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Astronomy and
Space
Lunar Phases
Astronomy Magazines
Astronomy Magazine
At the heart of Astronomy.com are eight
core content areas: news, feature stories, observing, an image
gallery, parent and teacher resources, Astro for Kids, a beginners
section, and the AstroShops. These eight sections offer a wide
variety of information in an easy to navigate, highly dynamic and
interactive format.
Sky and Telescope Magazine
The web site for Sky and Telescope
Magazine.
The Solar System
The Solar System
This site, from Heavens
Above, has a chart showing the current locations of the planets
relative to each other. The current time and date are entered by
default. However, you can produce a chart showing the positions of
the planets on any date.
The Nine Planets
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.
Views of the Solar System
Views of the Solar System 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.
The Solar System
Live
You can view the entire Solar System or just the inner planets
(through the orbit of Mars). Controls allow you to set time and
date, viewpoint, observing location, orbital elements to track an
asteroid or comet, and a variety of other parameters.
Welcome to the Planets
This is a collection of many of the best images from NASA's
planetary exploration program.
Comet
Observation Page
This site has recent news, observations, and
information about comets.
Meteorites
This site is essentially an online textbook on meteorites, filled
with helpful information -- such as what to do if you think you have
found a rock from space.
Asteroid Orbits
You can select from the growing list of "Potentially Hazardous
Asteroids" by clicking on their individual links, or search for an
object by name or designation, and within seconds the orbit is
displayed. You can then shift the viewing angle, change the date,
zoom in and out, or animate the display backward and forward in
time.
NASA Sites
NASA
NASA's Homepage.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
This facility in Pasadena, California, is one of the "glamour
centers" for space exploration, command central for past and present
missions to the planets. This is where you'll find the latest
pictures from all space missions.
Planetary
PhotoJournal
The Planetary Photojournal is an
interface to the Planetary Image Archive (PIA) contained within the
Planetary Data System Imaging Node. As images are added to the PIA,
the Photojournal will aid in finding the
desired image from this database by using a number of search
mechanisms. In addition to the photographic images you may have seen
in magazines or television broadcasts, the actual data used to
create these images are also available.
NASA's Human Space Flight
Center
This site has coverage of all
Space Shuttle and
International Space Station
activities.
Kennedy Space Center
This site has the launch schedules for the Space Shuttle and
expendable launch vehicles. The answers to interesting, frequently
asked questions can also be found here.
Space Science
NASA's Space Science Enterprise is responsible for all of NASA's
programs relating to astronomy, the solar system, and the sun and
its interaction with Earth. That includes all of NASA's telescopes
and planetary probes.
Today@nasa.gov.
This on-line newsletter, updated daily, contains the latest news
about NASA science and technology.
Science @ NASA
The latest space news from NASA.
The Sky
The Constellations
This site, from Heavens
Above, provides star charts and the mythology for about 88
different constellations. Information about the brightest stars in
each constellation is also provided.
The Star Hustler
Jack Horkheimer's Star Gazer is the word's first and only weekly
TV series on naked-eye astronomy. Past and present show scripts are
available on the web site.
Hawaiian Astronomical
Society Storybook and Deepsky Atlas
This site provides a good online atlas of the heavens, combined
with photographs of significant objects, and their descriptions.
Many good stories or myths about the constellations from both
Greco-Roman, and other civilizations are provided. For those
constellations that don't have a myth associated with it, the
biographies of the scientists associated with the constellation are
given.
Satellite Tracking
J-Track
J-Track a web-based Java application that lets you quickly and
easily keep track of your favorite orbiting objects.
Use J-Track to track Mir, the Space Shuttle,
the Space Station, Hubble, UARS, COBE, and much more.
J-Pass
Using your location and the latest available tracking data,
J-Pass can predict the times a satellite will pass overhead, and
even give you a chart showing the path of the craft through your
sky. Whether you're interested in seeing the International Space
Station, Mir, a favorite category of satellites such as Amateur
craft, or just any manmade craft, J-Pass can help you plan your
viewing.
SkyWatch
NASA's SkyWatch is a web-based Java application that provides sky
watchers worldwide with a picture of when and where the
International Space Station, the Space Shuttle and other spacecraft
can be seen with the unaided eye as they pass overhead.
NASA's
Orbital Tracking
Realtime orbital tracking data and map for
the Space Station, Space Shuttle, and Russian vehicles.
Heavens Above
This site provides information for observing satellites as well
as a wealth of other space flight and astronomical information.
SETI
SETI Institute Online
The SETI Institute serves as an institutional home for scientific
and educational projects relevant to the nature, distribution, and
prevalence of life in the universe.
The Institute conducts and/or encourages research and related
activities in a large number of fields including, but not limited
to, all science and technology aspects of astronomy and the
planetary sciences, chemical evolution, the origin of life,
biological evolution, and cultural evolution. The Institute also has
a primary goal to conduct and encourage public information and
education related to these topics.
SETI@home
SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected
computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
You can participate by running a free program that downloads and
analyzes radio telescope data.
Current Missions
Deep
Impact
NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station, Fla., on Wednesday, January 12, 2005. The mission
will travel to a comet and release an impactor on July 4,
2005 creating a crater on the surface of
the comet. Scientists believe the exposed materials may give clues
to the formation of our solar system.
Mars
Exploration Rover Mission
NASA's twin robot geologists, the Mars Exploration Rovers,
launched toward Mars on June 10 and July 7, 2003, in search of
answers about the history of water on Mars.
The Mars Exploration Rover mission is part of NASA's Mars
Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of
the red planet.
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope is an operational program that
continues to generate major scientific discoveries.
New science instruments
were delivered and installed on-orbit via the space shuttle
in 2000 and 2003. HST's instruments provide scientific data in the
ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared regions of the
electromagnetic spectrum. (Launched 1990 April 24)
Cassini-Huygens
The Cassini Mission will do a detailed study of Saturn, its
rings, its magnetosphere, its icy satellites, and its moon Titan.
The Cassini Orbiter's mission consists of delivering a probe (called
Huygens, provided by the European
Space Agency) to Titan, and then remaining in orbit around
Saturn for detailed studies of the planet and its rings and
satellites. Cassini will arrive at Saturn on 2004 July 1. (Launched
1997 October 15)
Deep Space 1
Deep Space 1 launched from Cape Canaveral on October 24, 1998.
During a highly successful primary mission, it tested 12 advanced,
high-risk technologies in space. In an extremely successful extended
mission, it encountered Comet Borrelly and returned the best images
and other science data ever from a comet. During its fully
successful hyperextended mission, it conducted further technology
tests. The spacecraft was retired on December 18, 2001.
Galileo
The Galileo spacecraft was designed to study Jupiter's
atmosphere, satellites, and surrounding magnetosphere. The
spacecraft was named in honor of Galileo Galilei, the Italian
Renaissance scientist who discovered Jupiter's major moons in 1610.
The spacecraft was launched
on October 18, 1989 and
arrived on December 7,
1995.
The Galileo spacecraft's 14-year odyssey came to an end on
Sunday, Sept. 21, 2003 when the spacecraft
passed into Jupiter's shadow then disintegrated in the planet's
dense atmosphere at 11:57 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. The Deep Space
Network tracking station in Goldstone, Calif., received the last
signal at 12:43:14 PDT. The delay is due to the time it takes for
the signal to travel to Earth.
Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Global Surveyor became the first successful mission to the
red planet in two decades when it launched November 7, 1996, and
entered orbit on September 12, 1997. After a year and a half
trimming its orbit from a looping ellipse to a circular track around
the planet, the spacecraft began its prime mapping mission in March
1999. It has observed the planet from a low-altitude, nearly polar
orbit over the course of one complete Martian year, the equivalent
of nearly two Earth years. Mars Global Surveyor recently completed
its primary mission on January 31, 2001, and is now in an extended
mission phase.
The mission has studied the entire Martian surface, atmosphere,
and interior, and has returned more data about the red planet than
all other Mars missions combined.
Mars Odyssey
2001 Mars Odyssey is an orbiting spacecraft designed to determine
the composition of the planet's surface, to detect water and shallow
buried ice, and to study the radiation environment.
Launched on April 7, 2001
and arrived on October 24, 2001.
Stardust
Stardust is a comet sample return mission having the distinction
of being the first sample return mission from beyond the Earth-Moon
system. Stardust will collect interstellar dust, then encounter
Comet P/Wild 2 in 2004 collecting comet dust and possibly imaging
the nucleus at resolutions 10 times better than Giotto did at
Halley, and return to Earth in 2006 (returned Jan. 15, 2006) to drop off the sample return
capsule. (Launched 1999 February 7)
New Horizons
As the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and its moon Charon, New
Horizons looks to unlock one of the solar system's last, great
planetary secrets. After launch aboard an Atlas V in January 2006,
the New Horizons spacecraft will cross the entire span of the solar
system and conduct flyby studies of Pluto and its moon, Charon, in
2015. The seven science instruments on the piano-sized probe will
shed light on the bodies' surface properties, geology, interior
makeup and atmospheres.
Gravity Probe B
Gravity Probe B (GP-B) is a relativity gyroscope experiment
developed by NASA and Stanford University to test two extraordinary,
unverified predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of
relativity. GP-B will measure how space and time are warped by the
presence of the Earth, and, more profoundly, how the Earth's
rotation drags space-time around with it.
GP-B was launched on April 20, 2004 out of Vandenburg Air Force
Base.
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