This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the colorful aftermath of the death of a Sun-like star: a planetary nebula. The text describes how this planetary nebula may have formed. In the accompanying educational activity, In Search of ... Planetary... (View More) Nebulae, students investigate how Sun-like stars end their lives through a level 1 inquiry activity using the images and text from the lithograph and other resources. A level 1 inquiry activity can help prepare students to become independent thinkers. (View Less)

In this activity students develop a simplified log table using information from their Log Tapes. Then they use it to solve arithmetic problems by looking up and combining logs, and finding the antilog. Because these problems are extremely simple,... (View More) students appreciate the logic of logarithms without getting bogged down in the arithmetic detail and error. This is activity B3 in the "Far Out Math" educator's guide. Lessons in the guide include activities in which students measure,compare quantities as orders of magnitude, become familiar with scientific notation, and develop an understanding of exponents and logarithms using examples from NASA's GLAST mission. These are skills needed to understand the very large and very small quantities characteristic of astronomical observations. Note: In 2008, GLAST was renamed Fermi, for the physicist Enrico Fermi. (View Less)

In this activity, students construct classic slide rules and use them like calculators. Students use the slide rules to read scales, determine significant figures, and estimate decimal places.  This is activity D3 in the "Far Out Math" educator's... (View More) guide. Lessons in the guide include activities in which students measure, compare quantities as orders of magnitude, become familiar with scientific notation, and develop an understanding of exponents and logarithms using examples from NASA's GLAST mission. These are skills needed to understand the very large and very small quantities characteristic of astronomical observations. Note: In 2008, GLAST was renamed Fermi, for the physicist Enrico Fermi. (View Less)

In this activity, students graph second and third order functions, discovering an inverse relationship between squares and square roots and between cubes and cube roots. Students graph these functions on both linear grid (evenly spaced numbers), and... (View More) a log-log grid (evenly space exponents). Graph lines that curve on linear grids transform into straight lines on the log-log grids, with slopes equal to their exponential powers. This activity is activity E3 in the "Far Out Math" educator's guide. Lessons in the guide include activities in which students measure, compare quantities as orders of magnitude, become familiar with scientific notation, and develop an understanding of exponents and logarithms using examples from NASA's GLAST mission. These are skills needed to understand the very large and very small quantities characteristic of astronomical observations. Note: In 2008, GLAST was renamed Fermi, for the physicist Enrico Fermi. (View Less)

This Spanish website is a timeline where you can view the past, present and future of Infrared Astronomy. It talks about the different infrared telescopes of the past and present and how they impacted astronomy. It also presents the infrared... (View More) telescopes planned for future missions and what their contribution will be to the world of astronomy. (View Less)

This fact card is about the significance of the pattern of microwave radiation that WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) has detected. The card uses the analogy of human fingerprints to show the ability to identify the right "suspect" from... (View More) the pattern. Note: this resource was published prior to the mission name change from MAP to WMAP to honor Dr. Wilkinson. (View Less)

This service answers users questions on a wide variety of topics in high-energy astronomy. Questions are answered by scientists within the Lab for High-Energy Astrophysics at NASA/GSFC. An archive of questions and answers are categorized by topic... (View More) for users to browse. Suggestions for additional information resources are also provided. (View Less)

This fact card discusses the shape of space and how light is affected by the amount of dark matter and energy in the universe. MAP's microwave detection gives us enormous insight into the creation of this matter and energy. Note: this resource was... (View More) published prior to the mission name change from MAP to WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) to honor Dr. Wilkinson. (View Less)

This Spanish web site explains why we need to study objects in space at many wavelengths. It includes a general overview of what we learn in each part of the spectrum and why we need to send telescopes into space.