American Astronomical Society

The American Astronomical Society (AAS), established 1899, is the major professional organization in North America for astronomers and other scientists and individuals interested in astronomy.

AN ASTRONOMY COURSE

A course on astronomy for Middle/High School students using the Internet. It is adaptable to most age and interest levels.

Astronomy 123, Spring 1996

"Cosmology and the Origin of Life" taught Spring Quarter, 1996 at the Univ. of Oregon

Astronomy Activities

Astronomy based activities that have been developed by the Education Department at the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum.

Astronomy @Infoseek

Infoseek's collection of Astronomy resources

Astronomy Cafe
"The web site for the astronomically disadvantaged"

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to be an astronomer? Do you have any questions that you would like an astronomer to answer? Would you like to hear the latest about hyperspace, black holes, time travel and quantum cosmology? Well, at the Astronomy Cafe you've come to the right place! Sit down, grab a cup of coffee, and have a far-out adventure at the outer frontier of space and time.

Astronomy - Fall 1998 Preview

Astronomy Week at Assignment Discovery on the Discovery Channel. Broadcast dates: Sept. 14-18, Oct. 19-23, Nov. 23-27, Dec. 28-Jan. 1.

ASTRONOMY LINKS FROM NASA

An AWESOME collection of astronomy links from NASA.

Galileo - Countdown to Europa 17

Galileo's orbital tour during the Galileo Europa Mission (GEM) consists of 14 different elliptical orbits around Jupiter. The next satellite flyby will occur on September 26, 1998 when Galileo flies by Europa. This encounter is referred to as Europa 17 since it will occur on the seventeenth orbit since Galileo entered orbit around Jupiter. Pictures are updated every 5 minutes.

MWO Online StarMap

Fill out the form and we'll create a PostScript Star Map for you!

NASA

Learn more about what lies beyond planet Earth by visiting the NASA site. Stop by the Gallery where you will find video, audio clips and still images to download. In the Aeronautics section you will find aeronautics research and links to related Webs. In Space Science there is information on NASAs planetary exploration, astronomy and research into the origins of life. Mission to Planet Earth is dedicated to understanding the many ways the Earth is constantly changing and how human beings influence those changes. Human Space Flight provides links to the space shuttle research.

NASA CONNECT

NASA CONNECT for 1998-1999 is a series of five, interactive, 30-minute instructional programs that utilizes NASA projects, facilities, and researchers to enhance the teaching of elementary (i.e., grades 4-5) and middle school (i.e., grades 6-8) math and science. Each program includes a lesson; a classroom experiment; and a web-based, online, interactive component designed by Langley's Learning Technologies Project. NASA CONNECT is free; there are no fees or charges associated with the program. Educators are encouraged to tape the broadcast and copy the teacher materials.

NASA Spacelink

An Aeronautics and Space Resource for Educators Since 1988

Picture of the day

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.

Sea and Sky:

A Web Site dedicated to our last two great frontiers. Come explore the awesome splendors of the Sea, and the endless wonders of the universe.

The Sky

Site includes a Sky Gallery, Sky Lab, Sky Links, Space Exploration, Tour of the Solar System, Astronomy Resources, Sky Games and My Sky.

Space and Astronomy Unit

Includes lesson plans, activities, references and resource materials for a complete unit on Space from smallest to largest. Students will begin with our solar system which includes the Sun, the planetary system around it, and the region of the Sun's extended atmosphere called the heliosphere. Next they look at the region outside of our solar sytem: the stars in our own galaxy and other galaxies. As students read the overview they draw diagrams in their Science Journal to illustrate the sizes of things and answer questions.

THE SPACE STATION

An exceptional resource for space-related links.

VIRTUAL ASTROPHYSICS AND SPACE CENTER

Martindale's award-winning graduate and undergraduate space center has an impressive collection of resources. DEFINITELY MUST EXPLORE site.

Web Nebulae

If you look up at the night sky with your naked eye all you see is a black void with a few points of white light. But with a camera and a telescope an entirely different view unfolds in brilliant color and amazing detail. The pages here introduce a few of these spectacular objects. The emphasis here is on aesthetics, not science. While there is a little information to help you appreciate the images this is not a tutorial on the astronomy of nebulae.

WINDOWS TO THE UNIVERSE

An AWESOME Astronomy collection from the University of Michigan is heavily designed with beautiful graphics. Although it seems to be designed for K-12, it is definitely worth a visit.

Automated telescopes:

Bradford Robotic Telescope

Users can read an on-line user guide about the telescope, find out technical details of the hardware and software, learn more about stars and galaxies, read weather reports, and control the telescope - all from the same interface.

University of Iowa

This Automated Telescope Facility is designed to be a useful tool for the internet community. This telescope is freely available for use by educators, scientists , and anyone else with an interest in astronomy. We currently support a growing internet observers group, and we invite you to visit the Remote Observers Page to get a better idea of what it's all about.

The Planets

Exploring the Planets - Cyber-Center

At the Cyber-Center you will see for yourself how scientists study planets that are millions of miles away. Although the activities are designed to be used in a classroom with a teacher, please feel free to try them on your own. No matter where you do the activities, the staff at the Cyber-Center want you to experience the excitement of planetary research. So get out your science journal and get ready to use on-line data and images to investigate the planets and other members of the Solar System.

EXPLORING THE PLANETS - Gallery Entrance

Includes the history of discovery, tools of exploration, Voyager, comparing the planets, exploring comets, activities, artifacts and images.

Introduction to the Solar System

Exploring Planets in the Classroom: Hands-on Activities

Planetary Properties

Exploring Planets in the Classroom: Hands-on Activities

Solar system views

Presents a vivid multimedia adventure unfolding the splendor of the Sun, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and more. Discover the latest scientific information, or study the history of space exploration, rocketry, early astronauts, space missions, spacecraft through a vast archive of photographs, scientific facts, text, graphics and videos. Views of the Solar System offers enhanced exploration and educational enjoyment of the solar system and beyond.

Third From the Sun: SEGway Summary

A self-guided lesson on Earth imaging and image interpretation skills. Students learn about the history of Earth imaging, the Landsat satellite program. They develop interpretation skills as they play a game that involves inferring the subjects of various Landsat images.

Tour the planets

A Multimedia Tour of the Solar System. The Nine Planets is an overview of the history, mythology, and current scientific knowledge of each of the planets and moons in our solar system. Each page has text and images, some have sounds and movies, most provide references to additional related information.

Unit: Take A Spin through the Solar System

This lesson plan features comparisons of images for 3 planets (Jupiter, Uranus, and Saturn) and the Sun. This lesson also includes a movie of Saturn and explanatory text (warning: the movie takes a long time to download and causes higher blood pressure if you're in a hurry). In this unit we offer two areas. The first area is where students should go to find a self-study guide for doing their research. It is also where the NASA images are located and where students can do some real "cyberscience". The second area is for teachers. That's where the lesson plan ideas and teaching suggestions are.

Welcome to the Planets

This is a collection of many of the best images from NASA's planetary exploration program. The collection has been extracted from the interactive program "Welcome to the Planets" which was distributed on the Planetary Data System Educational CD-ROM Version 1.5 in December 1995.

Mars

CNN - Mars image gallery

Images from CNN's coverage of Mars: Life Signs?

Center for Mars Exploration Home Page

Mars Team Online

Mars Team Online is about the men and women who work on uncovering the mysteries of Mars. Over the next decade, NASA and other space agencies will be launching many different spacecraft to the red planet. You can join the enthusiastic people responsible for these missions and learn about their diverse and exciting careers.

Mars Team Online - Teacher's Guide

Curriculum supplements about the science of Mars and the challenges of getting spacecraft there are available to help teachers better incorporate Mars material into their classrooms. Mars Team Online hosts teacher discussion areas to encourage like-minded educators to share good ideas and support one another. This is also a good way to provide feedback and ideas to NASA to improve Mars Team Online. As well, student-to-student interactions are currently happening through Student Stumpers (see Kids' Corner). Finally, an area on the Web is reserved to display student work relating to Mars.

Mars Atlas home page

This is the first (but not the latest and greatest, for most purposes) WWW-browsable, zoomable and scrollable atlas of Mars. It lets you choose a site by various means and will show the locations (as footprints) of thousands of high-resolution Viking Orbiter images.

Mars Mission Education Program

The Mars Exploration Education Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has developed and is implementing an Education and Public Outreach Program aligned with and responsive to NASA's education goals. The primary focus of this effort is to educate teachers and students with diverse backgrounds, in a gender sensitive manner, over a wide geographic area of the United States in grades Kindergarten through 12. The secondary focus of the effort is to reach and educate the public at large.

Mars Pathfinder Sites

Reflectors for Mars Pathfinder Mission InformationTo help the millions trying to get information on Mars Pathfinder, we've put together this list of Mars Pathfinder reflector sites. See [email protected] for more of the latest news from NASA.

Mars Today

A poster, produced daily, by the Center for Mars Exploration at NASA's Ames Research Center. The poster depicts current conditions on Mars and its relationship to Earth, in four panels.

The Martian Sun-Times

Students will become weather reporters for the Martian Sun-Times newspaper. They will gather, interpret and compare current weather information for Mars and Earth. Links to many resources are included to aid students in completing the 6 investigations. A teacher's guide is also included.

Ready to use Lessons:

Connections+ | Space and Astronomy

Connections+ | No Life on Mars?

Connections+ | Craters: How They Form

Earth to Mars Theme Activity 1

Earth to Mars Theme Activity 2

Earth to Mars Theme Activity 3

The Path to Mars - Program Overview