Star Gazing

Surfing the best astronomy sites to unravel the mysteries of Deep Space.

“Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on a map…”
--Vincent Van Gogh, 1880

Some 126 years and eons of technological advancements hence, we are still asking ourselves the same question. And mind you, astronomy is one of the oldest sciences known to man. Even when humans roamed the earth as nomads, they read the stars--to tell time and the seasons, to move their herds and plan their harvests. Centuries before Columbus sailed the Blue guided by the Pole Star, ancient peoples of the Old World—Mediterranean civilisations, Babylonians, Egyptians—as the earliest seafarers on Planet Earth gazing at the heavens learnt to make it their principle navigation aid.

This study and obsession with this Grand Majestic Clockwork of the Spheres and Celestial Space that surrounds us has resulted in much research, many tomes, and multiple websites. This week, nearly 400 years after Galileo first observed the heavens through a telescope, let us whiz by some of the best remote explorations of the cosmos that cyberspace has to offer.

HubbleSite
http://hubblesite.org
www.spacetelescope.org
Synonymous with the most incredible images of universe, the 11,110 kg, bus-sized, solar powered Hubble Telescope is the world's first space-based optical telescope. It hurtles past us every 97 minutes at a speed of 28,000 kmph (8 km/sec) in a low-Earth orbit (569 km altitude). Launched into outer space from the Discovery space shuttle in 1990--and named after astronomer Edwin Hubble--the telescope has a mission duration of 20 years. To savour some of the amazing images the Hubble beams home in the last three years of its lifetime, loads of exciting information (decanted from the 120 GB it transmits every week), and an understanding of the many mysteries of the universe, check out this wonderful site run by the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Exploratorium - Top Ten
www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cool/astronomy.html
A mother lode site that leads you onto some of superb historical webpages about outer space research. Probe deep and you will come upon sites like NASA Jet Propulsion Labs quest for another Earth, PlanetQuest(http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm), Amazing Space Explorations (http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/resources/explorations/index.shtml), Solar Folklore (http://solar-center.stanford.edu/folklore/folklore.html) and lots of fascinating information on phenomena, myths and legends.

Space
www.space.com
Our universe was born a “big bang” some 13.7 billion years ago. Scientists believe that if all the events in the history of the universe until now were squeezed into 24 hours, the Earth wouldn’t form until late afternoon and humans would have existed for only 2 seconds. You’ll learn about all this as well as space flights, space views, night skies, space tech etc. at this awesome site. Bookmark it as a must visit--even if you are just a wannabe space buff.

Astronomy Blinklist
www.blinklist.com/tag/astronomy
A super duper listing of the newest hottest, and most happening astronomy websites. You find links on everything astronomical--from Sunita Williams adventures aboard the space shuttle, to what doomed the Mars probe, to current dope on meteor showers, to animations on the formation of the galaxies, to websites on black holes, to astronomy software and online ware and planetariums, to some neat astro blogs.

Top Ten Astronomy Images of 2006
www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/12/27/the-top-ten-astronomy-images-of-2006
A collection of beautiful space imagery on astronomer, teacher, lecturer and all-around science junkie, Phil Plait’s blog. The images have been scoped from NASA (www.nasa.gov), APOD (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod), the ESA (www.esa.int/esaCP/index.html), BAUT (www.bautforum.com), and dozens of professional and amateur websites. Other pages on the site are devoted to “airing out myths and misconceptions in astronomy and related topics”. Will help rub star dust out of your bewildered eyes.

What is out there? Where did it come from? What does it all mean? Point you’re your little browser to these get a hint of the astounding cosmic concert playing all around us. It is quite coherent, yet quite incomprehensible. Like this little piece of verse by a little 10-year old called Marvin Mercer:
My heart trembles like a poor leaf,
The planets whirl in my dreams.
The stars press against my window,
I rotate in my sleep.
My bed is a warm planet.


Other Great Lodestars
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~akerr/astrowebsites.html
http://www.worldbestwebsites.com/science.htm
http://www.astronomylinks.biz/