This news story describes the search for planets orbiting stars other than our sun, particularly since the discovery of a planet around a sun-like star 20 years ago. Star Witness News is a series of articles, written for students, that are inspired... (View More) by Hubble Space Telescope press releases. Supplemental education materials include background information, vocabulary, and discussion questions and answers. Common Core Standards for English Language Arts are also identified. (View Less)

This news story describes the innovations, operations, size, and capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope. The article also presents and discusses the questions and theories that the telescope will explore and test. Star Witness News is a... (View More) series of articles, written for students, that are inspired by NASA press releases. Supplemental education materials include background information, vocabulary, and discussion questions and answers. Common Core Standards for English Language Arts are also identified. (View Less)

This manual provides simple demonstrations to show how lenses and mirrors are used to create telescopes. It was created for use by the Night Sky Network of astronomy clubs.

This six-page, illustrated brochure answers the eight most frequently asked questions about black holes.

This activity includes twelve monthly star charts to identify the stars that are visible in the night sky and that are known to have planets around them. The star maps can be used to find constellations and identify stars with extrasolar planets.... (View More) (Northern Hemisphere only, naked eye) (View Less)

This manual provides an overview of how telescopes have changed our understanding of the universe and contains simple demonstrations to use at star parties to get across basic ideas of optics. This manual will also help explain why the images that... (View More) folks see at the eyepiece of a telescope at an outreach star party is so different from images published in magazines. The manual was produced to accompany an outreach toolkit developed for the NASA Night Sky Network. The toolkit is no longer being manufactured, but the activities are available through the manual, which can be freely downloaded. (View Less)

In this interactive, online activity, bias is explored when the students decide which of several sampling methods are biased. They see how bias affects the percentage of irregular galaxies determined to be in the sample from the Deep Field. After... (View More) completing this activity students will be able to analyze and identify sampling methods that reduce bias. Student may work independently or in small groups to complete each activity. This activity is apart of the online exploration, Galaxy Hunter. Detailed teacher pages, identified as Teaching Tips on the title pages of the activity, provide science background information, lesson plan ideas, related resources, and alignment with national education standards. (View Less)

This 28-minute film was created to explain how our current understanding of the Milky Way was reached using many different wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum. Please note, the link is to a direct download of the video; this is a large file -... (View More) 336 MB. (View Less)