Space on the Net

NASA Home Page                                    http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov
Jet Propulsion Home Page                          http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Recent Hubble Space Telescope images              http://www.stsci.edu/EPA/Recent.html
Space Telescope Information Service               http://www.stsci.edu
NASA Planetary Imaging                            http://cdwings.jpl.nasa.gov/PDS/
Earth Images                                      http://satftp.soest.hawaii.edu/pub
Magellan,Viking and Voyager images                http://explorer.arc.nasa.gov/pub
Solar reports and images and auroral forcasts     ftp://ftp.uleth.ca/pub/solar
Jet Propulsion Lab info, images and space news    http://jplinfo.jpl.nasa.gov/pub
American Astronomical Society                     http://blackhole.aas.org/AAS-homepage.html
Astro-web, index of astronomical resources        http://fits.cv.nrao.edu/www/astronomy.html
NASA;s Spacelink for space news and images        http://spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov
Galileo spacecraft                                http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo.html
Educational programs and materials                http://io.cc.gettysburg.edu/pub

If you are totally new to computer`ese’ terms, here is a brief breakdown. The Internet is basically millions of computers in schools, universities, businesses and other organizations that are tied together through telephone lines. The Internet allows users to share files, obtain information, send electronic mail and access remote computers. The Web, properly called the World Wide Web, or WWW, is a collection of documents that have embedded links within them to allow the user to be linked (joined) with other related documents.

It can seem overwhelming at first but once you get pointed in the right direction, life on the net becomes easy. This article is written to aid those who seek earth and space science information on the information superhighway.

For those who seek such information, it is on the net, free for the taking. With a few clicks and keypunches, you can catch the latest images of Hubble Space Telescope, images and information about the space shuttle, apollo program, Viking to Mars, the Voyager spacecraft and more. You can be up on the upcoming weather by downloading the latest satellite weather information. Catalogs of planetary, stellar and deep sky information are there for the browsing. E-mail pen pals can be found all over the world who have common interests in science. All you need is access to the net, a few directionals, and away you go.

Most people use a web-browser such as Mosaic, Netscape or Webcrawler to locate, view and download information, images, sounds and movies. These browsers usually have a "search" mode which allows uses to type in key words such as "NASA" "JPL" "planet pictures" or "space shuttle" and it will list all topics relating to that search. If you know the exact "address" of the information you want, then you can save some time. A great place to start for astronomy enthusiasts is the NASA home page, which will give links to all sorts of information and planetary images (see table for addresses). Another home page of interest is the PLANET EARTH HOME PAGE. This will give links to many space images and weather information. JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena) is a terrific source of planetary images and information. For the science education minded, try Gettysburg.edu for a vast amount information. The Hubble Space Telescope has its own home page, where the latest images can be found, but links through NASA can provide an entire collection of Hubble images.

For the weather minded, the latest satellite pictures of anything from the northeast US to the whole globe can be obtained in infrared, radar and other imagings. Information on wind direction, temperature, air pressure and precipitation can also be obtained. It is fascinating and educational to watch our weather trek its way across the country or up the coast over a period of days until it reaches us. Much can be learned by studying these pictures.

Some communication programs do not allow you to actually view the images on screen, however it does not mean you cannot download them. But bear in mind a word of caution, the images may not always be just what you’d want! While there are MANY breathtaking images of the planets and deep space, there are also many that are useless to the nonresearcher. Sometimes images are in false color, or they are taken using ultraviolet or some other type of filter that makes the image appear very strange. But don’t let that stop you, you can always "delete!"

Books have been written about all that the internet has to offer, and they cannot even possibly cover all the resources available. See the table for a list of great destinations, but don’t forget you can also use the search mode available in most browsers. See you on the net!