Educational resources in astronomy
Turn an old wall calendar into a timeline of the universe!
In this assignment, you will try to fit the entire history of the universe from the Big Bang to present day into one calendar year from January to December. Were you surprised to see how late humans enter the picture?
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Keywords: calendar, timeline, universe
Have you ever wondered what your body is made of? Or how much of each element you contain? Use this calculator to find out! Every element you contain that is heavier than hydrogen and helium was created over billions of years during the various developmental stages of stars. So we are made of star stuff!
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Keywords: elements, stellar evolution, human body
The rotation of the Earth is investigated by observing the length of a toy figure’s shadow in the course of a day.
As an extended task, you can use the Stellarium software to investigate the movements of the Sun. Alternatively, the students can make real observations of the position of the Sun in the sky in the course of a year (the analemma pattern).
Keywords: sky, diurnal motion, daily motion, shadow, Sun, analemma
The orbits of the planets and moons affect each other all the time, through minor gravity pulls whenever the objects are at their closest through their orbits. When these tiny pulls happen often and on a regular basis, we get something called orbit resonance. That creates simple harmonics, or ratios, where you can model the motions of e.g. Jupiters inner moons with ratios like 1:2:4.
