WELCOME TO ASTRONOMY UPDATE FOR THE "PUBLIC CONNECTION"

NOTE: The Space Update software was completely overhauled for 2006 and 2010 with an improved layout and expanded content. This web page refers to an old version of the program that was used from 2006 through 2009. If you are looking for details regarding the latest version of the program, please go here. If you are looking for details regarding the version of the program that was used from 1996 through 2005, please go here.

To educate students and the general public about the Earth and Space Sciences, Rice University and the Houston Museum of Natural Science have developed Space Update, an interactive, real-time display system of space science images, movies, and data designed for museums and schools.

Running from a CD-ROM on a Mac or Windows computer, the program displays hundreds of images and movies of the best of space science research. These have easy to understand captions, and web links to more information. By installing the software on a hard drive, it is possible to connect to the Rice server and download up-to-date images.

For a review of the software, please see the article by Joe Heafner in the December 2003 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine (page 67-68).

The astronomy module for Space Update contains recent and archival astronomical images and movies that are downloaded from sites on the World Wide Web. Rather than being a gallery of pretty pictures, the aim is to explain - in simple terms - the exciting results from multi-wavelength astronomy soon after they are released. The users of the software - K-12 educators, students, and the general public viewing the museum displays - therefore get a taste of the cutting edge of space research that they would otherwise not be exposed to.

The images and movies are arranged by topic in a tree structure that is navigated by using a mouse to click on buttons or to select from menu lists.

Figure 1: Main page. For a larger version, click here.

The top of the tree with the main sections (Figure 1) is always available. This main page currently contains five sections. Clicking on one of these section buttons gives a pull-down menu that is used to choose a sub-section. The five main sections are:

After using a pull-down menu to select a sub-section, a page of introductory text is displayed on that topic. For example, see Figure 2.

Figure 2: Example of introductory text for the Galaxies - Magellanic sub-section. For a larger version, click here.

An image or movie can now be selected using the pull-down menu in the top left corner. Alternatively, the Previous and Next buttons can be used to step through the images in chronological order. A third navigation option is to click on the Show Thumbnail Images bar which then shows snapshots of the available images; for example, see Figure 3. The desired image can then be clicked.

Figure 3: Example of the thumbnail images for the Galaxies - Magellanic sub-section. For a larger version, click here.

The thumbnails are arranged by the date the image was released to the public with the most recent image in the top left corner. Similarly, the pull-down menu has the most recent material at the top of the list. This makes it easy to find the latest results.

Figure 4 shows an example of what is displayed once an image has been selected.

Figure 4: Example of an image selected from the Galaxies - Magellanic sub-section. For a larger version, click here.

The main panel contains the image. To see the details better, the image can expanded to fill the full screen by clicking on the zoom icon.

The upper panel to the left of the image contains a caption that explains in simple terms what is interesting about the image. The captions are created by modifying the ones supplied with the original press release of the image, with pertinent background information added as needed.

The lower panel to the left of the image contains credits for the image including a web address for obtaining more information. Clicking on this web link will open a browser at that page if the computer is connected to the internet.

In addition to the images, some of the sub-sections contain movies. Some of these movies are based entirely on observations, while others show numerical simulations or artistic visualizations.

The All Sky section (see Figure 5) contains maps of the whole Universe from radio to gamma-rays. Rather than being ordered by the date the image was released to the public, in this case the images are ordered by the wavelength used for the observation, from longer to shorter wavelengths. In addition to the navigation methods used in the other sub-sections, there is a wavelength bar at the bottom of the screen. This has a pointer that can be grabbed by clicking on it. This can then be dragged to the wavelength of interest, and the closest image will be selected.

Figure 5: The All Sky section. For a larger version, click here.

In the top right corner of the main page is an Update Data icon. If the software is installed on the computer (rather than running directly off the CD) and there is a connection to the internet then clicking on this button will connect to the server at Rice. The program checks to see if there is new or revised material to download, and asks if this should be installed.

Rice University and the Houston Museum of Natural Science have set up interactive computer kiosks in the museum. These bring the latest space science images to a large audience, many of whom would not otherwise have access to them.

The interactive astronomy module was first installed in the main kiosk at the entrance to the museum on 1996 March 1. On 1996 July 19 our own dedicated Astronomy Update kiosk was first opened.

The kiosks can be connected to the server at Rice allowing the content to be remotely updated. However, the system is safe for unattended use since there is no keyboard and therefore no access to inappropriate material on the WWW.

Similar kiosks and display computers are being used in many other museums, schools, and NASA visitor centers. A portable kiosk containing the complete Space Update project has been displayed at several locations, such as NASA Headquarters.

We put the whole Earth and Space Sciences project including Astronomy Update onto CD ROMs and distribute it to educators. These are the same programs that are used in the museum kiosks.

The current version of the CD works on both Macs (running OSX) and Windows (2000 or newer). The previous Mac OS9/Windows 98 version is still available on request, although this does not contain the most recent astronomical images. The computer requirements are modest, and even schools with limited computing facilities are using our software.

The program runs in full directly from the CD, or it can be copied to the hard drive. An advantage of the latter is that it allows updating of the material from the Rice server.

Over 20,000 copies of Space Update have been distributed to learners worldwide, with well over half given away free at teacher workshops (e.g. CAST and NSTA).

The CD is available for sale from spaceupdate.com .

As a supplement to the regular class material, the CD has been used in the Astronomy 201 class at Rice University, which is the introductory undergraduate astronomy course for non-science majors. The students are continually impressed how rapidly their textbook becomes out of date!

The program has also been used extensively as part of the Master of Science Teaching Degree Program at Rice University in the Astronomy 403 "Astronomy for Teachers" class.

Acknowledgements The Public Connection Project was made possible by a grant from NASA, as part of NASA/Goddard's Digital Library Technology Project. Astronomy Update has also been funded by grants from the NASA Initiative to Develop Education through Astronomy (IDEA) program, by NASA Education/Public Outreach supplements, by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0123487, and by the Texas Space Grant Consortium.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA, the National Science Foundation, or the Texas Space Grant Consortium.

Ian Smith - 2009 October 28