Web Resources

 

A collection of educational resources and links to the websites of international research centers and space missions that teachers and educators may find useful.

 

EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS

Sun4All

This project allows students to work with real solar images and accomplish scientific results. Sun4All proposes 7 activities for different age ranges - from counting sunspots to a determination of the solar rotation period.

Sunspotter Citizen Science Project

The Sunspotter project aims to construct a reliable measure of sunspot group complexity. It is primarily a science project but also offers students a great way to contribute to current cutting-edge research.

NASA Sun as a Star

The Sun As a Star activities teach concepts related to the sun with opportunities for the students to investigate each idea. Most of the nine sequential activities can be completed in about one hour.

Journey to the Sun (NSO)

The JTTS curriculum consists of 6 ready-to-implement lesson packages. Each package contains a slideshow presentation, a teacher's guide, and activities. (NSO is responsible for DKIST, our sister solar telescope).

NSO STEM Box

Browse and download lessons, activities, and more from these categories: Electromagnetic Spectrum, Optics, Solar science, space weather, and Sun/Earth connections.

 

GALLERIES

Swedish 1m Solar Telescope Gallery

Images and videos taken with the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope (SST). The SST is operated on the island of La Palma by the Institute for Solar Physics (Sweden) in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos.

Hinode movies

Movies of solar phenomena prepared by Dr. Joten Okamoto, from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), using data taken by the Hinode satellite.

Solar Dynamics Observatory Gallery

Images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the first mission of the NASA's Living With a Star (LWS) Program, a program designed to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth.

TRACE Gallery

Images from The Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE), a mission of the Stanford-Lockheed Institute for Space Research, and part of the NASA Small Explorer program.

SOHO Gallery (NASA)

SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, is a project of international collaboration between ESA and NASA to study the Sun from its deep core to the outer corona and the solar wind.

SOHO Gallery (ESA)

SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, is a project of international collaboration between ESA and NASA to study the Sun from its deep core to the outer corona and the solar wind.

NSO Galleries

Images from the National Solar Observatory (NSO), the national center for ground-based solar physics in the United States. NSO is responsible for DKIST, our sister telescope, currently under construction in Hawaii.

HAO Gallery

The High Altitude Observatory (HAO) offers a pictorical introduction to solar physics topics. Contains both images and detailed descriptions of the featured solar phenomena.

Kanzelhöhe Observatory Gallery

Kanzelhöhe Observatory for Solar and Environmental Research shows movies of eclipses, flares, transits, and different solar phenomena.

 

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Solar Orbiter for kids

Activities, images, videos and the blog of Mr Adriaan and his family travelling to Cape Canaveral for the launch of Solar Orbiter.

NASA Goddard Media Studios: SDO

Pictures, movies, and infographics explaining different aspects of solar physic research can be found in this collection prepared by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio using SDO observations. 

NASA Goddard Media Studios: Parker Solar Probe

Launched in 2018, Parker Solar Probe is providing new data on solar activity and making critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth.

TRACE Educational Resources

This site offers tools to learn more about the Sun and the TRACE mission. You'll find some basic information here, as well as links to other sites on the web that contain more detailed explanations of solar physics topics.

Stanford Solar Center

History, culture, art and different resources on solar physics and solar research for teachers, students and the general public.

Yohkoh Public Outreach Project

The Yohkoh Movie Theater (YPOP) is designed to bring you images and movies depicting our nearest star, the Sun, as seen by an X-ray telescope that was carried on board the Yohkoh satellite. 

SOHO Classroom

Activities and resources for students and teachers, based on the data, history, science and mission of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

The Light Tour (Science Education Gateway)

A self-tutorial that introduces the electromagnetic spectrum. Students learn to associate various wavelength ranges with different spectral bands, and can explore images from space astronomy missions in each band.

Helioviewer

Helioviewer is an user-friendly tool for the visualization of solar and heliospheric data. It is part of the Helioviewer Project, funded by ESA and NASA. There is also a more powerful desktop application.

UCAR Center for Science Education

The UCAR Center for Science Education has a collection of games and simulations related to weather, climate, atmospheric science, and space weather education.

NASA Heliopedia

The NASA Heliopedia brings together some definitions of common things that occur on the Sun or are driven by the Sun’s influence.

 

HISTORY OF SOLAR RESEARCH

History of Solar Physics

HAO offers interesting resources on the history of solar physics, including 'A History of Famous Solar Physicists', 'Solar Physics Historical Timeline', and 'Solar Astronomy in the Prehistoric Southwest'.

Tra Cielo e Terra

Virtual exhibition about the life and scientific activity of Angelo Secchi, a pioneer of modern research in solar astrophysics.

"A typical sunspot"

Article by Jim Hughes about the history of sunspots observations and drawings.

Biographies

Collection of biographies and comments about the history of space weather research, including unsung heroes and interesting historical trivia.

Space Weather Newspaper Archives

Collection of major space weather events in history.

 

SOLAR DATABASES

Solar Monitor

Daily solar images from a range of different instruments through a very intuitive interface. It offers images of the full solar disk and active regions taken at several wavelengths.

Bass2000

BASS2000 archives and distributes ground-based solar observations provided by various instruments, including THÈMIS, the spectroheliographs of Meudon and Coimbra, the coronograph of Pic du Midi, and USET (ROB).

Solar Dynamics Observatory

The Sun now as recorded by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (NASA).

Hinode Science Data Center Europe

Database of Hinode observations since launch in 2006 with a very intuitive interface and fast service. Maintained by the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics in Oslo (Norway).

Heliophysics Events Knowledgebase Coverage Registry (HCR)

Recent Hinode Observations in this database maintained by LMSAL (USA).

Heliophysics Knowledgebase

Search form for Hinode, IRIS and SDO data.

Catania Solar Observations

Solar observations website of INAF Catania Solar Observatory, containing the most recent images acquired in Catania (Italy), details of the instruments and a data archive.

Kanzelhöhe Solar Observatory archives

Synoptic archives of Kanzelhöhe Observatory for Solar and Environmental Research (Austria) since 1944.

Observatório Astronómico de Coimbra

Database of nearly 30,000 solar spectra taken since 1926 at the Astronomical Observatory of Coimbra (Portugal).

Heliophysical Observatory Debrecen

The Greenwich Observatory compiled the Greenwich Photoheliographic Results sunspot catalogue between 1874 and 1976. In 1976, the Debrecen Heliophysical Observatory (Hungary) took over this responsibility.

Observatoire de Paris Meudon

Regular observations began in 1908 at Meudon Observatory (Paris, France). The observatory has digitalized many historical plates which can be found in this database.

Kodaikanal Solar Observatory

Solar observations performed over the last 100+ years at Kodaikanal Observatory (India) provide one of the longest continuous series of solar data.

 

TALKS AND PUBLIC LECTURES

What is Space Weather and Why Should I Care?

Dr Thomas Berger. Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. University of Colorado Boulder. 

El Sol: una estrella sorprendente (Spanish)

Dr. Manuel Collados. EST project coordinator. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. 

The Eye of the Giant: Solving the Sun's mysteries with EST 

Dr Ada Ortiz Carbonell. Public lecture at Queen's University Belfast.

Studiare il Sole per capire il clima sulla Terra (In Italian)

Dr Francesco Berrilli. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata.

 

SOLARPEDIA

Explanations about solar physics concepts and solar phenomena, addressed to the general audience.

The chromosphere

Solar flares

Coronal Mass Ejections

Solar prominences

Space weather

Maunder minimum

Helmet streamers