In honor of Space Day 2000 (May 4), today's topic explores the mysteries of space. In addition to today's site explorations, children eight through twelve are invited to join John Glenn, Sally Ride and other space visionaries at the live Space Day Web cast on Thursday May 4 between noon and 3 p.m. ET.
"Perhaps the best way to search for life on the trillions of planets circling other suns is through communication... if there are intelligent beings out there who want to communicate with us. Today we have the means to broadcast messages to the planets and stars... but is anybody out there listening?" Which brings us to the next question. If you knew an alien was listening, what would you say? Click on "Write to an Alien" to pen your own message or read those of selected experts.
This Thinkquest entry created by two middle school students is simply marvelous! It is divided into two tours: one for twelve and under, the other for older students. "You may have seen the picture of the Galaxy M16 before, but not known what it was. It is an embryonic star cloud. Embryonic star clouds are huge cocoons of dust grains, gas, and molecules, and are the birthplace of stars. These star clouds can be so huge that some of them are measured in light years."
"For decades, black holes were the darlings of science fiction writers but treated with perhaps a little less respect by physicists. Although general relativity predicted that black holes could exist, many scientists thought they were too bizarre to exist in the real universe. That's all changed." British physicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking explains black holes (objects with infinite density), quasars (the brightest objects in the universe), wormholes (a short cut through space time) and other mysteries of space.
The following links are either new discoveries or sites that didn't make it into my newspaper column because of space constraints. Enjoy!
Black Holes and Neutron StarsMysteries of Deep Space | NASA's Origin ProgramSETI@home |
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