Related papers: Astronomy like the First Contact with Sciences
Astrophysics and cosmology are rich with data. The advent of wide-area digital cameras on large aperture telescopes has led to ever more ambitious surveys of the sky. Data volumes of entire surveys a decade ago can now be acquired in a…
This chapter explores the physics shared by planetary rings and the various disks that populate the Universe. It begins with an observational overview, ranging from protoplanetary disks to spiral galaxies, and then compares and contrasts…
Sky surveys represent a fundamental data basis for astronomy. We use them to map in a systematic way the universe and its constituents, and to discover new types of objects or phenomena. We review the subject, with an emphasis on the…
Since more than a century we investigate cosmic particles coming from the Universe with the aim of understanding their nature, their origin and how they are accelerated. So far, cosmic rays have provided many impressive results, giving…
We have created a show about the Solar System, freely available for both planetariums and home viewing, where objects in space are represented with sound as well as with visuals. For example, the audience listens to the stars appear above…
The historical development of ground based astronomical telescopes leads us to expect that space-based astronomical telescopes will need to be operational for many decades. The exchange of scientific instruments in space will be a…
There are two big questions cosmologists would like to answer -- How does the Universe work, and what are its origin and destiny? A long wavelength gravitational wave detector -- with million km interferometer arms, achievable only from…
Underrepresentation in STEM fields starts early, with elementary students already showing differences based on gender and race in their interest in science, belief in their ability to do science, and belief that their personal identity…
Despite the negative stereotypes still overshadowing community colleges, scores of freshmen nationwide are deliberately beginning their college careers at these institutions, and the numbers are increasing more than twice as fast as those…
Over the past several decades, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of our Solar System. These planets exhibit enormous diversity, and their large numbers provide a statistical opportunity to place our Solar System within the…
Astrobiology is a scientific discipline that studies life in the Universe. We call it a discipline and not a science because some authors have cast doubts over its epistemological status by calling it 'a science without an object of study'.…
Paper has a lot of interesting properties with which quite a lot of standard topics of science education can be turned into hands-on activities. Among others, experiments are presented on elasticity, capillarity, feedback oscillations,…
How did neutrino astronomy evolve? Are there any useful lessons for astronomers and physicists embarking on new observational ventures today? We answer the first question; the reader can can decide if there are any useful parallels for…
Education, science, in fact the whole society, extensively use images. Between us and the world are the visual displays. Screens, small and large, individual or not, are everywhere. Images are increasingly the 2D substrate of our virtual…
Parallax is the most important astronomical method for determining the distances from the Earth to nearby stars. We present two hands-on activities that explore the concepts and practice of parallax measurement. The first activity is a…
We discuss scientific realism from the perspective of modern cosmology, especially primordial cosmology: i.e. the cosmological investigation of the very early universe. We first (Section 2) state our allegiance to scientific realism, and…
Observations made using large ground-based and space-borne telescopes have probed cosmic history all the way from the present-day to a time when the Universe was less than a tenth of its present age. Earlier on lies the remaining frontier,…
The discovery of cosmic radio emission by Karl Jansky in the course of searching for the source of interference to telephone communications and the instrumental advances which followed, have led to a series of new paradigm changing…
Classical Be stars are introduced as object class and their particular potential for space based photometry is highlighted. A brief summary of the various types of variability observed in Be stars makes clear that an interpretation of every…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…