Monitoring Solar Storms

Would your high school like to monitor solar storms? High above us lies a desolate place where continual blasts of particles and energy from the Sun pound the top of Earth's atmosphere. This "ionized" region, where electrons and nuclei dart around freely, is a plasma we call the ionosphere. The ionosphere reacts strongly to the intense x-ray and ultraviolet radiation released by the Sun during a solar flare or solar storm. We can track these solar disturbances by monitoring changes to the Earth's ionosphere. The Solar Center has a project to place ionospheric monitors in high schools and community colleges around the world.

Check out Space Weather Monitors.  

Galileo's Discoveries - 400 years

In 1609, Galileo first pointed his homemade telescope toward the heavens. Over the next several years he would discover sunspots, the moons of Jupiter, the "seas" and craters on the Moon, and the phases of Venus, and in the words of Albert Einstein, he would become "the father of modern science". This page contains a short biography, links, and activities related to Galileo's discoveries.