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- Hello, World!
- At Play in the Classroom for Thirty-Five Years: Recollections and Recommendations for Keeping Our Spirits—and Our Students—Soaring
- Reaching every student in your General Education class
- Classroom Stories: Teaching Astronomy to Primarily Non-science Students in Group-setting Activities, by Sandi Brenner (Bryant University)
- JWST Carina Nebula
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Category: Reading Astronomy News
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By Stacy Palen This week, I draw your attention to this piece of news that neatly encapsulates many of the concepts that you might be teaching at this point in the semester! Betelgeuse’s recent variability may be caused by dust and pulsation—so no nearby supernova in the works for us this year. That’s typical 2020…
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By Stacy Palen Titan’s orbit is growing, which is unexpected! This article might be appropriate when discussing orbits, outer planet moons, or resonances. Below are some questions to ask your students based on this article. 1) What did astronomers EXPECT to find out about Titan’s orbit, before undertaking this study? Answer: They expected to see…
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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…
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Stocktrek Images, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo By Stacy Palen Fast radio bursts have been known since 2007. Recently, China’s FAST telescope has detected a repeat of one first discovered at Areceibo in 2012. This article poses several explanations for fast radio bursts. Questions: 1) Study the picture of the 500-m telescope at the top of the article.…
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By Stacy Palen Summary: Hayabusa2 has been investigating the asteroid Ryugu. This is a sample-return mission, which has implications for Solar System formation and may cast light on the origins of life on Earth. Article: Japan (Very Carefully) Drops Elastic Explosives Onto an Asteroid 1. Consider what you know about the origin of the Solar System.…
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By Stacy Palen It’s that time of the semester when we are talking about galaxies, galactic structure, and supermassive black holes. Fortunately, Chandra has our back and has released a new image of a superbubble in NGC3079. The picture is sufficiently spectacular that I want to let you know about it right now! Article: NGC: Galactic…
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Image Credit: Emmanuel Masongsong/UCLA EPSS/NASA By Stacy Palen In January, geologists updated the model of Earth’s magnetic field, a year ahead of schedule. 1. Study the map titled “Magnetic Motion.” How much time separates each pair of red dots between 1900 and 2010? Answer: The dots indicate 10-year time intervals until 2010. There is an…
Teaching Astronomy by Doing Astronomy 