NAME: _____________________________
ASTRONOMY 106 Learning About Space in Cyberspace
A. The Western
For this lab exercise you are required to
access the world wide web as a resource to learn more
about astronomy. The recommended starting point for this activity is to check
out the html version of this lab writeup, available
on the Internet at: http://astro.wku.edu/astr106
The main advantage to starting from this
website is that you can just click on the necessary links instead of having to
correctly type them all. You will still write your answers on this hardcopy and
submit it for grading.
B. MASTERING ASTRONOMY : The webpage for your textbook, "The Cosmic Perspective"
The entry point for The Cosmic Perspective companion website
is reached by loading the following URL into a web browser: http://www.MasteringAstronomy.com/. To start your exploration of MasteringAstronomy, click on the
lower left hand image of The Cosmic Perspective,
4e and your browser should load the login page.
Within the Self-Study area, to view the
website's options for a certain chapter, use the pull-down menu at the top of
the window and click on the corresponding chapter.
The first destination will be to investigate
the Links. With Chapter
1 selected in the top pull-down menu, the links include "Astronomy Picture
of the Day" and "Astronomical Society of the Pacific". Now use
the top pull-down menu to select Chapter 24: Interstellar Travel and either
select the Links from
the lefthand navigation frame or the Links from the central frame with the
content outline for Ch. 24. Click on the link for The Planetary Society. At the left
and near the top of the Planetary Society homepage is a pulldown
menu whose default option is "explore all projects." Select the menu
option for Extrasolar Planets Transit Search, and click on
"GO" to bring up the page describing the
collaboration between the Planetary Society and the Planetary Science
Institute.
1) This page discusses how a telescope which WKU helps
to operate is used to undertake a project searching for evidence of planets
around other stars. When does this webpage claim the observatory system will
fully debut?
Next you should select Chapter 6 to access
the chapter pertaining to Light: The Cosmic Messenger and navigate to the Quizzes. Select the Conceptual Quiz, answer the eighteen
multiple choice questions and use the "Submit Answers for Grading"
button to see your results.
2) When you have answered all 18 questions correctly,
have your score submitted to your instructor. The Results Reporter keeps a
record of your score for each submission, so feel free to go back and correct
wrong answers.
The TUTORIALS are unique to
3) As the Lesson 1 animation zooms in on Earth's orbit,
describe what happens to the arrows at the right side which represent the
direction of the Sun's rays.
C. Web sites with Pretty Astronomy
Pictures
Astronomers were some of the primary
non-military creators of what has evolved into the Internet, using computers to
transport digital images and large data sets between research sites in other
states or even other nations. Thus, it should be no surprise that the current
incarnation of the
Internet has a plethora of pretty pictures
available for downloading. These days most computers have enough memory and disk
storage to readily display large images, and printers allow every computer user
to view and print out hard copies of the images.
The latest pictures from the Hubble Space
Telescope are available at: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter
4) Use the PRINT option, by dragging down the
"File" menu at the top of the Netscape frame, to get a hardcopy
(black & white is fine) of one of the latest HST images. Write your name
and the date on the printout and staple it to the back of this writeup.
The Astronomy Picture of the Day, drawn from
a diverse set of images, is at:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
5) What was the "Astronomy Picture of the
Day" on your last birthday? Date of birth:______
Title of picture (you do not need to print
it out):
D. Informational web sites
One of the many websites which provide
interesting and accurate information is the Space Telescope Science Institute's
Amazing Space web site at
http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/resources/explorations/
6) Enter Amazing Space's Truth About
Black Holes section and click on Dante's quote to view the "No Escape..."
entry page. Select the "Is a Black Hole Really a Hole" to begin
exploring the true nature of one of the mysterious forces in the universe.
Navigate around with the icons in the top right corner until you arrive at the
Pathway to Discovery page. From the historical timeline presented on this page,
give the years when John Michell and Simon Pierre LaPlace first predicted the existence of black holes?
Go to the Star Child website: http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/universe_level2/universe.html
and view "The Journey Into A Blackhole",
an interesting video clip available in many formats.
You should also visit the Exploratorium at
http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/news/october97.html
Click the CONTINUE
button at the bottom right and browse the story "SERENDIP: Searching for
Life", a multimedia presentation of one current search for radio signals
from intelligent ETs.
7) To search for radio signals from other intelligent
civilizations, we would like to narrow the possible frequencies to which we
should tune the radio receiver. One possible option is to focus on the radio
wavelengths where there is the least background noise. From the SERENDIP story,
complete the following sentence: SERENDIP investigators are searching the radio
spectrum in the hole.
E. Interactive web sites
Some web sites include fun activities which
allow you to learn while playing interactively. I recommend two sites in
particular:
International
Dark-Sky Association at: http://www.darksky.org/images/images.html
At this site you might want to look at the
"satellite imagery" option for "Individual USA States" to
try and pick out
The "Imagine Science" section of
the Imagine the Universe
website has many exercises to play with: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/homepage.html
Return to The Exploratorium at http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/news/october97.html
8) Go to Exploratorium's "Build a Solar
System" calculator, enter a model diameter of 12 inches for the Sun, and
let the website's computer calculate the sizes of other types of stars.
What type of star is the hottest and how big
in feet will be its diameter?
What type of star is the coolest and how big
in inches will be its diameter?
What is the name of the largest star and how
big in feet will be its diameter?
How big in inches would be the diameter of a
typical white dwarf star?
How big in inches would be the diameter of a
typical neutron star?
F. Judging the Reliability of
Information in Cyberspace
One of the least attractive aspects of the
World Wide Web is that anyone with Internet access can produce a web site stating
any combination of truth, fiction, or downright lies. Nobody should ever
believe everything she/he reads, but the historical difficulty in getting
magazines and books published used to at least limit the amount of idiotic
trash which got printed. The Internet, however, allows a cheap way to disperse
information which looks every bit as reliable as the news available on the CNN
or US Congress web sites. It puts a new burden on the reader to use her/his
brain to filter useful, reliable, and honest information from illogically
linked pseudo-facts.
Today the Net is becoming the preferred
information resource, as opposed to approaching professionals with questions
which they want cleared up. One common question which astronomers used to be
asked is, "My friend doesn't believe that humans ever landed on the Moon,
what can you say to convince him otherwise?" The
pro-hoax people, who believe that Apollo astronauts never landed on the Moon,
have brought their arguments to the Net. In response, other websites have been
produced which specifically counter the pro-hoax claims. Each of us can view
these sites with an open mind and see which argument is most convincing. Here
are two groups of Internet links with opposite points of view regarding whether
the Apollo program ever placed humans on the Moon.
Pro-Hoax Anti-Hoax
http://batesmotel.8m.com/
http://www.thursdaysclassroom.com/index_01apr01.html
http://www.primeline-america.com/moon-ldg/
http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/
http://www.clydelewis.com/dis/moondoggle/moondoggle.htm
http://www.apollo-hoax.co.uk/homepage.html
http://www.futuresunltd.com/sudarshan/MoonShadows/moon_index.htm http://clavius.org/
http://www.nasamoonlandinghoax.com/
http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/
http://www.ocii.com/~dpwozney/index.htm
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmoonhoax.html
9) Carefully read
at least two sites from each category, paying attention to the
content and style used by each author to promote her/his side of the story.
After reading the claims on these web sites, list in your own words at least two arguments which make
you less likely to trust the pro-hoax authors' version of the debate?
G. Searching the Internet
The ultimate use of the Internet is to be
able to find the information you desire from among the vast possibilities of
cyberspace. In recent years the most important improvement in web access
technology is the availability of powerful search engines such as Google,
AltaVista, Yahoo!, Excite, Lycos, and many others. One way to call up a search
engine is to click the "Net Search" button on the lower strip of the
top of the Netscape frame. This takes you to a random search engine, but also
offers the selection by name of most of the other major search engines.
10) See what web sites are suggested when you search on
one of the following important astrophysical topics: extrasolar planets, black
holes, Hubble constant,
or supernova.
Use your web browser's Print button to
obtain a copy of the top ten web sites recommended by your choice of search
engine. On this printout, clearly indicate which sites actually deal with
astronomy. Staple it to the back of this writeup.