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Current Quizzes: P103 Spring 2008 Quizzes          Troubleshoot cps
Textbook (NOT Required!)
Astronomy: A Beginner's Guide, Chaisson & McMillan, Pearson/Addison Wesley
Printed Version of the Website
Astronomy Study Guide, Robert H. Gowdy, Kendall/Hunt



Links (each opens in a new window)

The Vanishing Earth Civilization You heard it here first (module 19.5)

Incoming Asteroids Check NASA's latest "objects of concern."

Arabic Star Names The modern names are usually modifications of the originals

Eclipses 2008,09,10: NASA descriptions of past and future solar and lunar eclipses.

Richmond Astronomical Society Newsletter When and where are the skywatches?

US Naval Observatory Sunrise/Sunset and Moon Phases Anywhere on Any Day

Sky Map Generator As many details as you want but a bit hard to use.

Online Planetarium Looks like the sky. Very easy to use.

Plate Tectonics Animations Shows 600 million years of drifting continents plus other things.

Hubble Deep Field Video The Numa-numa Guy is awesome! (Video needs sound.)

The Next Space Telescope YouTube Video --- takes a really long time to load.


New Planets Beyond Pluto

New Horizons Mission to Pluto and Beyond Successfully Launched on January 17, 2006

Where is New Horizons Now? Check its progress.

Sedna: Oort Cloud Object 2/3 the size of Pluto, 3 times as far away.

Quaoar New member of the solar system.

Tenth Planet? Larger than Pluto. Either this is a planet or Pluto is not.

Wikipedia article on the tenth planet, UB313 A very thorough discussion.

Buffy the Kuiper Belt Object or, if you prefer, "Buffy the Theory Slayer."

Weird Objects Galore! A nice summary of our growing planetary zoo.


Other Links Worth Looking At

PlanetQuest: NASA overview of extrasolar planets

Extrasolar Planet Encyclopedia: Planets Detected Orbiting Other Stars

Cosmos 1 and LightSail: One Solar Sail Vehicle Flopped, Another is Launched.

Views of Earth Right Now

Sky & Telescope

Astronomy Magazine Lots of free things to look at.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Asteroid Discovery Statistics Have they found them all yet?

Apophis Returns A possible impact in 2036

Coming Near Misses Don't forget to duck!

Crowded Sky Animation Showing Inner Solar System objects from 2001 to 2003

Planetary Defense Summary of a conference on defending the planet.

SOHO Images of the Sun: Today's solar weather.

The Brightest Stars Here are the stars listed in order of their brightness as seen from Earth.

The 30 Closest Stars: Our nearest neighbors.

The 150 Closest Stars: The Hipparcos Catalog with everything you could want to know.

The MACHO Project A website for current research on MAssive Compact Halo Objects

J-Track 3D Animated 3D picture of Earth with currently tracked satellites.

Animated description of Curiosity Rover Mission.


These links were last checked on January 10, 2010. Watch for additional links as the class web site develops.