Related papers: The Planeterrella experiment: from individual init…
The overarching goal of planetary astronomy is to deduce how the present collection of objects found in our Solar System were formed from the original material present in the proto-solar nebula. As over two hundred exo-planetary systems are…
Astronomy is at times a science of unexpected discovery. When it is, and if we are lucky, new intellectual territories emerge to challenge our views of the cosmos. The recent indirect detections using high-precision Doppler spectroscopy of…
Activities related to access to astronomical facilities and data could offer an effective, entry-level path for outreach and astronomy education. The Government of Italy proposed the Open Universe initiative that was adopted by the United…
Recent observations of interplanetary scintillation (IPS) at radio frequencies have proved to be a powerful tool for probing the solar environment from the ground. But how far back does this tradition really extend? Our survey of the…
The Pierre Auger Observatory, dedicated to measuring ultra-high energy cosmic rays, has been promoting for more than two decades educational and scientific outreach activities to make its results known in an understandable language to…
The Solar System motivates students to interest themselves in sciences, as a large number of concepts may be easily introduced through the observation and understanding of planet's motion. Using a large representation of the Solar System at…
The study of the Universe and all its contents, the physical phenomena and the evolution of the sky objects has always attracted the Humanity. The Astronomy begins to try to explain these things, others sciences too. Therefore, we think a…
The first extrasolar planets were discovered serendipitously, by finding the slight variation in otherwise highly regular timing of the pulses, caused by the planets orbiting a millisecond pulsar. In analogy with the Solar system planets,…
The Kepler Mission, launched on Mar 6, 2009 was designed with the explicit capability to detect Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars using the transit photometry method. Results from just forty-three days of data…
In March 2009, NASA will launch the Kepler satellite -- a mission designed to discover habitable Earth-like planets around distant Sun-like stars. The method that Kepler will use to detect distant worlds will only reveal the size of the…
On 1 September 1859, the British astronomer Richard Carrington observed an anomalous behavior on the Sun. Approximately 17 hours later, magnetic effects of global scales were observed at Earth: aurora borealis and australis in low-latitude…
Radio pulsars have been responsible for many astonishing astrophysical and fundamental physics breakthroughs since their discovery 50 years ago. In this review I will discuss many of the highlights, most of which were only possible because…
Stellar astronomy, fueled by massive capital investments, advances in numerical modeling and theory, is resurgent and arguably is on the verge of a magnificent renaissance. Powerful time domain optical surveys, both on ground and in space,…
Some 400 years after Galileo, modern telescopes have enabled humanity to "see" what the natural eye cannot. Astronomical images today contain information about incredibly large objects located across vast distances and reveal information…
During the 17th century the idea of an orbiting and rotating Earth became increasingly popular, but opponents of this view continued to point out that the theory had observable consequences that had never, in fact, been observed. Why, for…
The NASA Kepler mission -in flight since March 2009- is producing an enormous number of high-quality continuous light curves. Now, and for the first time ever, we are able to do ensemble asteroseismology, i.e., to do an asteroseismic…
One of the most regular activities of amateur clubs is scientific outreach, a paramount channel to disseminate scientific results. It is typically performed through talks given by both experts (professional astronomers) and non-experts to a…
Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…
Reliable forecasts of the Earth system are crucial for human progress and safety from natural disasters. Artificial intelligence offers substantial potential to improve prediction accuracy and computational efficiency in this field, however…
Astronomy, of all the sciences, is possibly the one with the most public appeal across all age groups. This is also evidenced by the existence of a large number of planetaria and amateur astronomy societies, which is unique to the field.…