recent posts
- 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
about
Category: Uncategorized
-
Our Teaching Astronomy by Doing Astronomy blog now has a new look and style to keep delivering you quality content on astronomy pedagogy and course tips.
-
I teach an Introductory Astronomy course at Bryant University – a small university with a total undergraduate enrollment of a little over 3,000 students. Although Bryant University has a College of Arts & Sciences (which included only one ‘Department of Science’,) and now a School of Health and Behavioral Sciences, it is well known for…
-
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-cosmic-cliffs-glittering-landscape-of-star-birth The Carina Nebula is a nearby (about 7,600 ly away) star-forming region, and this image captures just a segment of it. Above the image (out of frame) are a number of hot, young stars, producing outflows that are blowing around the dust and gas, carving out a cavity. This image captures the edge of…
-
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-captures-dying-star-s-final-performance-in-fine-detail The Southern Ring Nebula is a striking example of a bipolar planetary nebula, seen very nearly along the axis. Planetary nebulae result from the death of low-mass stars, and their shaping mechanisms have long been somewhat mysterious. In this image from JWST, a binary system is visible at the center of the nebula, which…
-
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-steamy-atmosphere-of-distant-planet-in-detail I freely admit that my mind is blown any time anyone presents any data that shows anything definite about the atmospheres of exoplanets. I (wrongly) predicted that we would not see this in my lifetime, and I could not be more delighted to be wrong. The first JWST exoplanet spectrum came in the original…
-
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-sheds-light-on-galaxy-evolution-black-holes Stephan’s Quintet is most famous for its appearance in It’s a Wonderful Life, and I really enjoy privately mulling over the absolutely astonishing improvements in imaging, physical understanding, and even humility that have occurred between the time when the image appeared in the film and the time when this JWST image was taken. However,…
-
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet Deep field images never disappoint, do they? For the novice astronomer, however, these images need quite a lot of interpretation. I usually start by identifying different types of objects in the image, and help students figure out how to identify them. The spikey objects are stars (objects like our Sun) in the foreground. These…
-
Summary: As we all know, and is explained in the text, dark matter is “a thing”, but we still don’t know much more about it than that it exists. Lately particle physicists have been getting excited about the possibility that dark matter consists of axions. I found these two recent review articles (February issue of…
-
For several years now, I have met the “science and society” general education learning goal with a unit on climate change. This year, SpaceX gave me another option, with the latest installment of the planned 42,000 satellite constellation known as Starlink. I had strong feelings when 40 satellites were destroyed at launch by a solar…
-
In this four-part series, Dr. Stacy Palen will discuss her own journey toward recognizing and addressing issues of equity in the Astro 101 classroom. We encourage this to be an open communication and discussion through the comment section below. To read the previous post, follow the link here. Addressing Equity in Astronomy IV: It’s Different…
Teaching Astronomy by Doing Astronomy 