LINKS TO INTERESTING SITES

• General Astronomy:
  • ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAY: Every day a different image.
  • AstroWeb: Very extensive collection of online resources, mainly aimed at professional scientists but including some links of interest to students.
  • Astrophysics HyperCards, by Rod Nave (Georgia State University): An extensive and well-organized collection of astronomy information for undergraduates (essentially a textbook) broken up into easily digested flashcard-like sections. The emphasis is on stellar astronomy.
  • Pretty Pictures from AstroWeb: More than the name implies -- an index to most of the online astronomical image archives serving the public.
  • Handbook of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics, by Martin V. Zombeck: A standard reference work, now online.
  • Spaceplace: A NASA astronomy page for children.
• Astronomy News and Celestial Happenings:
  • Astronomy Watch: Celestial events and astronomy news, updated weekly.
  • Heavens-Above!: Star charts, constantly updated to show the motions of the planets and most artificial satellites through the constellations.
  • Tonight's Sky: Features a celestial event for each night of the month.
  • Sky Events: Monthly column in Sky and Telescope magazine.
• Specific Astronomical Objects:
  • EARTH:
    • NASA's Earth Observatory: Satellite imagery of the planet.
    • Data from the IMAGE Spacecraft: A satellite operated by the Southwest Research Institute which is studying the Earth's magnetosphere.
  • MOON:
    • Clementine Archive: Clementine was a robot moonprobe. All of the photos it took are available online.
    • Lunar Orbiter Moon Atlas: Result of an ambitious NASA project to map the moon in preparation for the Apollo landing.
  • MARS:
    • Mallin Space Systems: MSS is the outfit in charge of the robotic exploration of Mars. This site's most interesting feature is the huge gallery of images (essentially all of NASA's Mars photographs.) There are so many that most have probably not yet been studied in detail. Some of them are very surprising: see for example the very bottom of this one. Are the weird "things" in this picture lava flows? Or maybe the result of strange lighting conditions on sand dunes (like the ones in this MSS image of a Martian canyon)?
    • Clickworkers: You can help explore Mars! This volunteer project lets members of the public examine MSS Mars images and catalogue never-before-identified craters, thus making a real contribution to scientific research in their spare time.
  • ASTEROIDS, METEORS, COMETS:
    • Meteors and Meteor Showers: A page sponsored by Sky and Telescope Magazine.
    • NASA Near-Earth Object Program: Information about asteroids and comets, especially those passing near the Earth.
    • Deep Space 1 Comet Borrelly Flyby: Written in an unusually entertaining style.
    • Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Collision with Jupiter:
  • JUPITER:
    • CICLOPS/Cassini Flyby of Jupiter: With movies of Jupiter's spectacular clouds.
    • Galileo Spacecraft Jupiter Mission:
  • PLANETS IN GENERAL:
    • The Nine Planets and the Sun, by Bill Arnett: Multimedia tour of the Solar System.
    • NASA Planetary Photojournal: About 3000 images of Solar System objects.
    • Solar System Visualization Program: A NASA project to develop animated models of solar system objects based on the most reliable available data.
    • Paris Observatory Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia: One of the most amazing developments of the last decade or so has been the discovery of numerous planets outside the Solar System. This is a semi-official registry for planet discoveries.
  • OTHER OBJECTS:
    • SIMBAD: Database for professional astronomers with information about thousands of objects.
• Magazines:
  • Sky and Telescope: The most famous popular astronomy magazine; its intended readers are amateur astronomers who have their own small telescopes, but it also includes many features of interest to the less dedicated. Of particular value is the "Sky Events" column telling the location of the planets and giving tips on how to observe interesting phenomena of the coming month.
  • Astronomy: The main competitor of Sky and Tel: a little less heavily pitched at serious hobbyist, a little more at people casually interested in the stars.
  • Aviation Week and Space Technology: The magazine that just about everyone in the spaceflight and airplane industries reads every week. The magazine's Space Technology section is probably the most reliable independent source of space industry news in the world.
• Space Exploration Sites:
  • Space.Com: A commercial space news service with extensive financial backing; one of the best places to get independent news about the space program, despite occasional lapses into sensationalism.
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration: NASA's top page; of interest is the index to all NASA press releases since 1990, Today@NASA.gov.
  • European Space Agency: Europe's equivalent of NASA, now very active in the International Space Station.
  • Star City and the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (Russia): Not quite what it used to be, but still an important player in the world of human spaceflight. There is also a larger homepage for Russia's counterpart of NASA, Rosaviakosmos, but it is mainly in Russian.
  • The Apollo Program Official Homepage:
  • Jet Propulsion Laboratory: JPL is where most American robotic space-probes come from. Their homepage has a variety of news-features and background articles for the public.
  • NASA Human Spaceflight Homepage: Features the latest official news about the International Space Station, the Shuttle, and other missions involving astronauts.
  • Space Telescope Science Institute: The homepage of the Hubble. Probably more useful to students are the official public information page of the Institute, which features pictures of and by the telescope, information about the project's history, and current press releases, and the Space Telescope Science Page, which carries the latest Hubble Telescope research news stories and has yet more links to deep-space images and educational material.
• West Texas Interest:
  • University of Texas McDonald Observatory: One of the world's major observatories is in the Davis Mountains north of the Big Bend. (For some reason, this page is not always accessible. The observatory's visitors' center also has a homepage.)
  • Odessa Meteor Crater: This is a newspaper story about the crater; there are also photos.
  • Sierra Madera Astrobleme: One of the forgotten wonders of West Texas: a giant impact crater near Fort Stockton which is almost a replica of lunar craters like Theophilus, complete with central mountain. Apollo astronauts trained here in the 1960s to familiarize themselves with the lunar environment.