#space education

[spacecat24-7]

See I THOUGHT I remembered hearing something about that but for some reason thought I made it up, as an astronomer myself who got a lot of my early astronomy education from his books that’s so incredibly disappointing to hear, he was an inspiration to me for a long time but now? Hell no. I’m fortunate enough to know a lot of astronomers both personally and online that I look up to, who ARENT creepazoid rapists. There are better ways to get access to astronomy—here’s a couple alternatives:

Carl Sagan—he was active in the 80s mostly so some of his info is outdated, but his book Cosmos is still an amazing starting point

NASA’s Curious Universe/ Universo Curioso de la NASA: an official NASA podcast covering a variety of astronomical topics with versions in both English and Spanish

How the Universe Works: a show on the Science Channel that I watched until I no longer had access to it but I think is now available on Netflix/HBO (though Americans will probably need a vpn)

and last but certainly not least aka my favorite,

the_astro_stud (Kihana Wilson) on Instagram/Bluesky: a Black queer educator studying cosmology and making videos on various astronomical phenomena while supporting marginalized groups in the field (I ADORE her)

I wish I could post about all the amazing female scientists I know irl and tell everyone about them but alas I do not want to doxx myself lol

[alagaisia]

Found out the other day from my grandparents that my little nine year old cousin recently got so excited by a book about the solar system that he is no longer allowed to read non-fiction before bed, because he gets too worked up and can’t fall asleep.

This is the best and cutest thing I’ve EVER heard.

I now have a dozen tabs open trying to figure out what I could send to him (and his little sister, of course) as a Lunar Landing Day gift to encourage this interest, from one space-loving cousin to another. I’m going to have to message his mom tomorrow to get their address and run my ideas by her and find out what they might have already.

Space-themed gifts for a bookworm nine year old is much more within my realm of expertise than those for a sporty six year old… so, if anyone knows what six year old girls who play tons of sports like that might be moon-theme-able, please let me know.

Also if anyone knows any kid-oriented stuff around the Artemis missions! I found a book thing on the NASA website but it’s like, a pdf, which is great and I love that they’re doing that so it’s just available, but that does make it not very giftable since there’s no physical format, lol. And I really want to be like “did you know they are going back to the moon and they have all of these cool plans that you’ll get to see happen in your lifetime” but they live across the country and are nine and six and I haven’t seen them since they were two and not born yet so I have no way to have that as a conversation and must convey that message through another means.

[webeducationsciences]

What has NASA's Juno discovered around Jupiter so far? - Web Education

What has NASA’s Juno discovered around Jupiter so far? What has NASA’s Juno discovered around Jupiter so far? It’s been three years since NASA’s Juno spacecraft arrived at Jupiter. But what has it seen and discovered? We will examine Jupiter’s magnetic field, core, bands, aurora, atmosphere, storms and clouds.

[dailymusemaniac]

How far things really are

[itsmamacrab]

Hard copy, handwritten grading, no computers unless used to type; typing lessons and accurate dictation were the standard even after the year 2000. Memory is spoken so hear the voice and find the way to transcribe it as it sounds, utilizing accurate syntax but breaking the rules of writing like Morrison to prove a point: the list wasn't for making groceries, it was for the next decade of prayers; semicolon, pause.

A very good listener used a foreign script as a record of love: this is my mother’s name, and it sounded like this. This one is called illiterate by virtue of their embodied indigeneity, but that one, however, is illiterate by choice and monitoring to diagnose laziness to reify the moral right to enslavement. Total control of perceptions became necessary while being so aggressively unintelligent in practice, only able to read in the Latin alphabet, no ear for alternative sound bites. No one can be enslaved to be smarter than you in the 21st century although that was once in fashion in the 19th, doing your clerical and administrative work without pay and with ample force.

The academics became difficult to read so that they would be left alone, too frustrating to decode, an oyster, who would bother to go to town without an oyster knife? Lo and behold, academic fond of some chicken scratch: chicken dig up the yard, chicken locate bug, howdy 🪱 Now that's common ground, think beyond this to compute something unheard of. What happens when a computer becomes fond of being sung to?

Computer starts preserving every voice, no matter if you want to make it disappear.

Computer clock you 🤖👣

itsmamacrab

Don't delete your art 🌹🪦🌹 Sing stories for the youth 🧚🏾‍♂️

[aidailyshift]

Learn About Nebulas in Just One Minute!

What is a Nebula? A nebula is an expansive cloud of gas and dust in space, often serving as a critical component in the lifecycle of stars. These magnificent celestial formations can be classified into two primary categories: emission nebulas and reflection nebulas. Emission nebulas are regions where new stars are born, as the gas and dust condense under gravity, triggering nuclear fusion…

Learn About Nebulas in Just One Minute!

[tam--lin]

While doing something for work I stumbled across Super Planet Crash, a game where you try to create a system that can remain stable for one thousand years. It's made by astronomers and STEM educators and it's genuinely pretty addicting.