Category: Activities

{ A Changing Cosmos Contents } { All GSS Books } What’s the evidence that our Universe is expanding, contracting, or staying the same? Materials Worksheet “Spectra of Fast-Moving Galaxies”  Worksheet “Hubble’s Law” The line spectrum of hydrogen, the most common element in the Universe, has characteristic lines (wavelengths or frequencies) in the regions red, […]

Chapter 9 { A Changing Cosmos Contents } Where did the Universe come from? How did it start? What were things like way back when? Will the Universe end and if so, how? And when? Contemplating such questions is a realm of study called cosmology. Getting at answers can take us to the very largest […]

Investigation 8.1 { A Changing Cosmos Contents } Who would have guessed that from simply measuring brightness changes in a star, we could find not only whether the star has a planet, but a host of interesting properties of that planet as well. Even whether or not the planet might be inhabitable by life forms! […]

Chapter 8 { A Changing Cosmos Contents } We know of one habitable planet in the Universe, habitable meaning suitable for supporting life such as that we are familiar with. That one habitable planet is our own: Earth. For centuries, some people have speculated that there may be many many such planets in other planet-star […]

{ A Changing Cosmos Contents } { All GSS Books } In Chapter 1, we saw how asteroids can be major threats to the well being of life on Earth. You can find out more about the NASA efforts concerning near Earth asteroids at the NASA Center for Near Earth Object Studies: https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ The Hands-On Universe (HOU) […]

Investigation AC7.1 { A Changing Cosmos Contents } Galileo discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1610, and they are often referred to as the Galilean Moons. He was using a simple telescope and a keen mind. He noticed that Jupiter and these four dimmer lights, which he assumed were stars, were stretched out […]

Chapter 7 { A Changing Cosmos Contents } We wonder “Where did we come from, in the big scheme of things?” That leads to questions of how our planet began, which in turn leads to the question, “Where did our Solar System come from?” and “Where did the Universe come from?” That last question will […]

{ A Changing Cosmos Contents } Many stars in the Universe are multiple star systems. If a binary star system (two stars orbiting each other) is oriented in space in a way so that the orbit plane is in line with us on Earth, then the stars alternately pass in front of and behind one […]

Investigation AC6.1 { A Changing Cosmos Contents } Here are a series of exercises on finding supernovae, starting with simple specially prepared images and progressing to real life image analyses. Materials I.  Comparing Images By Subtracting Our first exercise uses two images for which Aligning, Subtracting Sky Background, and Normalizing Brightness are not necessary.  We […]

Chapter 6 { A Changing Cosmos Contents } I. What’s a Supernova? We usually think of stars as very stable and constant things. Suppose you were out looking at the sky on a dark, starry night, and suddenly you saw a star that wasn’t there a moment earlier! You might think your eyes were playing […]