All
Observing the sky
Planets and exoplanets
Small solar system bodies
The Moon
The Sun and stars
The Universe
Young astronomers
Virtual tours
For older students
For young students
In this project the students will gain insight into why astronomers think there are large amounts of dark matter in galaxies. Dark matter is material that is “dark” in the sense that it neither absorbs nor emits electromagnetic radiation (“light”). We can infer its presence through the gravitational effect it has on the matter we …
In this activity, the students will gain knowledge of the observable universe and the spectacular sights to be discovered when observing it. They get to unleash their creativity with creating nebulae and along with this learn that the Universe can come in a variety of colors, structures and shapes. MATERIALS
Orrery’s are fantastic tools to demonstrate the planetary motions in our Solar System, but rare since they often require advanced clock work to work. It is however straight forward to make one for your self with paper and scicssors. The children can colour their own orrery and play with it to explore several interesting phenomena …
This activity looks at how meteorites have been used and studied throughout history. It is a comprehension activity, where students will read some text and then answer questions.
Have you found a possible meteorite? Here are the instructions how to identify a meteorite.
This activity allows you to create the “rotation lightcurve” of an object, matching the approach that astronomers use when trying to determine the rotation rate of an asteroid. The original version of this activity used a potato as the “asteroid”, so it is sometimes referred to as the “Rotato Experiment”!
In this activity, the students will learn different ways of roughly separating the features of observable structures in the universe and will gain the tools needed for identifying what kinds of objects they can observe through telescopes when visiting the observatory. MATERIALS
There are many online data archives about exoplanets, so here we have gathered together some of the better ones. Most of these will provide you with up-to-date information on the current status of exoplanet discoveries, including new results from the NASA TESS mission. NASA Exoplanet Archive: This is a very up-to-date and comprehensive data archive …
“Stars are much like humans. They are born, live their lives and die.” Ilgmars Eglitis, astronomer Observing the spectra of stars allows us to look deep into their origin and characteristics. A large catalog of star spectra exists at Baldone Observatory in Latvia, which is being made available online this year. In the picture above, …