Teaching Astronomy by Doing Astronomy

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Month: November 2019

  • Current Events: Moonrise at Sunrise

    Credit: NASA/Christina Koch By Stacy Palen The image above was taken from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut Christina Hammock Koch and could form the basis for a nice final exam question.   1) In this image, what is the phase of the Moon? How do you know? The moon here is a Waning…

  • Reading Astronomy News: ESO Telescope Reveals What Could be the Smallest Dwarf Planet yet in the Solar System

    ESO/P. Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS) By Stacy Palen According to this article by the ESO, Hygiea has been imaged by ESO’s VLT. It is round, which makes it a dwarf planet rather than an asteroid. Smaller than Ceres, it is now the smallest known dwarf planet in the Solar System.   1) Study the…

  • Classroom Stories: Vera Rubin Tells The Story

    Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, University of Basque Country/JHU By Stacy Palen I was poking around, looking for something completely different when I came across this nice little vignette from "Physics Today" published in 20061. It’s the story of the discovery of dark matter, told by Vera Rubin herself. The story is mostly…

  • Current Events: Naming the Moons of Saturn

    By Stacy Palen I long ago stopped keeping track of the number of moons around Saturn and Jupiter. It often feels like there is a contest going on among astronomers—who can find the most moons around “their” planet! In early October, a report hit the news of 20 new moons discovered around Saturn, many of them…