Learning Astronomy in the 21st Century

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Learning Astronomy in the 21st Century Paul
Doherty PhD Senior Staff Scientist Exploratorium
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Paul Doherty, Exploratorium Pauld_at_exploratorium.ed
u Google my name http//www.exo.net/pauld
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Science Museums
Real
Virtual and ...
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ONLINE
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Real The best way to learn astronomy is with a
guide outside under the stars with good clear
skies
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A green or blue laser pointer will create a
visible beam in the sky.
A great tool is a green or blue laser
pointer. Note the illusion that the beam stops
abruptly!
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Real Museum
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In the museum we have a heliostat and an
excellent diffraction grating. Visitors can see
and touch the solar spectrum with its
Fraunhoffer lines! They see the Real Phenomenon.
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Of one thing I am certain, well never know what
the stars are made of. Comte de Buffon 1770
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Joseph Von Fraunhoffer 1814
Sees absorption lines in the solar spectrum
Each element has its own signature.
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Atomic Emission Line Spectrum Sodium Vapor
Vistors see emission Spectra
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Hydrogen emission spectrum
Hydrogen Alpha
Sun image in hydrogen alpha
And that is how we know what the stars are made
of.
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I convert museum exhibits which cost over 10,000
into exhibits which students can make for under
10.
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The books contents are available free online.
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Connect science to everyday life whenever
possible A spectrometer capable of seeing the
fraunhoffer lines in the solar spectrum can be
made from a compact disk and a cardboard tube.
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You can start by observing a bright point of
light in a CD
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Or reflect sunlight
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Or reflect streetlights
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Peel a CD to make a transmission diffraction
grating
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A rectified Globe With its axis pointed toward
polaris The sunlight on this globe is the same as
the sunlight on the earth. Feel day and night and
seasonal temperatures.
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Measure the time it takes the earth to rotate
once. Time a star passing behind a nort-south
power line from one night to the next, 23 hours
56 minutes.
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Icy Bodies the Snack came first
Then the Exhibit
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Icy Bodies
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You can feel what it is like to walk on th moon
with a rope and an inclined plane.
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In the museum we model gravity and orbits with a
gravity well. Z -1/r produces an inverse
square force.
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Sometimes you can create thought experiments.
Consider 4 space stations in deep space arranged
into a square
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Move two stars next to one side of the square.
That side is now measured to belonger than the
other sides. Yet the space stations have not
moved. There now is more there, there.
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This has been tested by measuring the distance
between the earth and Mars as Mars moves behind
the Sun. We know how far it is to Mars, yet we
measure it to be further.
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Draw a sinewave on a rubber band. Stretch the
rubber band and the wavelength increases. Light
travels in a vacuum. Stretch the vacuum and the
wavelength of the light increases. Thus we see
the orange light of the big bang in the Microwave
spectrum.
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Melt the stem off a wineglass. Observe a point of
light through it. You can see the patterns made
by gravitational lenses.
Einstein Rings
Einstein Cross
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The Exploratorium is a museum of Science , Art,
and Human Perception We have to learn how to
see! Science begins with seeing the world.
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Craters or domes ?
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Cratering
Cratering Drop Steel ball bearings into deep
salt.
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The moon illusion
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Professional Astronomers use computers to DO
astronomy We can use computers to help learn
Astronomy.
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1994
61 html pages
One of the first 600 websites
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2010
gt40,000 html pages Hundreds webcasts 200 million
visits (60,000 visits/day) 5 new pages a day.
Text
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The Exploratorium is the first science museum to
have a virtual museum, 2006.
Text
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Virtual worlds in astronomy education
3D motion in time Avatar-based Social
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The International Spaceflight Museum
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3D Electric and magnetic fields
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A traveling Electromagnetic Wave
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The big dipper
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The big dipper in 3D
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The nearest stars location brightness color
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The 2MASS atlas of galaxies in 3D
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A page from Newtons Principia
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Live Newtons Principia Ride a cannon ball from a
mountain at the north pole.
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Ride Halleys comet
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Relativistic Spacecraft display length
contraction
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Brownian Motion
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Brownian Motion
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Doppler effect
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Avatar-based
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IBM annual technology meeting 200 participants
at 1/5 the cost and no jetlag
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Social Dancing during a live webcast of a total
lunar eclipse
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IBM model of rhodopsin
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There is always room for humor
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Mixed Reality Live events in Virtual Worlds
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MICA Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics
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Weekly Lectures
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The Rovers on Mars, live webcast
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Mars Rovers in a Virtual World
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Models that run continuously
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Eclipse
March 2006
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Teaching how to safely observe a partial solar
eclipse
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Image by SL resident Torley Linden

• Viewing live Total Solar Eclipse video in
  amphitheater

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Modeling the umbra and penumbra Explore a static
model
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Stick your head in the Umbra
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Modeling the origin of the Umbra dynamically
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Inside the Umbra
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• Exhibit showing path of March 2006 solar eclipse

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Transit of Mercury
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A live image of a transit and a 3D model of
Mercury
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Transit of Venus image The discovery of the
atmosphere of Venus.
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The orbit of Mercury
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Ride the Big Bang
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A most important lesson Scientists must speak
to each other so that there is NO way their words
can be misunderstood. Science Educators speak to
the public so that there is at least one way
their words can be understood correctly.
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