Science 6: Space

Your host for this intergalactic adventure is the Bad Astronomer himself, Phil Plait. We begin with answering a question: "What is astronomy?"

This playlist tells the extraordinary story of Canadian Chris Hadfield, which starts when he was inspired by the Apollo missions as a young boy and ends after his return to Earth from his mission as the first Canadian to command the International Space Station.

Let's explore how our solar system went from a giant ball of gas to the system of planets and other celestial objects we have today.

We look at the sun's core, plasma, magnetic fields, sunspots, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and what all of that means for our planet.

Learn about our Sun and the formation of the planets and quite a few other things too!

Launch your students into space exploration with these space-based, hands-on engineering challenges from PBS & NASA. They are designed for grades 4 to 8.

Explore our solar system; learn about our home in the Milky Way, other planets, moons and small celestial bodies.

This media-rich site provides information on each of planets of our solar system. Explore the videos and scroll down to find learn about the surface of each planet, as well as, statistics, size comparison and moons of each planet.

You'll find lots of information about each planet and moon in our solar system with many pictures of each planet on this site. Have fun exploring!

Free online model of the solar system and night sky

If we scaled down the earth to the size of a marble, how big do you think the solar system would be? Let's find out!

Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. It has a dynamic atmosphere with belts and zones, as well as an enormous red spot that’s actually a persistent hurricane.

Before moving on from Jupiter to Saturn, we’re going to linger for a moment on Jupiter’s moons. There are 67 known moons, 4 of which are the huge ones that we want to explore in greater detail.

The fourth planet from the sun and the outermost of the terrestrial planets, Mars has long been a popular spot for missions and imagination. Phil walks you through the planet's topography, core, and features.

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. It has no atmosphere and is, as such, covered in craters. It's also incredibly hot but, surprisingly, has water ice hiding beneath its surface.

Saturn is the crown jewel of the solar system, beautiful and fascinating. It is a gas giant and has a broad set of rings made of ice particles.

Today we’re rounding out our planetary tour with Uranus and Neptune. Both have rocky cores, mantles of ammonia, water, and methane, and atmospheres that make them look greenish and blue.

Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system and has the most volcanic activity in the solar system.

Moons come in many shapes and sizes. A few have atmospheres and even hidden oceans beneath their surfaces. Seriously!

Learn a lot of information about planets and how our definition of what a planet is keeps evolving as we learn more.

In the year 2011, NASA sent a rover to the planet Mars. The mission was only supposed to last three months, instead the rover lasted over two years!

Students can learn all about the universe we can see in infrared. Spectacular images, fun games, resources for educators, and more!

Phil starts the planet-by-planet tour of the solar system right here at home, Earth.

This site is a 3-D environment full of real NASA mission data. Students can "explore the cosmos" from their computers

NASA’s Earth Science Division (ESD) missions help us to understand our planet’s interconnected systems, from a global scale down to minute processes. Learn more about their missions here!

A 3D adventure through our cosmic neighborhood with NASA and Google. Learn about the planets, moons, and man-made objects that are part of our solar system.

Based on an exploration of space, this escape room is suitable for students in Grades 5+

Through this 4:33 minute animation, Col. Chris Hadfield, Canada's first astronaut to walk in space, tells us why "Exploration is Canada." Learn about some of Canada's key contributions to space exploration.

NASA presents this look at the James Webb Space Telescope, its mission and the technological challenge this mission presents.

Learn about Canada’s contributions to robotics in international space missions.

Learn about the extreme environment on the Moon and the challenges this poses for designing lunar rovers.

Discover a set of resources to develop background knowledge on the topic of space exploration.

Learn about radio astronomy, a type of astronomy that studies objects in space using radio waves and radio telescopes.

Some astronomers are not looking for stars, planets or galaxies. They are searching for intelligent life in the universe beyond our planet.

This is your chance to navigate the Mars Rover Curiosity. You can choose to roam the Mars landscape on your own or watch the Rover Replay.

The James Webb Space Telescope plays a key role in discovering how planets form around other stars and learning about their atmospheres. Scroll down the page to read about exoplanets and their similarity to Earth.

This article from March 2017 has some information and animations about the Webb Telescope, the newly discovered Trappist exoplanets and how the telescope will help scientists learn more about the exoplanets.

Learn a lot of information about planets and how our definition of what a planet is keeps evolving as we learn more.

This 18 minute video is the story of the pioneers in planet-hunting and how today's scientists are getting closer to answering the question: is there life elsewhere in the universe?

This invention provided astronomers with a completely different view of the Universe and led to many discoveries

In the year 2011, NASA sent a rover to the planet Mars. The mission was only supposed to last three months, instead the rover lasted over two years!

Prolonged space travel is hard on the human body: microgravity impairs muscle and bone growth, and high doses of radiation cause irreversible mutations. As we consider becoming space travelers, can we adapt to the extreme environments of space?

Now that we’ve finished our tour of the planets, we’re headed back to the asteroid belt. Asteroids are chunks of rock, metal, or both that were once part of smallish planets but were destroyed after collisions.

Today on Crash Course Astronomy, Phil explains comets. Comets are chunks of ice and rock that orbit the Sun. When they get near the Sun the ice turns into gas, forming the long tail, and also releases dust that forms a different tail.

Before moving on from Jupiter to Saturn, we’re going to linger for a moment on Jupiter’s moons. There are 67 known moons, 4 of which are the huge ones that we want to explore in greater detail.

Join Phil for a tour of our capital-M Moon, from surface features, inside to the core, and back in time to theories about its formation.

You can explore the International Space Station with Google Street View. It's so much messier than you'd expect! Choose any of the sections to explore.

Learn about the history, functions, and types of satellites.

This digital book has images of astronauts on the International Space Station and describes how they sleep, eat and exercise in space. Click on the speaker icon for audio in English.

Resources for this unit of the curriculum from Black Gold School District.

Lesson plans developed by NASA that explore information from space telescopes

Students will be asked to take a learning journey. They will be guided by videos and an avatar that will provide prompts and further instructions along the way.

The purpose of this series of 7 lesson activities is to enrich students’ understanding and to gain appreciation of Indigenous Science and Western Science in astronomy.

Students will explore concepts of mass, weight, gravity, and acceleration through a two-part STEM lunar lander project.

Find hundreds of resources that support your STEM curriculum.

Students will explore the many factors that contribute to the way an object orbits such as weight and gravitational pull

Resources to use with your students as they learn about space exploration. You can bypass the sign-in by clicking an image.

Space Station Explorers collects space-based activities from across the web. Content can be sorted by grade, subject, and learning environment.