The transit of Venus is a rare astronomical event that has been well documented throughout history. The most recent transit occurred in June of 2004, and the one before that took place more than 100 years earlier in 1882. This site from the South African Astronomical Observatory provides information and first-hand observations of the 1882 event from Wellington, South Africa. Just prior to the event, an observatory was erected at the Huguenot Seminary for girls, and some of the historical observations made from that site in 1882 are provided here for your perusal.

This resource covers Seyfert galaxies, radio galaxies, BL Lacertae (BL Lac) objects, quasars, supermassive black holes, determining masses in galactic centers using the virial theorem, and a model for active galactic nuclei.

This site features a scientific article associated with the Mars Global Surveyor Project, reporting data collected from a study analyzing Mono Lake as a terrestrial analog to Mars. The study is centered on two classes of biomarker compounds amino acids and fatty acids and on the microbial diversity of Mono Lake. A table illustrates the mole % fatty acids in Mono Lake sediments.

NASA argues that new observations may upset theories about how solar explosions create and destroy antimatter. Users can view the many colorful animations and short movies obtained from the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI).

This radio broadcast discusses the renewed interest among space scientists in studying asteroids. Once disdained as uninteresting, asteriods are now considered to represent pristine material, essentially unchanged since the formation of the solar system. There are interviews with researchers involved in studying asteroids and discussions of several missions, including the Japanese probe Hayabusa, to visit and sample asteroids. The broadcast is 41 minutes and 48 seconds in length.

This resource covers general features of asteroids; the asteroid belt; Kirkwood gaps; the spacecraft Galileo flying by the asteroid Gaspra; the asteroid Ida and its moon Dactyl; the spin of the asteroid Toutatis; and Earth-crossing asteroids, such as asteroid 1995 CR.

This portal provides access to an extensive selection of maps, imagery, and geospatial data for the Moon, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and other planetary bodies and moons. Some materials are available for online viewing and downloading; others must be purchased. A link to map prices and purchasing information is provided.

This site provides a brief list of books and articles about astronomy and space science education that would be useful for teachers in various levels (from K-12 through graduate school). There are general reports on astronomy education, government and organizational reports, articles on K-12 science education reform, teaching resources and more.

This site, created by Dr. Gene Smith of the University of California, San Diego, is very useful for a teacher. There are many tutorials, educational sites, curriculum resources and links to other courses. Topics on this page include: telescopes, nuclear energy, solar neutrinos, general relativity, galaxies, quasars, thermal radiation, atomic structure, black holes, dark matter and cosmology. This is a great resource for a general overview of many different topics in astronomy.

This Center, at the University of California, Berkeley, is dedicated to making space science information accessible to educators and public. Internet-based classroom resources for astronomy education in grades K-12 and cataloged and presented. The creators have categorized their resources by topical content, they consist of: art and space science, at home astronomy, auroras, comet's tale, exploring magnetism, eye on the sky, SEGway lessons, solar week, space weather, sun-earth media viewer, sunspots and workshops for educators at CSE. The site also provides resources for educators and scientists.

Our Sun is an ordinary star; however, as our own star, it holds special status for us and is essential to our existence. The Sun's gravity holds the solar system together, and nuclear fusion within the Sun supplies the energy for life on Earth. Without the Sun, Earth would be a drastically different place. This video segment presents some basic facts about our Sun. Topics include its size and heat relative to other stars, and Earth's distance from the Sun. A background essay and discussion questions are included. The segement is one minute twenty-eight seconds in length.

This site, hosted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Jet Propulsion Laboratories, is the press release from the Mars Exploration Rover Mission on July 12, 2004. It contains new images from the Opportunity Rover of morning clouds in the area of Endurance Crater. It is a useful site for a general introduction and also a fine collection of images from the mission.

This resource covers the general features of comets, such as their orbit, head, coma and tail; the comets Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp; Halley's comet; collisions of comets with other bodies; and the possibility of small water comets bombarding the Earth, with implications for the history of the atmosphere and oceans. There is information on the Tunguska Event, and the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and its encounter with Jupiter. A link is provided to a site for plotting your own orbits.

In this activity students read about the effects of radiation on airline passengers, and discover that during a trip in a jet plane at altitudes of 30,000 feet, cosmic rays and other energetic particles pose a great problem and can lead to significant health risks, especially for airline pilots. Students then apply mathematical concepts to calculate dosages and write a letter to persuade the Federal Aviation Administration or the Department of Transportation why it is important to educate, predict, and notify the public about the harmful effects of solar radiation.

This is a selected list of resources for those who want to examine with a skeptical eye some of the claims at the fringes of science that seem connected to astronomy. The last section includes some general books that deal with a broader range of pseudo-scientific topics. Instructors can often use the enormous media and student interest in some of these topics as a way of generating discussion about what constitutes science and about how the scientific method allows us to test controversial hypotheses and determine whether nature really works in the way they claim.

Comets have fascinated humans for hundreds of years, and most recently with the idea of creating a "deep impact" upon a comet in order to study the interior composition and makeup of these bodies. With this scientific mission in mind, a team of researchers (including participants from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Maryland) will send an impactor spacecraft into the Comet Tempel 1 on July 4th, 2005. The data collected from this fascinating experiment will help answer many questions about comets, and should be of interest to research scientists and the general public alike. The site itself contains quite a few helpful sections, including one dedicated to explaining the science behind studying comets. A technology section offers detailed explanations behind much of the flight system, the launch vehicle, and the various instruments on board. The gallery section has some nice animations that show how the mission will encounter and impact Comet Tempel 1. Overall, this is very engaging and well thought out site that explains this mission in jargon-free language.

This series of webpages is part of a course, called Astronomy 161: The Solar System, offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee. This unit covers the sun-centered (heliocentric) solar system introduced by Copernicus; the observations of Tycho Brahe; the Kepler laws of planetary motion; the contributions of Galileo, including telescope observations and laws of dynamics; comparison of the laws of Aristotle with the laws of Galileo; and Newton\'s unification of astronomy and physics. Subsections explaining the contributions of Newton include: explanation of vector quantities used by Newton, such as velocity, acceleration and force; the Newtonian laws of motion, and universal law of gravitation; Newton\'s correction of Kepler\'s laws; conic sections and gravitational orbits; gravitational perturbations and the prediction of new planets. The section ends with a mention of Einstein and the theory of relativity.

This lesson allows students plot the percentage of high energy, x-ray solar flares over several years to discover that the solar cycle of sunspot activity is also a cycle of solar flares.

Project CLEA at Gettysburg College and the XMM-Newton Education group at Sonoma State University have created a new computer-based activity. Students analyze realistically simulated X-ray spectra of a supernova remnant and determine the abundances of various elements in them. It includes a teacher manual and a pre- and post-test for assessing the activity. The executable file contained on this page requires a Windows operating system.

This lesson covers the interior of the Earth, geological differentiation, plate tectonics, composition and layers of the atmosphere, weather and climate, consequences of rotation for weather, the magnetic field, magnetosphere and Van Allen Radiation Belts of Earth, auroras (Northern and Southern Lights, and imaging the Earth. There is information on seismic waves, and convection currents; an animation of continental drift; evidence for plate tectonics, including maps of crustal plate boundaries and the age of the sea floor crustal plates; and explanations of solar heating, Coriolis forces, cyclones and anticyclones.