor Tetha.
    * c =the speed of light
  • " I really had no idea it was of this scale... My mind is blown and I have a whole new perspective. " - redditor dunnojumbo
  • "The average person doesn't realize how small planets are and how much space is really between them. Planets are like grains of sand spaced out in a large outdoor stadium." - redditor Web3d
  • So go there and check it out for yourself! Seeing is believing!

     


    US, India to Team Up on Mars Exploration



    Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) scientists
    and engineers after their orbiter successfully entered
    Mars's orbit. Taken at the Spacecraft Control Center,
    Bangalore. Original image by Abhishek N. Chinnappa

     

     

    Infographic: How India's Mars Orbiter works.

    Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration.

     


     

    HDEV view ISS HD Earth Viewing Experiment "The High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment consists of four cameras that have been attached outside of the ISS. The cameras point down at Earth at all times, which makes for some breathtaking images. The feed will sometimes go down as the signal switches between the cameras, and it is hard to see when the ISS is on the dark side of the planet. If the cameras are down, the screen will be grey." Credit for description = IFLS

     

     

    Gold Star Interactive 3D model of Solar System Planets and Night Sky Astronomy for Everybody / Discover Solar System with User-friendly application / Real-time positions and Movements of the Planets and the Moon / Night sky with Constellations / Space-art graphics / No download required Nice! Also has cool music.

     

    Gold Star Interactive 360 degree map of the heavens A giant 360 degree sky photo. Zoom in and out, scroll up, scroll down, scroll all the way around! Shows constellations and stellar objects! It's amazing fun and a great learning tool!

     

     

    ISS now head.png

    International Space Station - Current position of the ISS

    ISS now.png

    "Where is the International Space Station right now?"
    You can find that out with this site! It always shows
    "What the astronauts see right now.", which is a straight
    down view onto a Google Earth surface. "Ground track"
    shows the ISS' position on a map of the world. Both
    displays are always on, and are updated by the second.
    UTC time, latitude and longitude, speed, and altitude are
    all shown. Choose between miles and kilometers. What a
    wonderful data source for mathematics story/word problems,
    geography projects, and astronomy.

    Unfortunately, this site is problematic.
    Iit's not up most of the time, for some reason.
    Several other sites fill in the gap. They are listed below:

    Where is the ISS? This the ESA (European Space Agency) site. It does the job. Elegant small site.

    ISS Tracker Small site that still is able to display Latitude and Longitude to 3 digits; it also shows
    speed and altitude. Toggle button lets you choose "English" or metric measures.

     

     

    When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft approached Jupiter
    en route to Pluto in 2007, it took this image that was
    combined with images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory
    of the aurorae at the planet’s poles.

    Jupiter aurorae

    The aurorae are believed to be caused by the ions of the
    planet’s magnetic field as they interact with radiation
    from the solar wind. Text credit: IFLS
    Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SwRI/R.Gladstone et al.;
    Optical: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage (AURA/STScI)

     


    High resolution photo of Jupiter

     

    Jupiter in motion. This is a repeating animated gif video of Jupiter, taken from one of the Voyager spacecraft. Fantastic little gif file. You can see the Red Spot and watch different bands moving at different speeds; fastest at the equator, slower at higher latitudes.

     

    Juno spacecraft enters the gas giant's orbit c|net has a very good article about spacecraft Juno,
    how they got it into orbit, and what NASA wants to study there. This is supplemented by a short animated video.

     

    How Juno got to Jupiter from a Tumblr gif, as featured on IFLS's FB page.
    Everything most people want to know, in one nicely done gif. 

     

     

    Gold Star Khan Academy "is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) with the mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere...We are complementing Salman (Khan's) ever-growing library with user-paced exercises--developed as an open source project--allowing the Khan Academy to become the free classroom for the World." 1800+ videos cover math from 1 + 1 up through differential equations; Science: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Organic Chem, Cosmology, Astronomy; History; Finance (BIG section!); Test Prep: SAT, GMAT, CAHSEE, IIT JEE. The videos are wonderful! This is amazing and FREE! (Oh all right ... Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!)

     

    Kids Astronomy section of KidsKnowIt. Good information at a well organized, if somewhat busy, site.

     

    Leonids Every November, they come. "The Leonid meteor shower has produced some of the most spectacular meteor displays in history". "The Leonids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to radiate from that point in the sky. (Wikipedia)" This page from Meteor Showers Online has good graphics for the Location of the Leonids For Northern Hemisphere Observers and Location of the Leonids For Southern Hemisphere Observers, plus a long history of the Leonids and us.

     

    big clear photo of Sirius by Yuujii Kitahara

    Sirius at Wikipedia plus an X-ray photo of Sirius-a with Sirius-b peeking over its shoulder.

     

    Let's Get 'Sirius' About the Dog Star, Sky's Brightest Twinkler from Indian Country Today Media Network. Facts about Sirius, but mostly tells how the star was regarded in Native American/First Nations cultures and in the myths of various tribal nations. Very good reading. If you don't see the star's photo on their site, click on the graphic.

     

    Life Cycle of the Sun This is a big jpg pic that shows the life of the Sun from birth until death, about 14 billion years. Lots of information in one place. Enjoy!

     

    New

     

     

     

    coyote moon Lunar Eclipses The Weather Channel's 1-minute video gives all the facts about a total eclipse of the moon. Blood Moon 43 second video describes why the moon looks red during a total eclipse.

    Space.com has a big page of more information about blood moons, lunar tetrads (NASA video), a calendar of the four lunar eclipses 2014-15, and a great downloadable infographic called Shadow on the Moon that sums all this up in graphic form! Most of this will be valid for the next three eclipses as well!

     

     

    Mars Curiousity Descent Mars Curiosity Descent - Ultra HD 30fps Smooth-Motion is 2:54 of excitement, with sound. Starting with heat shield separation and ending with a self-portrait, this was made by redditor Bard Canning as "a labor of love". Great YouTube video!

     

     

    Mars Flyover "From the highest volcano to the deepest canyon, from impact craters to ancient river beds and lava flows, this showcase of images from ESA's Mars Express takes you on an unforgettable journey across the Red Planet." (quote credit = ESA). "The flyover explores the grabens, valleys, canyons, mountains and lava flows in unprecedented detail. These 3D images aid researchers in understanding the climate and development of Mars." (quote credit = IFLS) This four minute video is beautiful, as is the music.

     

    Mars for Kids has games and activities (online and printouts) for kids. Coloring, word search, see your weight on Mars, and play the Mars adventure game! The games are fun and educational.

     

    Mars Orbiter Mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation. Move around these pages and you can watch the historic launch, find out about the payloads and experiments, view the mission profile, etc. This research mission will increase our knowledge of Mars and its environment.

     

     

    Meteor Crater Street View is part of Grand Canyon Street View from Google. You can pan around and explore the inside of this fabulous place from two 360 panoramas! Excellent use of Street Maps, go exploring!

     


    Check Out this Incredible Timelapse Video of a Meteorite Exploding over the Mojave
    "Our inherent curiosity about what’s going on outside our own planet means we’re actually missing out
    on natural phenomena that’s just as impressive. So to remind you, here’s a beautiful timelapse of the
    Mojave Desert, shot and edited by astrophotographer Harun Mehmedinovic, that managed to capture
    a meteorite explosion."

     

    The full rotation of the Moon as seen by
    NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter


    Watch the moon spin around, showing the dark side and the hidden views.
    From NASA via reddit via imgur. You can download this as an mp4 file.

     

    How Many Moons? from NASA Space Place
    Inspired by the Great Conjunction of Jupiter & Saturn.
    in December 2020. All those little dots were moons!

    Jupiter and Saturn have 161 moons between them!





    How Many Moons Does Each Planet Have?

    Mercury - 0
    Venus - 0
    Earth - 1
    Mars - 2
    Jupiter - 79 (53 confirmed, 26 provisional)
    Saturn - 62 (53 confirmed, 9 provisional)
    Uranus - 27
    Neptune - 14

    A kid-friendly site with lots of illustrations.

     

    Coyote silhouetted in front of orange full moon Moon Phases Collection from Curriki. Here is a collection ready-to-use lesson plans and their associated activities, links, and downloads for elementary and middle school. All are aimed at (you guessed it) teaching the monthly cycle of moon phases; how, where, when, and why. All teachers have to do is download as necessary, adapt if necessary, and teach it. Contributed to Curriki by Jessica Flint.

     

     

    Downloads Moonbase Alpha "A 3-D Immersive NASA Exploration Game. Step into the role of an explorer in a futuristic lunar settlement...Moonbase Alpha is the first of two commercial-quality NASA games developed in partnership with commercial game developers." Looks great!

     

     

    My Solar System 2.04 from PhETMy Solar System is another in the always amazing series of Free simulations from PhET at CU Boulder. In this Flash sim, students build a solar system and try it out. Planets might hit each other and the sun, or get flung off into space. This is probably what happens when real solar systems are first forming. "Build your own system of heavenly bodies and watch the gravitational ballet. With this orbit simulator, you can set initial positions, velocities, and masses of 2, 3, or 4 bodies, and then see them orbit each other." Your job is to try to make a stable system. Your choice of several Preset (canned) solar system setups, or make your own with 1 - 3 planets, moons, etc. Vary their distances from the sun, their mass, position, and velocity.

     

     

    NASA Curiosity Mars Rover This is the central site for Curiosity, the Mars rover. Videos, photos, mission updates, tracking the rover's travels, it all starts here!

     

    NASA Dawn mission infographic All about the Dawn mission, the spacecraft, and its mission to Vesta and Ceres.
    Brought to us via Space.com

     

    NASA’s Hubble Finds Pluto’s Moons Tumbling in Absolute Chaos   Pluto and its closest and largest moon, Charon make up a double planet system. "Pluto and Charon are called a double planet because they share a common center of gravity located in the space between the bodies. Their variable gravitational field sends the smaller moons tumbling erratically. The effect is strengthened by the football-like, rather than spherical, shape of the moons." There are two expandable-to-full-screen infographics attached: One shows closeups of the potato-shaped moons, the other "shows the scale and comparative brightness of Pluto’s small satellites". Click on them to see more. Here are some other infographics of Pluto & Caron and their moons.

     

      scale model of Pluto-Charon systemClick to see this in motion!

     

     

    NASA Images This is the new NASA image archive site, which catalogues 100,000 stunning images! All the space photos NASA has posted are here. We looked at at a few hundred and were amazed. A fantastic reference source, or just look at the thousands of photos!

     

    NASA Instagram.png

    NASA Instagrams "Explore the universe and discover our home planet with the official NASA Instagram account." 1,134 posts and 2.4m followers enjoying them. The usual stunning pix you expect from NASA.

     

     

     

    NASA/JPL'S Mars Orbiter finds ESA Mars rover's crash site

    The article discusses the tragic failure of the prototype's attempt to land. The braking rockets quit firing much too soon.

    JPL's gif image flashes between before and after shots of the same area. Large and Very Large images of the area may be downloaded from this page.

    This is how we learn. When the ESA does the full-scale mission in 2020, this problem, at least, will have been fixed.

     

     

    NASA Mars Rover Missions This is the main site for Opportunity and Spirit. You can get to all the Mars Rover photos from here. Also has links Mars for Kids and Mars for Educators.

     

    NASA Multimedia: Video Gallery So many goodies in NASA Multimedia! The Video Gallery has oodles of animations, some movies, others animated, all great and loaded with information. The hottest ones right now (February 2013) are about the flight path of Asteroid 2012 DA14, which will fly by Earth on February 15th! Actually between the Earth and many satellites! Short video (00:43) only shows the flyby path. Longer video (2:03) has diagrams and explanations of where the asteroid will pass by, where the satellites are, and why we are safe. The longest video (4:22) is the most educational, has the most background information, which helps to put things in context.

     

    NASA Space Place "Welcome to the Space Place! Come on in and check out our games, animations, projects, and fun facts about Earth, space and technology."

     

    NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Obtains Best Views of Saturn Hexagon The Hexagon of Saturn - sounds like a John Carter of Mars scifi novel. It's real. The north pole of Saturn has a six-sided jet stream (hexagonal = "looks like a honeycomb"). "Spanning about 20,000 miles (30,000 kilometers) across, the hexagon is a wavy jet stream of 200-mile-per-hour winds (about 322 kilometers per hour) with a massive, rotating storm at the center. There is no weather feature exactly like this anywhere else in the solar system." Look at the video and gif graphics at the site to find out more.

     

     

     

    Downloads NASA's Eyes Astronomical virtual visualizations for all! From JPL at CalTech. It's kind of a download plus online program. You need to download the part for your computer in order to see all the rest. "This visualization tool requires a quick one-time download and install." Three programs in one:

  • Eyes on the Earth - Explore Earth's Vital Signs and fly along with NASA satellites.
  • Eyes on the Solar System - Explore our Solar Systems and the spacecraft exploring it.
  • Eyes on Exoplanets - Explore the planets around other stars in our galactic neighborhood.
  • Of course each one has plenty of options, and lots of things to see and do.

     

    Neutron Stars Explained (Atoms As Big As Mountains — Neutron Stars Explained) Another great educational video from Kurzgesagt. Very good and not overly complicated explanation of this amazing phenomenon. "Neutron Stars are some of the strangest things in the Universe. Not quite massive enough to become black holes, they are basically atoms as big as mountains with properties so extreme it's mind-blowing. And if you get too close to a neutron star you are in big trouble…"

     

    New Horizons encounter with Pluto All about the flyby and what the spacecraft discovers.
    Diagrams show New Horizons encounter with Pluto
    Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration.

     

     

    Newly discovered dwarf planet is almost as big as Pluto Temporarily named 2007 OR10, it is the third biggest dwarf planet in our solar system—and the largest unnamed planet of any kind within our solar system. You can find out why it was so hard to find the new dwarf by reading the linked article from Gizmodo, with its pix and videos.

     

    November sky highlights: Orion, Leonids meteor shower and Venus. These highlights are for the Southern Hemisphere - Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific, South Africa, South America; NOT the Northern Hemisphere. Native Australian names for constellations are used. Great photo of Orion and good description of the sky as the old people saw it.

    Orion Nebula from Oz.jpg


    ""If you watch the eastern horizon about 9:00pm in mid-November, you will see Larnankurruk, the young maidens, dancing above the horizon.

    They are followed by old man Gellarlec, beating time and singing, and then finally rising over the horizon, Kulkunbulla, the two young men dancing for Larnankurruk."

     

    The splendor of the Orion Nebula

    Click on thumbnail or link to see the 900 x 790 original!

    Orion Nebula, captured from Badlands National Park by Eden Bhatta.jpg

    captured from Badlands National Park by
    Eden Bhatta, is the winning fan photo of the week!

     

    OSIRIS-REx Samples Asteroid Bennu


    New Site


    Snopes discusses this statement.

     


    Perseid meteor shower creates dazzling night sky

    It's Perseids time again!

     

    Picture of the Sun through a lens that allows only a specific wavelength.

    Sun surface

    Click on the photo to see a much larger version.

     

    Phoenix Mars Mission Wow! We have a lander on the North Pole of Mars! This is the education section of the official site. There's Mars 101, five sections of info about Mars. Just for Kids has the fun stuff and activities (and Steve the Cat.) Phoenix Classroom has lesson plans, activities, and resources. The Web Exhibit is worth watching, although the Flash video was rather small and hard to read. Pictures from Mars are accessible from the Phoenix home page.

     

    "The Photopic Sky Survey is a 5,000 megapixel photograph of the entire night sky stitched together from 37,440 exposures. Large in size and scope, it portrays a world far beyond the one beneath our feet and reveals our familiar Milky Way with unfamiliar clarity." HUGE 360 degree panoramic photo with amazing detail. Zoom in/out, scroll left/right/up/down, with or without constellations shown. Ooo/ahhh!

     

     

    Photos from Perseverance's mission to Mars
    This slide show (20 frames) was taken by Mars lander Perseverance
    as it rolled around the surface of Mars taking pictures like a tourist!


     

    New Site

     

    Planet X - It came from beyond Neptune! "Astronomers say a Neptune-sized planet lurks beyond Pluto. The solar system appears to have a new ninth planet. Today, two scientists announced evidence that a body nearly the size of Neptune—but as yet unseen—orbits the sun every 15,000 years." Read the article and see for yourself.

    Planet X

     

    Planets of the Solar System "What my site offers students that other solar system sites don't is a top-notch 3D interactive solar system model. (This is a great tool for students to visualize the solar system, and it's just plain fun to play around with.) Of course, my site also offers images, facts, data, and up-to-date solar system news. What you won't find on my site is a bunch of ads that detract from the educational material." This was way cool, good info, nice music, great graphical interface, just fun to play with!

     

    Flag of Ireland Planets for Kids is an astronomy site made by a nine year old kid for kids! Lots of good and easy to understand information. Facts that may be hard for a student to get elsewhere are in here. The site is quite colorful and well laid out, so it is easy to find what you need to do a report for school! Kudos to young Stephen and his dad, of Dublin, Ireland, for creating this site!

     

     

    Rains on  other worlds
    The states of matter we know on Earth are NOT the only ones there are!
    Where it's COLD enough, water is a rock (ice)! Methane
    is a liquid, or even a solid! Same for nitrogen and oxygen!
    Where it's HOT enough, it can rain iron, or liquid diamonds, or glass!

     

    Rosetta’s lander Philae wakes up from hibernation It's awake and sending signals! CNN has a lot of information in its story including a slideshow. Just wait until August, when this comet gets close to the sun!

     

    Sizing up the Kuiper belt "With the help of students and amateur astronomers, scientists are learning more about the unusual objects, such as the Kuiper belt, at the edge of our solar system." The RECON organization's volunteer astronomers are helping to find out the size of Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs for short). The volunteers record and pass on "events where a KBO passes between Earth and some distant object, such as a star." This is called an occultation*. Using the already-known distance from Earth to the object, scientists can use the time of occultation to work out its diameter. This is a big step towards understanding what the object is made of (ice, rock). There's a video of an occultation and a short but useful glossary. This site is a page of the Society for Science & the Public's big, excellent web pages. PS Their Student Resources pages have a lot of resources and "recipes" for Science Projects!

     * occultation Any event where an object is briefly hidden from view when another object passes in front of it. In astronomy, this usually refers to objects such as asteroids passing in front of a star.

     

     

    Sky This is the "sky" portion of Sea and Sky's site. A very good resource, the site has good information on the Messier Catalog, constellations, photo galleries, tours of the solar system, an illustrated glossary, and games. We can't recommend the "Sky News" section for kids' viewing, but the rest of the site is excellent. Someone did a lot of work to gather and organize all this information.

     

    Gold Star Sky Marvels This site will knock your socks off! The whole site was made using the awesome free astronomy program, Celestia! The best way to explore Sky Marvels is to just dive in, look around, see what you like! It's akmost fractal in the number of side trails you can explore. Very educational and fun, too! Thank you, Gary M. Winter, for developing and posting this marvel!

     

    Solar System from Cookie Here is a four-minute video of the solar system for elementary students. Colorful and good special effects. All the basic info is in here and it is easy to understand. Still lists Pluto as a planet, though.

     

    Solar System Facts "Just the facts." and plenty of them. Fifteen pages - one for each planet, the Moon, the Sun, asteroids, dwarf planets, and comets. Each page has a photo of its planet and at least 12 interesting facts, written at an upper elementary level. There's also a list of general solar system facts on the main page. Thanks to the webmaster of this site for the email about it!

     

    Space.com LogoCovers anything related to space. Great photo galleries and videos. Sections for: Spaceflight, Science & Astronomy, Search for Life, Skywatching, Tech, and more. Stay up to date on space news and enjoy all those amazing photo galleries!

     

    Space Facts "is a growing collection of interesting facts about space, covering the planets, solar system, space exploration, galaxies and more." This site is full of awesome facts and great pictures!! It has sections on Cool Space Facts, all the Planets, the Dwarf Planets, the Sun, the Moon, the Andromeda Galaxy, a blog full of photos and news, and the Solar System as a whole. Scroll and click your way through the photo and graphics Gallery, o unbeliever, and be amazed.

     

    Space Science from Extreme Science. The space section of the larger site.

     

    S5 0014+81, The largest known supermassive black hole compared to our solar system

    Click the link above for the video of this monster black hole,

    click the photo (left) to see it full-sized!

     

     

     

    This 2:33 video shows the sizes of solar system planets and huge stars.
    "There are several videos circulating showing a comparison of the largest stars.
    I like these kind of things, and I wanted to try one myself."

     

    StarChild Nice site for beginning astronomers from NASA. Good information and cute, too.

     

    StarDate Yep, it's the same people who have the show on National Public Radio!
    Stargazing, Resources, Teachers, more. Link opens into the Resources section,
    with links and a big glossary!

     

    Stellar Evolution is a fine repeating Flash video of the life and death of a star.
    Good for about 8th grade and up. Discusses stellar decay, elements.
    From Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia, USA.

     

    Downloads Stellarium "is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go." We love the constellation settings that let you show the mythological chracters around the bowl of the sky! This is in the same genre as Celestia.

     

    Stunning Aurora Borealis from Space in Ultra-High Definition (4K) super cool five minute video from NASA. "The auroras, or polar lights, are basically natural light shows. They are seen mainly in the Arctic and Antarctic regions and are created when electrically charged electrons and protons in the Earth's magnetic field smash into the neutral atoms found in the upper atmosphere. This produces bright, eerie lights that streak across the sky. The NASA video shows the ghostly polar auroras hovering over the planet with an iridescent green glow."

     

    Supermoon Biggest in 70 Years The closest full moon in the 21st century will be here on November 14th. This supermoon will appear to be the biggest moon of the 21st century, at least until 2034. Pictures of the big 2014 supermoon from around the world are shown for comparison. How the supermoon "works" is discussed - perigee and apogee explained. Learn the definition of syzygy.

     

    The Nine 8 Planets A good informational site that adults and kids have used for years. Scroll down to Contents to see what they have.

     

    The Nine 8 Planets Just for Kids The elementary level version.

     

    They used Science (COMIC) from ScienceDump "This is a comic drawn by ZenPencils. The quote is from Phil Plait taken from a talk he gave at a student science fair. Apparently, the night before the speech Phil didn’t know what he was going to say, until he saw a news story, full of the normal psuedo-science stuff they so often are. He then wrote this speech. One thing is for certain, the speech (and the comic) will help reinvigorate your love of science."

     

    These 14 Images Of The Sun May Be The Most Spectacular Ever Snapped "NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft is constantly taking photos of the sun. One of the instruments aboard the spacecraft, the four-telescope Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, is especially prolific; it takes a mind-boggling 57,000 photos a day. And at 12:49 p.m. ET on Jan. 19, 2015, it snapped its 100 millionth photo.To mark the occasion, a pair of scientists involved with the mission selected their favorite SDO images taken so far. Scroll down to see the 100 millionth image and a "mosaic" image captured on the same day--followed by the scientists' favorites."

     

     

    This is the Most Detailed Map of the Universe to Date This map of the universe spans more than 500 million light-years and contains more than 100,000 galaxies. 4:11 video is narrated and talks about the different high points on the journey. The graphics are cool and make others drool.

     


    This is What Photos of the Night Sky Would Look Like
    if the Andromeda Galaxy Were Brighter

    article by Michael Zhang in PetaPixel.

    Andromeda's actual size if it were brighter
    Photo is by Tom Buckley-Houston, who is quoted and linked to.
    This is a cropped and shrunk version. Click on it to see the Big One.

     

     


     

    2016 Transit of Mercury Early in the morning of May 9th, Mercury cruised across the face of the Sun. When a planet does this, it's called a transit. This three-minute narrated video from NASA tells you all about it.

     

    NASA Captures Mercury Transit Time-lapse This video condenses seven hours into 2 minutes. Watch as Mercury is backlit against the Sun.

     


     

     

    UDF SkyWalker - the Hubble telescope Deep Field interactive site! Use the small field at the top left to scroll around in the larger field. Cool!

     

    Mass of the sun

     

    Weight vs. Mass What is mass? How is it different from weight? Mass is a measurement of the amount of matter something contains, while Weight is the measurement of the pull of gravity on an object. Mass is measured by using a balance comparing a known amount of matter to an unknown amount of matter. Weight is measured on a scale. The Mass of an object doesn't change when an object's location changes. Weight, on the other hand, does change with location.

     

    The Universe within 1 billion Light Years - The Neighbouring Superclusters. "Galaxies and clusters of galaxies are not uniformly distributed in the Universe, instead they collect into vast clusters and sheets and walls of galaxies interspersed with large voids in which very few galaxies seem to exist. The map above shows many of these superclusters including the Virgo supercluster - the minor supercluster of which our galaxy is just a minor member. The entire map is approximately 7 percent of the diameter of the entire visible Universe." There are also maps of other superclusters.

     

    Universe Epic Zoom Out (YouTube)

    vast universe
    American Museum of Natural History video with techno soundtrack.
    "Absolutely stunning", this is seven minutes of awesome wonder
    as you zoom out to the edge of the known universe, and back again.
    Really puts Earth in perspective for students.

     

     

     

     

    Vallis marinarus vs Grand Canyon


     

    View of Earth from Saturn,

    View of Earth from Saturn

    taken by Cassini probe. Click on the photo
    to see a video with much larger views!

     

    Visible Earth NASA has listed their favorite photos of earth
    from space. Many cool photos, worth checking them out.

     

     

    Waste in space thumbnail

    Waste in Space Infographic details the growing menace
    of leftovers in orbit. Two to three times a day, a satellite
    has a brush with death from kamikaze space debris.
    1,000 times a day, satellites come within five miles of being hit.
    Learn all about it by reading this great big (1600 X 900) graphic.

     

     

     

    Apollo 11 on launch pad We Choose The Moon is an interactive experience recreating the historic Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in real time. Once where only three men made the trip, now millions can. Live event begins 8:02 AM EDT July 16, 2009, with launch at 9:32 a.m., exactly 40 years after Apollo 11 lifted off. Going in Astronomy, Social Studies, and Technology.

     

     

     

    Welcome to the Planets This NASA site has plenty of photos and facts about the planets. Colorful and nicely laid out.

     

    What's Next for NASA: Planned Missions Through 2030 Big online poster lists and describes all the planned missions.

     


     

    Your Age on Other Worlds Your age in years is different on different planets! Find out why at this site.

     

    Your Place in the Universe! is a large, expandable graphic from South Africa. From left to right it starts out in your house and moves out into the galaxies. Lots of good explanations in between the pix. Kids love big colorful pictures they can explore.

     

    Your Weight On Other Worlds Kids are amazed at what they would weigh (or not weigh) on different planets!

     

    Zoom Astronomy "is a comprehensive on-line site about space and astronomy. It is designed for people of all ages and levels of comprehension. It has an easy-to-use structure that allows readers to start at a basic level on each topic and then to progress to much more advanced information as desired, simply by clicking on links." Extremely good site, typical of Zoom

     

     

    Think new puppy
    "Keep looking up!" - Jack Horkheimer

     

     

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