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Physical Realm
Universe Astronomical Instrument
Galaxy Milky Way, Andromeda
Planetary System Star, Brown Dwarf, Planet, Moon

Solar System Sun
Terrestrial Planet Mercury, Venus, Earth (Moon), Mars
Asteroid Belt Ceres, Vesta
Jovian Planet Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
Trans-Neptunian Object
Kuiper Belt Pluto, Haumea, Makemake
Scattered Disc Eris, Sedna, Planet X
Oort Cloud Etc. Scholz’s Star
Small Body Comet, Centaur, Asteroid

Posts

Milky Way Lost & Found (8/15/2018) - Have you seen the Milky Way? You may think that you have, but are you sure? Unless you live in an extremely remote area, or you’ve visited one, then you probably haven’t seen our own galaxy, the Milky Way, very well, or at all. Worse yet, you may not even realize that it’s missing. The … Continue reading Milky Way Lost & Found

Resources

These are organized by a classification scheme developed exclusively for Cosma. More…

General

Dictionary

universe : a distinct field or province of thought or reality that forms a closed system or self-inclusive and independent organization — Webster

OneLook, Free Dictionary, Wiktionary, Urban Dictionary

space : a boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction — Webster

OneLook, Free Dictionary, Wiktionary, Urban Dictionary

Thesaurus

Roget’s II (Thesaurus.com), Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, Visuwords

Encyclopedia

Universe The Universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. While the spatial size of the entire Universe is still unknown, it is possible to measure the observable universe. — Wikipedia

Encyclopædia Britannica

Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework. — Wikipedia

Encyclopædia Britannica

Cosmos: SAO Encyclopedia of Astronomy (Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing)
Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy (Eric Weisstein’s World of Astronomy, Wolfram Research)
Astrophysics (Eric Weisstein’s World of Physics, Wolfram Research)

Introduction

Portal

Astronomy Guide (Library of Congress)
Astronomy Selected Internet Resources (Library of Congress)
Astronomy and Astrophysics Science Tracer Bullet (Library of Congress)
Archaeoastronomy Science Tracer Bullet (Library of Congress)
Astronomy Subject Primer (National Network of Libraries of Medicine)
Astrophysics, Astronomy, Astrochemistry, Astrobiology & Cosmology Center (Martindale’s Reference Desk)
Space Portal (Wikipedia)
Astronomy Portal (Wikipedia)

Search

Space & Astronomy (Wolfram Alpha)
Astronomy (Wolfram Alpha)
Astrophysics (Wolfram Alpha)

Science

Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and comets; the phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, all phenomena that originate outside Earth’s atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy.

Astronomy is one of the oldest of the natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas performed methodical observations of the night sky. Historically, astronomy has included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, and the making of calendars, but professional astronomy is now often considered to be synonymous with astrophysics. — Wikipedia

Encyclopædia Britannica

Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that employs the principles of physics and chemistry to ascertain the nature of the astronomical objects, rather than their positions or motions in space. Among the objects studied are the Sun, other stars, galaxies, extrasolar planets, the interstellar medium and the cosmic microwave background. Their emissions are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the properties examined include luminosity, density, temperature, and chemical composition. Because astrophysics is a very broad subject, astrophysicists typically apply many disciplines of physics, including mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, nuclear and particle physics, and atomic and molecular physics. — Wikipedia

Britannica

Outline

Outline of Space sciences (Wikipedia)

Preservation

Participation

Education

SciShow Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space (YouTube Channel)
SciShow Space (YouTube Channel)

Teaching Astronomy Internet Resources (Library of Congress)
Educator Resources (Smithsonian Air & Space Museum)
AstroEdu (International Astronomical Union)

Universe (Space Place, NASA)
What’s in Space (Space Place, NASA)
The Universe (Cosmos4Kids)

Course

Crash Course Astronomy (YouTube)

Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (MIT Open Courseware)
Physics and Astronomy (Coursera)
OER Commons: Open Educational Resources

Community

Occupation

Careers in Astronomy (Ask an Astronomer, Cornell University)
The Universe (Ask an Astronomer, Cornell University)

Organization

International Astronomical Union (IAU)
American Astronomical Society (AAS)

Blog

The Science Geek : Astronomy, space and space travel for the non scientist
Astronomy Café

News

Space & Planetary Science EurekaAlert (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
Sky & Telescope Astronomy News
Space.com
Phys.org
ScienceDaily
Scientific American
Smithsonian Magazine

Government

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (California Institute of Technology)
International Space Agencies (NASA)

Document

USA.gov

Expression

What Space Smells Like (Megan Garber, The Atlantic)

Fun

Humor

How To Go To Space (with XKCD!)

Arts

Astronomy in the Arts (Ask an Astronomer, Cornell University)

Poem

OEDILF: The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form

Music

Song Lyrics

Cosma Posts

Dark, Deep & Spooky… (8/8/2017) - Today’s physics is “probably” not the kind of thing that you, or at least your parents and grandparents, learned about in school (unless you happen to be a Physicist). Even the most casual science buff knows that today it’s all about exotic stuff like dark matter (NASA), ghost particles (FermiLab) and “spooky action at a … Continue reading Dark, Deep & Spooky…
Enterprise (1/22/2017) - Star Trek fans, take notice. Here’s a cool new 360° video that takes you where you’ve never gone before… or well, at least not outside of a 2D screen. It’s a grand up-close tour of the Enterprise, and it was posted by CBS to promote the series. Check it out! (This is a 360° YouTube … Continue reading Enterprise
ExoMars (10/19/2016) - Oct. 21 Update: Unfortunately, the ExoMars mission’s Schiaparelli lander did not make a successful landing due to technical difficulties, and the crash site has been found. Happily, the mother ship did successfully enter orbit. Why Schiaparelli Probe’s Mars ‘Crash Land’ Is No Failure (Mason Peck, Newsweek) Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter views Schiaparelli landing site (ESA) Here’s … Continue reading ExoMars
Exoplanet Junket (6/2/2018) - I’m on a vacation of sorts, so it’s no surprise that stories about travel tend to catch my eye. However, it is surprising if the story happens to be about something that NASA’s done. This week NASA released a new project that they’ve dubbed the Exoplanet Travel Bureau. The core of the project consists of … Continue reading Exoplanet Junket
Get Lost in Space! (9/14/2018) - Way back in August, in anticipation of the start of a new school year, I set out to update the pages on this site related to space. Those pages tend to be popular among the teachers and students who use Cosma, and I happen to enjoy updating them, too. It sounded like a short, fun … Continue reading Get Lost in Space!
Great Views of Earth (4/22/2018) - April 22nd is Earth Day! In honor of that, here are some great ways to see the honoree. First, you can get a nice view from this neat 360° Video from Seeker. It essentially shows you what it would feel like if you could just fly straight up and see the Earth from space. National … Continue reading Great Views of Earth
Mars 3D (11/16/2016) - Mars is getting even more attention than usual this week, and that is “mostly” because National Geographic began airing their special six part Mars series on Monday nights (9/8c). Here’s a trailer and links about it… Virtual Trip to Mars Offers Ultimate Preview to Crewed Mission (Nadia Drake, National Geographic) Inside Nat Geo’s Incredible Documentary … Continue reading Mars 3D
Milky Way Lost & Found (8/15/2018) - Have you seen the Milky Way? You may think that you have, but are you sure? Unless you live in an extremely remote area, or you’ve visited one, then you probably haven’t seen our own galaxy, the Milky Way, very well, or at all. Worse yet, you may not even realize that it’s missing. The … Continue reading Milky Way Lost & Found
Moon+H2O=Moonbase? (7/25/2017) - One of the big science stories in the news right now is that Earth’s Moon has more water than scientists expected. This Newsy video is just one of the hundreds of stories flooding news feeds. This round of stories has been inspired by this article in Nature Geoscience. Remote detection of widespread indigenous water in … Continue reading Moon+H2O=Moonbase?
Octopuses from Space! (5/20/2018) - Did you hear the one about the octopuses from space? It sounds like the title of a cheesy sci-fi movie, doesn’t it? But it isn’t, this time, or at least, yet. Instead, it’s actually an oddball theory that’s been put forth in a recently published “scientific” article that’s getting quite a lot of buzz in … Continue reading Octopuses from Space!
Perspectives on Earth (11/23/2017) - Last week NASA released this fascinating video entitled Our Living Planet based upon 20 years of data from satellites that observe all plant life at the surface of the land and ocean. You can find out more about the video from this article. The Changing Colors of our Living Planet (NASA) Of course, releasing fantastic … Continue reading Perspectives on Earth
RIP Rossetta! (10/1/2016) - The “Little Mission that Could” has come to an end, but what a mission it was to watch! Rosetta Concludes Mission with a Crash (Megan Gannon, Scientific American) Rosetta Mission Ends With Spacecraft’s Dive Into Comet (Kenneth Chang, New York Times) It was such a joy to watch each historic milestone the mission passed over … Continue reading RIP Rossetta!
Strange Things (11/12/2016) - There’s been a ton of cool stuff going on in the 3D/360°/AR/VR hardware and software universe lately, and there’s about to be even more (more on that soon). On the other hand, the 3D/360°/AR/VR content front has been “relatively” static (unless you love Halloween’esque horror, of course). When I went looking for something interesting to … Continue reading Strange Things
Super Bowl of Astronomy (1/15/2018) - The annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, a.k.a. the “Super Bowl of Astronomy” was held in Washington DC last week. While it might not have as much cachet as the Consumer Electronics Show, great tidbits from the conference do slip into the mainstream media from time to time. For example, Phys.org did a nice … Continue reading Super Bowl of Astronomy
The waves won! (10/4/2017) - Gravitational waves that is! It has been announced that Rainer Weiss (MIT), Barry Barish (Caltech) and Kip Thorne (Caltech) have won the 2017 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for their decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the first observation of gravitational waves in 2015. Here’s a quick one minute video from Newsy and a … Continue reading The waves won!
To touch the Sun (6/1/2017) - The big “space” news this week is that NASA has announced that they renamed the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft the “Parker Solar Probe” in honor of Eugene N. Parker, the astrophysicist from the University of Chicago who predicted the solar wind. The probe is scheduled to launch next summer and become the first mission to … Continue reading To touch the Sun
TRAPPIST-1 (2/23/2017) - You’ve probably heard that NASA has found a trove of “Earth-like” planets circling the TRAPPIST-1 system roughly 40 light years away, but just in case you haven’t, here’s a short 2 minute AP video about the discovery. Here’s another video from NASA/JPL with more explanation. Most entertainingly, here’s a 360° YouTube Video published by NASA/JPL … Continue reading TRAPPIST-1
Umbraphiles (8/20/2017) - umbraphile : One who loves eclipses, often travelling to see them. — Wiktionary Yes, this is that obligatory post about “The Solar Eclipse” (NASA, Wikipedia). Of course, there had to be one — eclipses really are just too cool to ignore. You’ve already been bombarded with explanations of the science and history of eclipses, but … Continue reading Umbraphiles
Visioning Spacesteads (8/8/2018) - Space, the final frontier… Humans have been imagining what it would be like to setup homesteads and live in space for about as long as they’ve been imagining how to get there, but the process didn’t really take off until after we actually got there. Back in the 1970’s NASA dedicated some resources to the … Continue reading Visioning Spacesteads

More…

Universe News A RSS news feed containing the latest NASA press releases on exploration of the universe.

NASA Hosts Science Chat on Upcoming Historic...
on September 17, 2018 at 8:27 pm
Members of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft team will host a Science Chat at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 19, on humanity’s farthest planetary flyby, scheduled to occur Jan. 1 when the spacecraft encounters a mysterious object in the Kuiper Belt nicknamed “Ultima Thule.&rdquo […]
NASA Hosts Live Science Chat: One Year After...
on August 20, 2018 at 3:48 pm
On the one-year anniversary of the historic 2017 Eclipse Across America, NASA will host a Science Chat at 10:30 a.m. EDT, Tuesday, Aug. 21, to discuss new science data and the public impact of the celestial event experienced by millions. […]
NASA, ULA Launch Parker Solar Probe on Historic...
on August 12, 2018 at 8:16 am
Hours before the rise of the very star it will study, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched from Florida Sunday to begin its journey to the Sun, where it will undertake a landmark mission. The spacecraft will transmit its first science observations in December, beginning a revolution in our understanding of the star that makes life on Earth possible. […]
Mars Terraforming Not Possible Using Present-Day...
on July 30, 2018 at 3:00 pm
Transforming the inhospitable Martian environment into a place astronauts could explore without life support is not possible without technology well beyond today’s capabilities because Mars does not retain enough accessible carbon dioxide that could be put back into the atmosphere to warm the planet. […]
NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft Finds That “Stolen”...
on July 23, 2018 at 3:00 pm
NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft just found a new type of Martian aurora that occurs over much of the day side of the Red Planet, where auroras are very hard to see. […]

EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science The premier online source for science news since 1996. A service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Ancient Mars had right conditions for underground...
on September 24, 2018 at 4:00 am
(Brown University) A new study shows that the breakdown of water molecules trapped in ancient Martian rocks likely produced enough chemical energy to sustain microorganisms for hundreds of millions of years beneath the Red Planet's surface. […]
NYU Tandon dean emeritus Katepalli Sreenivasan...
on September 24, 2018 at 4:00 am
(NYU Tandon School of Engineering) Katepalli R. Sreenivasan was named an external scientific member of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. Sreenivasan's appointment will strengthen its study of turbulent and dynamical processes in planets, the Sun, and Sun-like stars. Sreenivasan holds New York University appointments in physics, mathematics, and mechanical and aerospace engineering. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of […]
SwRI's Alan Stern awarded 2018 Lowell Thomas...
on September 24, 2018 at 4:00 am
(Southwest Research Institute) The Explorers Club has selected Dr. Alan Stern to receive the 2018 Lowell Thomas Award in Engineering Exploration. Stern led NASA's New Horizons mission, which completed the first exploration of the Pluto system and set a record for one of the most distant worlds ever explored. The spacecraft is now set to break that record on Jan. 1, 2019, when it explores Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule. […]
Satellite sees short-lived Tropical Cyclone Kirk
on September 24, 2018 at 4:00 am
(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Tropical Storm Kirk formed on Saturday, Sept. 22. By Monday, Sept. 24, Kirk lacked the closed circulation that is a prerequisite for tropical cyclone status. The NOAA-20 satellite provided a visible image of the storm at its peak. […]
Martian moon may have come from impact on home...
on September 24, 2018 at 4:00 am
(American Geophysical Union) Phobos, the larger of Mars' two tiny satellites, is the darkest moon in the solar system. This dark aspect inspired the hypothesis that the close-orbiting moon may be a captured asteroid, but its orbital dynamics seemed to disagree. A new study suggests Phobos' composition may be more like the volcanic crust of the Red Planet than it appears, consistent with an origin for the moon in an ancient, violent impact on Mars. […]

Astronomy News – Sky & Telescope The essential guide to astronomy / All Sky & Telescope (www.skyandtelescope.com) content is copyrighted. Please contact us for reuse permissions.

Touchdown: Hayabusa 2 Deploys Rovers to Explore...
by David Dickinson on September 24, 2018 at 1:52 pm
The Japanese Hayabusa 2 spacecraft dispatched the first of a set of smaller missions that will explore asteroid 162173 Ryugu. The post Touchdown: Hayabusa 2 Deploys Rovers to Explore Ryugu appeared first on Sky & Telescope. […]
The Magellanic Clouds Might Once Have Been a Trio
by Christopher Crockett on September 21, 2018 at 1:56 pm
The Milky Way's two largest companion galaxies may have once been a threesome — but new data from the Gaia satellite leaves the satellites' history an open question. The post The Magellanic Clouds Might Once Have Been a Trio appeared first on Sky & Telescope. […]
60-Second Astro News: TESS’s First Exoplanet,...
by Monica Young on September 21, 2018 at 1:00 pm
TESS finds its first exoplanet — a super-Earth around bright nearby star Pi Mensae — and astronomers watched an asteroid hide a galaxy to get the details on the asteroid's size, shape, and orbit. The post 60-Second Astro News: TESS’s First Exoplanet, Asteroid Hides a Galaxy appeared first on Sky & Telescope. […]
Pattern in Milky Way’s Stars Suggests Recent...
by John Bochanski on September 19, 2018 at 8:38 pm
An unexpected pattern in the Milky Way's disk of stars points to a recent whack from another galaxy. The post Pattern in Milky Way’s Stars Suggests Recent Galactic Whack appeared first on Sky & Telescope. […]
Sunspot Solar Observatory Reopens After...
by Christopher Crockett on September 18, 2018 at 1:36 pm
After a 10-day lockdown to cooperate with a criminal investigation, Sunspot Solar Observatory is back to looking at the Sun. The post Sunspot Solar Observatory Reopens After Mysterious Shutdown appeared first on Sky & Telescope. […]

Space.com Something amazing every day.

Astronaut Trump? Ivanka Says She Wanted to Go to...
on September 24, 2018 at 4:38 pm
While Ivanka Trump has a high-profile job advising her father, the president of the United States, she told the International Space Station Expedition 56 crew Thursday (Sept. 20) that she had different childhood ambitions. […]
'Personal Space': Museum Exhibits Astronauts'...
on September 24, 2018 at 2:43 pm
A comic strip beagle shares space with a romantic novel and an iconic starship in a new exhibit that asks the public to consider: What would you pack if you were leaving Earth? […]
Space Calendar 2018: Launches, Sky Events &...
on September 24, 2018 at 2:00 pm
Here's a guide to the major astronomical events of the next year, as well as space launches and milestones for spacecrafts already in travel. […]
How Do Flat-Earthers Explain the Equinox? We...
on September 24, 2018 at 1:48 pm
Flat-Earthers try to explain the equinox, and the results are as odd as you'd expect. […]
Image of the Day
on September 24, 2018 at 1:45 pm
Green auroras shimmy over Earth in this nighttime view from a window of the International Space Station. […]

Space News - Space, Astronomy, Space Exploration Phys.org provides the latest news on astronomy and space exploration.

Astronomers use Earth's natural history as guide...
on September 24, 2018 at 10:51 pm
By looking at Earth's full natural history and evolution, astronomers may have found a template for vegetation fingerprints—borrowing from epochs of changing flora—to determine the age of habitable exoplanets. […]
Martian moon may have come from impact on home...
on September 24, 2018 at 5:04 pm
The weird shapes and colors of the tiny Martian moons Phobos and Deimos have inspired a long-standing debate about their origins. […]
Ancient Mars had right conditions for underground...
on September 24, 2018 at 2:32 pm
A new study shows evidence that ancient Mars probably had an ample supply of chemical energy for microbes to thrive underground. […]
Image: Hubble's galaxies with knots, bursts
on September 24, 2018 at 1:30 pm
In the northern constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) lies the impressive Coma Cluster— a structure of over a thousand galaxies bound together by gravity. Many of these galaxies are elliptical types, as is the brighter of the two galaxies dominating this image: NGC 4860 (center). However, the outskirts of the cluster also host younger spiral galaxies that proudly display their swirling arms. Again, this image shows a wonderful example of such a galaxy in the shape of […]
Image: Herschel's view of the galactic centre
on September 24, 2018 at 1:20 pm
An odd-shaped formation of gas and dust at the centre of the Milky Way, captured by the far-infrared cameras on board ESA's Herschel space observatory. The nearly continuous strip of dense and cold clumps of material forms an infinity symbol, or sideways 8, that is a few hundred light years across. In this image, the strip twists around an invisible axis running roughly from the top left to the bottom right. […]

Astronomy News -- ScienceDaily Astronomy news. New! Earth-like extrasolar planet found; double helix nebula; supermassive black holes, astronomy articles, astronomy pictures. Updated daily.

Astronomers use Earth's natural history as guide...
on September 24, 2018 at 9:44 pm
By looking at Earth's full natural history and evolution, astronomers may have found a template for vegetation fingerprints -- borrowing from epochs of changing flora -- to determine the age of habitable exoplanets. […]
Martian moon may have come from impact on home...
on September 24, 2018 at 6:40 pm
Phobos, the larger of Mars' two tiny satellites, is the darkest moon in the solar system. This dark aspect inspired the hypothesis that the close-orbiting moon may be a captured asteroid, but its orbital dynamics seemed to disagree. A new study suggests Phobos' composition may be more like the volcanic crust of the Red Planet than it appears, consistent with an origin for the moon in an ancient, violent impact on Mars. […]
Astrophysicists measure precise rotation pattern...
on September 20, 2018 at 8:09 pm
Scientists have measured the differential rotation on Sun-like stars for the first time, and their findings challenge current science on how stars rotate. […]
Matter falling into a black hole at 30 percent of...
on September 20, 2018 at 3:55 pm
Astronomers report the first detection of matter falling into a black hole at 30% of the speed of light, located in the center of the billion-light year distant galaxy PG211+143. The team used data from the European Space Agency's X-ray observatory XMM-Newton to observe the black hole. […]
Gaia hints at our Galaxy’s turbulent life
on September 19, 2018 at 5:30 pm
Our Milky Way galaxy is still enduring the effects of a near collision that set millions of stars moving like ripples on a pond, the Gaia star mapping mission has shown. […]

Universe News A RSS news feed containing the latest NASA press releases on exploration of the universe.

EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science The premier online source for science news since 1996. A service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Astronomy News – Sky & Telescope The essential guide to astronomy / All Sky & Telescope (www.skyandtelescope.com) content is copyrighted. Please contact us for reuse permissions.

Space.com Something amazing every day.

Space News - Space, Astronomy, Space Exploration Phys.org provides the latest news on astronomy and space exploration.

Astronomy News -- ScienceDaily Astronomy news. New! Earth-like extrasolar planet found; double helix nebula; supermassive black holes, astronomy articles, astronomy pictures. Updated daily.

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