Distance And Parallax

A beautifully written lesson plan delves into a beautiful topic: stellar population. Engage aspiring astronomers with activities that examine human populations and then transition onto the stars of the universe. Data and photographs for...

Parallax is the apparent change of an object determined by the line of sight. Sal defines the concept of parallax and applies it to how we determine the relative distance between us and near-by stars. He draws a diagram to illustrate...

Sal makes a relatable comparison for pupils to understand the universe's relative size. The progression from a man's size to a galaxy's size is explained in terms of each object relative to the next. The multiple objects we can process...

How can you determine the distance between two objects when one is incredibly far away? Discover how early astronomers and mathematicians calculated quantities such as the distance between Earth and the Sun in an insightful video. The...

Let the star's color be the guide! The color of a star indicates its temperature and its mass and distance affect the gravitational force. The lesson presentations address these concepts as well as how the theory of special relativity...

Do you know why stars twinkle? You will after watching this clip from "Tell Me Why." A top astronomer explains that stars twinkle because of the earth's imperfect atmosphere. Each imperfection or irregularity cause the light from the...

More of a math lesson than physics or space science, high schoolers take a set of data and plot it on a log-log coordinate system. The write-up for day two was never completed, but day one, "Stars and Slopes," is complex and cohesive....

How do astronomers make sense out of the vastness of space? How do they study things so far away? Today Phil talks about distances, going back to early astronomy. Ancient Greeks were able to determine the the size of the Earth, and from...

Determining the position of a star or other object in three-dimensional space is an important concept in astronomy. Finding stellar longitude (called right ascension) and latitude (declination) is easy enough, but it is much harder to...

Go study the universe. Pupils learn seven aspects about astronomy and astronomers. They begin to learn about constellations; distance and motion between objects; gravity; the electromagnetic spectrum; dark matter and energy; and teams of...