Interesting Links and Material to Help You Out

• Computer Programs for use in ASTR330. Practice scientific notation and working with equations. Learn about astronomical distances and giant impacts!
• More Computer Programs for use in ASTR330. Watch the planets move around the Sun on their actual orbits! Follow this link to the Inner Solar System and Outer Solar System animations.
• Even More Computer Programs for use in ASTR330. Check out the orbits of all the known moons of the planets in our Solar System!
• Astronomy Picture of the Day This site is updated daily and has a nice archive of pretty astronomy images.
• Interactive Sky Chart at Sky and Telescope's website. You can use my email and password (apeel@umd.edu, astro330) to launch it.

• Welcome to the Planets Information about planets and spaceprobes from JPL.
• A Tour of the Solar System This page contains information about the planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, and Solar System related topics.
• Spacewatch This page contains information about this program which searches for near Earth objects.
• The Kuiper Belt In 1993, the first small asteroid-like body was discovered beyond the orbit of Pluto. Now there are hundreds thousands of known Kuiper Belt Objects, some larger than Pluto itself!
• Mars! NASA has a very strong dedicated Mars program. Read about the latest results from multiple missions. The surface rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still going strong.
• The Galileo Spacecraft Galileo completed its historic mission to Jupiter and crashed into the giant planet in September 2003 - find out more about the mission and its discoveries!
• The Cassini Spacecraft Cassini is currently orbiting Saturn and is making exciting discoveries about the planet, its rings, and its satellites.
• Dawn spacecraft site Dawn entered orbit around 4 Vesta in July 2011! First visit to a major (fourth discovered, hence "4" Vesta; 2nd most massive after Ceres) asteroid - headed to Ceres later on.
• New Horizons site New Horizons is half way to Pluto (a dwarf planet now). Should get there around 2015 (launched in 2006, gravity assist from Jupiter in 2007). After visiting the binary dwarf planet Pluto/Charon, it will head out into the Kuiper belt! Discoveries await.
• COOL NEWS ABOUT HOW STARS "SEED" METALS FOR NEW STARS!!! See article on how Mira seems to shmear out useful material for the next generation of solar systems!