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Calling all armchair crime-solvers!

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • March 9, 2016
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Stars exploding? Who would do such a thing? Join bumbling detective Eagle Quark on his 8-bit adventures at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in our new Space Forensics game! Eagle is somewhat clueless in his hunt for suspects behind the mysterious deaths of stars in the night sky… and he … Continue Reading →


Planet-forming disk - artist's conception

Try It At Home: Help Discover New Planets!

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • December 7, 2015
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When I heard the news that astronomers have made unprecedented observations of a still-forming planet around a star named LkCa 15, I was really excited. Just 25 years ago, we hadn’t found any exoplanets and weren’t sure if, when, or how we’d find something so small, faint, and distant. In … Continue Reading →


Try It At Home: Turning Sound Into Light

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • January 22, 2013
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This is a long-overdue follow-up to the blog where we showed you how to eavesdrop on the signals coming from your remote control, turning the infrared light patterns into sound through a simple circuit with a photocell and an amplifier/speaker. In this Try It At Home activity, we’ll build another … Continue Reading →


Lifecycles

Try It At Home: Life Cycle of a Massive Star Activity

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • September 13, 2012
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Stars and planets form in the dark, inside vast, cold clouds of gas and dust. The James Webb Space Telescope’s large mirror and infrared sensitivity will let astronomers peer inside dusty knots where the youngest stars and planets are forming. The Webb telescope project has developed a bookmark and an … Continue Reading →


Build It Yourself: Satellite

Try It At Home: Build-It-Yourself: Satellite launches!

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • July 18, 2012
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I wanted to thank all you Blueshift readers (especially a few of our Facebook followers) who were really helpful at offering me feedback for my new game. We’ve made a bunch of changes and released the final result! If you played an earlier version, please give the latest one a … Continue Reading →


Build It Yourself: Satellite

Try It At Home: Build-It-Yourself: Satellite!

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • April 2, 2012
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We’re offering you, our Blueshift readers, the exclusive chance to try out a new game, where you get to be the scientist! The game allows you to build your own satellite. First choose what science your satellite will be used to study, and then decide what wavelengths, instruments and mirrors … Continue Reading →


Cosmic Times

Try It At Home: Cosmic Times

  • By Barb Mattson
  • February 22, 2012
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Extra! Extra! Read All About the Universe! The Universe is expanding faster and faster and faster! But, how do we know that? Our current knowledge of the Universe is built upon a foundation of research done by previous generations of scientists. Sometimes it seems that science moves slowly, but when … Continue Reading →


Scope It Out

Try It At Home: Scope It Out game

Curious about why the James Webb Space Telescope doesn’t look like Hubble, or most telescopes you are familiar with? Curious about the differences between reflector and refractor telescopes? This game will teach you the basics of how telescopes work and compare a simple telescope to Webb and to Hubble. You’ll … Continue Reading →


Try It At Home: The RXTE Learning Center

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • January 6, 2012
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Happy 16th birthday to the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer! Though this mission is soon coming to a close, it’s had an incredible lifespan and so much great science has come out of it. RXTE has a Learning Center, which recently received a facelift. It has a terrific intro to X-ray … Continue Reading →


Cosmic Distance Scale

Try It At Home: Cosmic Distance Scale

Have you ever wondering why we aren’t visiting the nearest stars? Or why there are no photos of our galaxy from the outside? The short answer is that the Universe is really big. So big that even the things closest to us are really far away. Here is a little … Continue Reading →


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