Evolution -- Astronomy & Universe
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Astronomy – The Universe
| Online Textbooks and Courses
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From Stargazers to Starships: History is the strong suit of this astronomy textbook aimed at high schoolers or beginning undergrads. Students only need basic algebra and trigonometry to follow the development of astronomy through the contributions of pioneers such as Kepler and Newton.
Absolute Beginners Astronomy and Telescopes Page: Tips by an "intermediate" amateur. Lot's of info for the beginner.
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| Overviews of Astronomy
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History of Astronomy : You've heard of Johannes Kepler and his laws of planetary motion, but how about Benjamin Banneker, an 18th century black Maryland farmer and self-taught astronomer who won fame for his eclipse predictions? If you're interested in an overview of astronomy's highlights, visit this links-packed site.
The Tao of Astronomy : Links in Astronomy and Geophysics
Astronomy Activities on the WWW : Designed for K-12 classes and science projects, focusing on activities that are either hands-on, or at least encourage students to think for themselves, and not merely follow a cookbook recipe or fill in a few blanks.
Astrobiology at NASA : Good source for recent news in science.
Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy :
I have been delighted to find that most people are very curious about the night (and day!) sky, but unfortunately a lot of misinformation is spread about astronomy.
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| For Creationists: Big Bang & Receding Moon
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Recession of the Moon and Age of the Earth-Moon System : For the Creationist expert who throws out arguments based on a brief reading of oddities in nature. Point them to this website.
Is There a Role for Natural Theology Today? : By Dr. Owen Gingerich, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who proposes to sketch briefly the modern scientific scenario of the creation of the universe and the origin of the elements, pointing out where he thinks that a designing hand has been at work.
Hot Big Bang Theory : A broadly accepted theory for the origin of our universe, it postulates that it started from an instantaneously expanding point, roughly 10-20 billion years ago.
Hubble Measures the Expanding Universe : Combining Hubble's constant measurement with estimates for the density of the universe, the team determined that the universe is approximately 12 billion years old -- similar to the oldest stars.
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| The Heavens Online
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Liftoff to Space Exploration: Locate the Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory or any of your favorite satellites and Space Shuttle (during missions). There are many other features available at this NASA website.
Espenak's Eclipse Page: To learn about eclipses, drop by this NASA site. Maps chart the trajectory of every solar and lunar eclipse since 1951 and provide projected paths for events through 2050.
Violence in the Cosmos: The universe began with an explosion and remains a tumultuous place. Based on a popular public lecture, the five sections expose how turbulent events such as the big bang, galactic collisions, and stellar explosions shape the universe.
New Solar System Object Detected : Astronomers have found a new member of the Solar System that orbits the Sun beyond Neptune. It could be half the diameter of Pluto, which in 1930 was the last planet discovered. Also, Mini-Pluto Spotted Orbiting the Sun.
Lunar Atlas :
The images, snapped in the 1960s to help plan Apollo landings and missions, were taken at low to moderate sun angles, so features are sharply shadowed and easy to see. Another classic data set on the site is the 1960 Consolidated Lunar Atlas, which contains images taken with telescopes on Earth.
Sloan Digital Sky Survey : A 5-year collaboration to build a three-dimensional map of the universe. Featured images include the most distant known object (a quasar), and links to the survey's enormous archive (which includes a cool map-viewing tool called SkyServer).
Sun's Orbit Around Milky Way : Astronomers say they have measured precisely for the first time how long it takes the sun to circle its home galaxy: 226 million years. The last time the sun was at this exact spot of its galactic orbit, dinosaurs ruled the world. "Humans" have been around for less than 1% of a galactic orbit.
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| Meteors and Asteroids
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The American Meteor Society : Offers a wealth of lore on meteors for both professionals and amateur sky watchers. There are great photographs, logs of meteor activity, primers on observing, and forms for reporting sightings--both ordinary meteors and the especially bright ones called fireballs.
NEMS Meteorites & Planetary Science : Meteorites falling from the heavens have mystified people for thousands of years, but it is only within the past two hundred years that scientists have come to accept the fact that stones do indeed fall from the sky and that they represent fragments of other bodies in our solar system.
Dweir's Meteorite Studies :
A Systematic Classification Through Photographs
Mars Meteorites (JPL) :
Of the 20,000 or so meteorites that have been discovered on Earth, only 15 have been identified as originating from the planet Mars.
Near-Live Leonid Watching System :
What are the Leonids, Image Library, Photographing the Leonids, Latest News & Links
Canadian Meteorite Catalogue : About 60 meteorites have been found in Canada, including Tagish Lake; fragments from a fireball over the Yukon (January 2000) may be the most primitive meteorite ever identified. The Provincial Museum of Alberta describes where and how each of the country's meteorites was discovered.
Asteroid Comet Impact Hazards: For the true odds that a killer space rock will pummel the planet, check out this site from NASA's Ames Research Center focusing on efforts to spot near-Earth objects before it's too late.
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| Resources in Astronomy and Astrophysics
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Astronomy Resources on the Internet : A collection by the AstroWeb Consortium.
Students for the Exploration and Development of Space : is an independent, student-based organization which promotes the exploration and development of space. Rocketry, telescope and astronomy information.
Annotated List of Physics Resoures on the WWW : The Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics (PAM) division of the Special Libraries Association provides links to physics resources organized around the following areas: people, professional societies, institutions, reference, eprints, and pathfinders.
The NASA Astrophysics Data System :
The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a NASA-funded project whose main resource is an Abstract Service, which includes four sets of abstracts: 1) astronomy and astrophysics, containing 588,077 abstracts; 2) instrumentation, containing 583,495 abstracts; 3) physics and geophysics, containing 902,745 abstracts; and 4) Los Alamos preprint server, containing 3,819 abstracts. Each dataset can be searched by author, object name (astronomy only), title, or abstract text words.
The Physics of Microwave Background Anisotropies
Cosmic microwave background anisotropies provide a vast amount of cosmological information. Their full physical content and detailed structure can be understood in a simple and intuitive fashion through a systematic investigation of individual mechanisms for anisotropy formation. Beginner through Advanced presentations.
HEASARC :
High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center is a source of gamma-ray, X-ray, and extreme ultraviolet observations of cosmic (non-solar) sources. This site provides access to archival data, associated analysis software, documentation, expertise in how to use them, as well as relevant educational and outreach material.
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