Hot Astro Links

Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum
Overview of Chicago Space Museum
http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/history/

75th Anniversary Astronomical Debate
Scientific Discussions on the Universe
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Astronomy & Astrophysics on the Web
Scores of Space Sites
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/fits/www/astroweb.html

The Astronomy Cafe
Beginner's Guide to Astronomy
http://www.theastronomycafe.net/

Astronomy Picture of the Day
Photos of the univese
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Ganymede Images
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo

Exploratorium, California
http://www.exploratorium.edu/

National Air and Space Museum
http://www.nasm.edu

Planetariums
http://www.astronomy.org/chaco/index.html
http://www.chabotspace.org/

Science On-Line; virtual museums
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/SII/

Discovery Channel On-Line
http://www.discovery.com/guides/space/space.html



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Galaxies

The Galaxy Catalog
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~frei/galaxy_catalog.html

The Shapley-Curtis Debate in 1920
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/debate20.html
Transcript of the well-publicized debate between Harlow Shapley and Eber Curtis, regarding whether or not the Universe is one big galaxy. Extensive background information available at the site.

Galaxy Collisions on a CD-ROM
http://www.virtualstar.fsbusiness.co.uk/
Galaxy Collider from Virtual Star, Ltd. allows you to design simulations of colliding galaxies and watch from any angle.



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Big Bang

Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

History of the Universe Timeline
http://www.pbs.org/deepspace/timeline/index.html
An interactive timeline of the Universe; from a split second after the Big Bang, until trillions of years in our future.

Hot Big Bang - Cambridge
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/bb_home.html
This tour introduces the Big Bang cosmology and its successes, while emphasizing its incompleteness and the areas in which Cambridge Relativity group members are working.



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Dark Matter

Mysterious Dark Matter
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/MystDarkMatter.html

Prof. Martin White: Dark Matter
http://astron.berkeley.edu/~mwhite/darkmatter/dm.html
An essay on dark matter with links to further resources.

Jonathan Dursi's Tutorial Page
http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~dursi/tutorials.html
A tutorial on dark matter written by a graduate student.

The Particle Adventure
http://particleadventure.org/
The fundamentals of matter and force are presented as a particle adventure. An award-winning interactive tour of quarks, neutrinos, antimatter, extra dimensions, dark matter, accelerators and particle detectors.



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History

Astronomiae Historia
http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~pbrosche/astoria.html
Currently contains more than 400 files (Web pages), which would give several thousand pages on paper if printed out. Designed as a general history of astronomy, it is especially strong on biographical information for famous astronomers.

Starry Messenger
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/
A site which covers the science and people of early astronomy: from the ancient greek period until Galileo and the 17th century astronomical renaissance.

Speed of Light
http://www.what-is-the-speed-of-light.com/
A historical timeline of attempts to measure the speed of light, beginning with Galileo's lantern experiment.

Apollo - Expeditions to the Moon
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-350/cover.html
A book about the Apollo program written by those who took part in it. Fully online, it includes chapters from Wernher von Braun, a prominent figure in post-WWII rocketry, and lunar explorer Alan B. Shepard.

Encyclopedia Astronomica
http://www.astronautix.com/
Further resources about the history of space flight.



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Observatories

Large Telescopes
http://www.seds.org/billa/bigeyes.html
A hyperlinked list of the world's largest telescopes; from here you can access the homepages of over 50 observatories.

National Optical Astronomy Observatory
http://www.noao.edu/
Responsible for several observatories including
Kitt Peak.

National Radio Astronomy Observatory
http://www.nrao.edu/
Responsible for the VLA, VLBA, and Green Bank.

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center
http://chandra.harvard.edu/
Since its launch on
July 23, 1999, Chandra has been NASA's flagship mission for X-ray astronomy. Now you can see computer-enhanced pictures and read the latest discoveries made with this orbital observatory.



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Q & A

The Astronomy Cafè
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/cafe.html
The Astronomy Cafè was a book based on the Q & A format. This site offers thousands of questions and answers.

The Cosmology FAQ
http://arcturus.mit.edu/ask/faq.html
This "Ask an MIT Cosmologist" series provides answers to questions about time, the universe, black holes, and more.

Stephen Hawking
http://www.hawking.org.uk/
Hawking is an award-winning
Cambridge physicist and travelling lecturer who came up with the idea of tiny black holes. Some of his lectures have been published at his website, with titles such as "The Beginning of Time" and "The Nature of Space and Time."



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Image Galleries

NASA - Visible Earth
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/
A searchable directory of images, visualizations, and animations of the Earth.

NASA - Planetary Photojournal
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/
JPL's image database consists mainly of solar system images - planets, moons, and space debris. There are also some sections on space exploration, and the universe at large.

The Messier Catalog
http://www.seds.org/messier/
A guide to the 110 objects recognized as the standard Messier catalog. For each object, an image is presented together with a short description; click on the image to get a larger-format version.

HubbleSite
http://hubble.stsci.edu/
Made to celebrate the telescope's 10th year in space, this site is a collection of some of Hubble's top photos and discoveries.

William Keel's Gallery
http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/agn/
Quasars and active galaxies.



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Astronomy Publications

Astronomy Magazine
http://www.astronomy.com/

Sky & Telescope Magazine
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/

Star Gazer
http://www.jackstargazer.com/
Star Gazer is billed as the world's only weekly television series on naked-eye astronomy. Each episode features selected objects for observing over the following week. The episodes are between 1 and 5 minutes long and can be downloaded in streaming video (RealPlayer) if you missed the PBS broadcast.

InfoTrac College Edition
http://infotrac.thomsonlearning.com/
Thomson Learning brings you over 14 million online articles from a variety of magazines and newspapers.



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News

NOVA - PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/
These companion sites offer some of the latest in feature stories, in an accessible and graphically rich way. Based on the weekly science series NOVA.

Marshall Space Flight Ctr. News
http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/
The press release headquarters for NASA's
Marshall Center focuses on space flight and orbital experiments.

Science@NASA
http://science.nasa.gov/
This site has a double goal: to help the public understand how exciting NASA research is and to help NASA scientists fulfill their outreach responsibilities.

StarStuff
http://www.starstuff.org/
This site is designed to allow the experimenters themselves to write about astronomical discoveries in a public forum. Supported in part by the Space Telescope Science Institute.



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Organizations

International Astronomical Union
http://www.iau.org/
Founded in 1919, this organization defined the modern constellations and today names celestial objects.

Astronomical Society of the Pacific
http://www.astrosociety.org/
Founded in 1889 by a group of professional and amateur astronomers who met to view a rare total solar eclipse, they publish Mercury magazine, aimed at a similar audience of pros and hobbyists. The ASP also organizes educational shows and events, some of which are online and some of which require live participation.

Sidewalk Astronomers
http://www.sidewalkastronomers.com/
A network of West Coast amateur astronomers. They organize night-time field trips, and demonstrations on how to build your own telescope.