Astronomy Online, for Drake Elementary
Brian Fields
Astronomy
and Physics Departments, U. Illlinois
Planet Earth
you are
here
zoom out for the big picture:
how's the weather today?
in all her glory
when it's dark but not night: solar eclipses!
partial
, over the
Golden Gate
,
total--over Turkey:
zoom
,
time lapse
high-res
annular
, composite of rare
hybrid
event
diamond ring
Moon at
closest and farthest
(perigee/apogee)
eclipse path
animation
looking down
on an eclipsed Earth
A Map of the Starry Night: the
Celestial Sphere
diagram
of the celestial sphere
sketch
of a single star's path in 1 day
Star trails
in the
Southern Hemisphere
in the
northern hemisphere
where was
this
taken? (What latitude?)
answer
how long were the exposures in
these
images?
Craters and the History of the Moon
Compare
Earth
vs
Moon
surfaces
zoom in with
Google Moon
but what about here?
Manicouagan
,
Clearwater Lakes
, Canada
Tunguska
, Siberia
Meteor crater
, Arizona
Cosmic
calamity!
... and
evidence
Other Planets in the Solar System
solar system orbit viewer
inner solar system objects in real time
Mars
and
Maritan surface
Jupiter
Saturn
and
rings
Neptune
Pluto
, and its other
dwarf planet
neighbors and
Eris
;
Sedna
, and
2003 EL61
, all hangin' in the
Kuiper belt
Planets Around Other Stars
finding planets: why it's so hard!
the trick: star
wobble
current
lineup
of planets around other stars
the future:
terrestrial planet finder
The Sun Today: Real-Time Images!
the photographer: NASA's
SOHO
satellite
real-time movies!
gif
,
mpeg
Spectacular solar
storms
! similar storms (solar flares) also generate radio waves; these can be converted into audio (like your radio does all the time) and then you can
hear them
!
movies of the
Sun's disk
notice the spots and the spin!
Life Cycles of Stars
birth
childhood
old age
death:
this way
or
this way
Black Holes
Size, recipe, and surgeon general's warning
Black holes from afar, near, and
inside
Black hole
digestion
Evidence for Black Holes
X-ray
binaries
:
Cygnus X-1
Milky Way center:
Radio
overview
The power of
adaptive optics
Stellar orbits:
Munich group
,
UCLA group
,
plot
other galaxies
active galaxies:
M87
; AGN
gallery
gravitationally lensed quasar: the
Einstein cross
quasar and
host galaxies
supermassive black holes
an important clue?
a binary supermassive black hole pair!
Gravitational radiation
Hulse & Taylor's
award-winning
binary pulsar
gravity-wave observatories:
LIGO
"Google Sky": The Solan Digital Sky Survey
survey explained
here
wander the sky
click on objects to see what they are and to get data
Movies, Animations, and Simulations
Apollo 15 hammer and feather gravity experiment, the movie:
quicktime
,
mov and mpeg
,
quicktime, with links to transcript
retrograde motion
java demonstrator
solar system viewer
java simulation
Planetary motion (Kepler's laws):
one java simulation
and
another
phases of the Moon:
java simulator
,
self-test
Useful Links
the invaluable
Astronomy Picture of the Day
solar motion throughout the year: the
analemma
solar system clearinghouse:
nineplanets.org
Google
Earth
,
Moon
Other Resources
Astronomy picture of the Day
Astronomy 100 (Spring 2003)
:
lecture pages with links
Astronomy For Teachers
:
lecture pages with links
This page:
www.astro.uiuc.edu/~bdfields/Drake.html
Brian D. Fields
Last modified: Thu Oct 4 16:19:13 CDT 2007