These are sites I use as references and resources in the programs I teach.
StarChild A site for younger students from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Windows to the Universe: Stars From the National Earth Science Teachers Association. An education site with many other topics.
Star Light Star Bright Activities Activities on the nature of light and the study of stars. From the Space Telescope Science Institute
Land of the Magic Windows Activities showing the range of electromagnetic radiation from Infrared to gamma. Part of Spaceplace.
Spaceplace A NASA site with space activities
Imagine the Universe – Stars From the Goddard Space Flight Center. There are other topics at this site.
StarDate This site started with (and still has) short daily radio programs suitable for all ages. It has expanded to include many educational features.
Space Weather Bureau information about sunspots, solar flares, northern lights, meteors, and comets.
The Nine Planets A great reference. They do acknowledge the new definition of Pluto but a website name is hard to change!
Astronomy Picture of the Day Index
HEASARC Picture of the Week Index X-ray and gamma-ray observations
Lynette Cook Extrasolar Planet Art good space art is a great way to learn about new findings
Bill Hartmann’s Painting Gallery He is also a leading planetary scientist
Build a Solar System An online calculator to compute the sizes needed for accurate scale models of the solar system.. From The Exploratorium in San Francisco
Particle Adventure Modern astronomy has to take into account the nature of matter at its smallest scales. This site is a good introduction.
Seti Institute Leading organization in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
NASA Mars Exploration Homepage
Explore Mars Now excellent 3-D interactive representation of a Mars base. Unfortunately it is based on Flash which is being phased out. Keep an eye on this, hopefully they will convert to other media.
The Mars Society home of the Mars Direct Proposal of Robert Zubrin.
Warp Drive? Site by the Tau Zero Foundation exploring the possibilities for interstellar travel
Cosmic Distance Scale A “powers of 10” tour of the universe from the High Energy Astrophysics Archive research Center
Voyager Mission Site Official site of the Voyager Spacecraft. Features a real-time display of their current distances.
National Taiwan Normal U: JAVA applet showing moving source and sonic boom picture Interactive simulation showing the effect of motion on waves and links to pictures and video about sonic booms. Useful to illustrate the doppler effect. You might have trouble viewing this depending on your JAVA settings.
NASA – Stellar Evolution An education site with various grade levels.
WMAP Life and Death of Stars: Universe 101 More on stars from the site of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. The main focus of this site (and the probe) is cosmology
Virtual Trips to Black Holes and Neutron Stars One of many gems at the Astronomy Picture of the Day site
Detection of Exoplanets by Doppler shift from exoplanets.org a “picture worth a thousand words.” This demo was broken at last visit and may be another casualty of the phase-out of Flash.
Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia this site by a hobbyist is now the world’s leading reference site for planets beyond our solar system
Kepler Orrery II A visualization of planet systems discovered by the Kepler mission. There are other exoplanet resources at this site.
A Kepler Orrery Another visualization with our solar system shown for scale.
Stellarium A free planetarium program for all computers. There is a free web version and a paid Android/iPhone app.
Celestia A free, open source simulator for trips throughout the nearby galaxy.
Re: Link to SkyMarvels.com on your site
Dear Astronomy Enthusiast,
I discovered your website today. Very nice indeed!
As a fellow sky enthusiast and a former member of the Board of Directors of CFAS (the Central Florida Astronomical Society), I’d like to introduce the website http://www.SkyMarvels.com and request that you include a link to it on your site. If so, it will be our pleasure to include a link to your site on the SkyMarvels “Links” page.
Many thanks. I look forward to hearing from you.
Clear skies!
Gary Winter
http://www.SkyMarvels.com
Hey Gary,
Sure, I added your site on my links page. I am a fan of Celestia and I look forward to reading there in more detail.
You may also like my site at http://starofyourbirth.com
Thanks for your interest
Kevin