UM Astronomy Resources: Scale & Distance

What follows is a list of teaching resources for use in department classes. (They are not for sale!)

Topic Query
Title/Name Description Label ID Resource Type Location
meter sticks 17 metal and wooden meter sticks   Demonstrations CSS 0252
Styrofoam balls Assorted sizes, presumably for use in solar system scale demonstrations   Demonstrations CSS 0252
Star type scale comparisons Different sized balls to show sun, white dwarf, neutron star, etc   Demonstrations CSS 0252
Solar system scale comparisons Different sized balls to show relative planet sizes   Demonstrations CSS 0252
How Big is the Universe Introduces the concept of light year and looking into space as looking into the past. Various analogies are given for distances are given as well as rocket travel time to distance objects . A21 Videos CSS 0252
Cosmic Voyage National Air and Space Museum IMAX film based on the "Powers of
Ten". Computer-generated images accompany this tour across 42
orders of magnitude. Narrated by Morgan Freeman.
(See Gretchen Walker to borrow this tape).		 E03 Videos CSS 0252
Powers of Ten Original version of the famous film about scale E04 Videos CSS 0252
Powers of Ten Interactive This is a "spin off" of the Powers of Ten video. It includes the original movie and other ways to depict distances and scales such as time and patterns. E16 Software CSS 0252