Category Archives: Education

Buzz Aldrin

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This week Buzz Aldrin turned 90 years old !! The second man to walk on the moon on July 20th 1969. What a legacy, and an adventurous spirit he has. I was reminded of going to see him speak back in 2014 when he visited Ireland. The venue was The National Concert in Dublin, it was on November 18th. A very memorable occasion. The concert hall was packed to the rafters, the atmosphere was tangible. One of Irelands most loved broadcasters was going to interview Buzz. The interview, one of a series called Face to Face with Gay Byrne. The two men sat in comfortable armchairs close to each other. The chairs were angled towards the audience. As far as I know, the interview was not filmed but it may have been recorded. However, as yet I have not found any radio clips online. Colonel Aldrin is an extremely interesting man and he held the packed hall for over an … Continue reading →

Bones in Space – Solarblack

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Solar Orbiter In February 2020 an Irish company will showcase to the world its innovative use of burnt bone charcoal. ENBIO has developed a use for charred bone with its unique product Solarblack. This product will bring heatshields for spacecraft to another level. ESA’s Solar Orbiter is due to launch on February 5th. Bones in space – Solarblack high technology for the next decade. Solarblack The application of Solarblack to heatshields is for the thermal protection of spacecraft working in the harsh environs of space. Yes, the Solar Orbiter space probe will soon be on its way to study the sun. Its duty is to  inform us more fully about the origins of spaceweather. The mission will  to being a  manmade probe closer to our star than ever  before. The word Solarblack suggest bright and dark. The brightest thing you can think of i.e. the Sun and the darkest colour of all, pure black. This product is a Thermo optical … Continue reading →

NASA’s Eyes – Part 1: Eyes on the Solar System

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This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series NASA's Eyes

With NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System, you can learn about the Earth, the solar system and beyond! You can fly alongside current spacecraft, take guided tours of historic space missions, travel to the planets, their moons, comets and asteroids. You can visualize and animate Earth climate data, and take virtual tours of exoplanets that have been discovered orbiting other stars! NASA’s Eyes is FREE for Windows and MAC, and is great for use in the classroom or at home! I use Eyes every week to create images for my “In the Sky” posts; in this post, I’ll cover the Eyes on the Solar System module of the Eyes app. When you launch the Eyes client app, you are presented with a splash screen showing the three Eyes modules; Eyes on the Solar System (middle) has two buttons: simple and advanced mode. Simple mode presents you with a very minimal user interface, and enters into a Kiosk-mode after a few … Continue reading →

Observing Asteroids at VATT, Part 2

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Last April, my post was about doing Citizen Science from the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT). This is a follow-up article about our latest observing run in early December 2019. I would like to thank Mark Trueblood and Robert Crawford who make our observing the success that it is. I would also like to thank the staff of VATT who are on call all hours of the night to help us out when we need help with the telescope and equipment. As I said in my previous article about observing from the VATT, our goal is to observe Near-Earth Asteroids that might, some time in the future, collide with the Earth. “These asteroids might become ‘lost’ because of the uncertainty in their orbits.” By reducing the uncertainty in the orbits of these asteroids, we hope to remove them from the list of asteroid impactors. This five-night observing run was an experiment: Could we observe asteroids that had been discovered only … Continue reading →

The Headless Angels and the Four Science Concepts

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Introduction While visiting York Minster in July, the docent leading our small group pointed out a configuration of angels above the entrance, six to the left of the door and six to the right. The angels were holding two round objects each, with their arms in different configurations. I whispered to Larry that it looked like they were doing semaphore. When our docent asked if any of us had any idea what the angels depicted, I gave him the same answer, semaphore. His jaw dropped and he asked if I could read semaphore. I could not, but as a long-time solver of cryptograms, it took just a moment or two to identify the five repeating symbols among the 12 angels. I would like to think that, given 10 minutes, a pencil, and some paper, I could have deciphered their message. Relating the Angels to Basic Science Concepts Since the National Science Education Standards were published back in the mid-1990s, we … Continue reading →

An asteroid with my name on it

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  An Asteroid with my name on it becoming real Look at the screensave above, see that set of red lines? they are pointing to a main belt asteroid which happens to have my name on it. Its pathway in space sets it between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This chunk of rock is moving along in space, while also rotating once every 6 hours. This body is just being itself among the circa 1.9 million other asteroids of similar and larger size. Up there in the main asteroid belt, it is joined by  millions of other smaller asteroids. Just as well that the distance between asteroids is circa 600,000 miles. Therefore spacecraft travelling in the area have plenty of wriggle room.  The asteroid with my name appended is 7 km in diameter !! Imagine that !! it is really mindboggling.  The Story so far The story began back in March 2019. I got a phone call from John McConnell, … Continue reading →

Science Fiction Challenge

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Introduction The Sci-Fi Challenge is an activity we have used in teacher workshops. Selections from nine stories (classic sci-fi, sci-fi/fantasy, children’s stories) are provided to teachers working in pairs or small groups, who then choose one or more passage to analyze according to the following directions. What to Look For Read one of the passages provided. Science fiction should be a blend of entertaining storytelling and some level of science fact⸺either proven, possible, or probable. Science fantasy usually relies more heavily on storytelling and improbable science and technology. Think about the passage you read in terms of science, science fiction, and science fantasy. Discuss several of the questions below with your partner or group. Share your conclusions with the class. Is the passage science fiction or science fantasy? Is there scientific fact included in the passage? Does the science (or technology) presented seem probable, possible, or impossible? Does the passage make mistakes in the science facts or concepts it presents? … Continue reading →

Transit of Mercury CHEOPS and Exoplanets

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Drawing Yes, indeed I felt lucky to see the transit of mercury on November 11th. Black clouds full of heavy rain were in constant supply all morning. My PST telescope and drawing materials were in and out in the hope of a break in the weather. It was my intention to use the drawing to help explain the transit of Mercury, CHEOPS and Exoplanets. As you can see from the drawing above (which is not rotated) I got my first view of the tiny planet at 12:51. I sketched one black dot on top of my previously drawn solar disc. Then the rain bucketed down like rods with a big wind attached. Next chance came at 13:33 a second black dot added to the effort. Then it rained cats and dogs till 14:26 when my final opportunity gave me a third mercury dot to add to the sketch.  Most Irish observers had a similar story and images of this unique … Continue reading →

Errors Published for Children

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An abundance of erroneous information can be found in books.  Unfortunately, that includes science books for children.  Recently I have been perusing children’s science books, looking for good material for the Vatican Observatory Faith & Science site, and I keep coming across things like the images below—a page from Scientists Who Made History: Isaac Newton (published 2001 by Raintree Steck-Vaughn Publishers: A Harcourt Company).  This is from a section of the book that talks about Newton studying the motions of the planets. Note the caption that reads “An early diagram from the 1600s showing the movements of the planets, all of which are travelling around the Sun in the center of the illustration”.  But note that, in fact, the Sun is not in the center of the illustration.  The Earth is in the center.  It is not travelling around the Sun; the Sun is travelling around it. The diagram is of the theory of Tycho Brahe.  Brahe’s name can be … Continue reading →

Sunspots for young children

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A recent Space Week workshop was attended by a class of young children. They ranged in age from 8 years down to 5-year-olds. A sun based drawing activity seemed like fun to me. I delivered a simple explanation of the power of our nearest star. How a sunny day helps us to smile, and how the sun does so many things for us every day. My presentation was very colourful showing off solar features like sunspots and prominences.  Sunspots for young children needed to be exciting and full of easy words.           I decided that drawing a sunspot would be achievable. Occasionally during workshops, I do a demonstration drawing to help kids to be more flowing in their efforts. Most kids will draw the edges of things and then try to add detail inside their shape. The shape they draw to start their effort dictates how the drawing progresses. Sometimes children get upset because their drawing … Continue reading →

Putting the “Verse” in the Universe

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Introduction When we think about STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math), “Arts” refers not only to visual and performing arts but also to all aspects of literature: creative writing, poetry, fiction, and so on. Students, including teachers and Girl Scout leaders in workshops, can create their own myths or legends based on an aspect of astronomy. “The Ball of Fire” by Maria Elena A long time ago when only animals existed they had nothing to worry about. But then one day they found a giant egg, and from the egg a dragon came out and started throwing fire balls. All of the animals started running. In those times the stars were cold and that’s why they were close to Earth. But when the dragon started throwing fire into the sky, all of the stars moved far away from Earth except for one that wasn’t strong enough to follow the other stars. The dragon threw a lot of fire balls … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Stellar Round Up

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This entry is part 92 of 190 in the series Across the Universe

This column first appeared in The Tablet in October 2008; we first ran it here in 2016 Black Mesa, Oklahoma sounds like the setting for a Hollywood Western. It looks like one, too. Every year at the Okie-Tex Star Party, three hundred amateur astronomers camp out for a week with their telescopes there, in hopes of dark dry skies. Some of their “amateur” instruments are larger in aperture than the telescopes of the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo. The miracle of computerized fabrication and the modern Dobsonian mount (a way of holding a telescope in place that replaces complex hardware with simple Teflon pads) has brought the cost of quality optics to the point where the price of a large telescope can be less than that of a small automobile. My GPS unit directed me as far as Boise City, two hours north of Amarillo, Texas; after that, I was following roads too small for most maps. I was there … Continue reading →