This overview of the National Science Foundation's Research on astronomy and space is packed with big ideas about the cosmos. Readers may like to begin by exploring The Big Questions on the landing page, such as "Where did it all come from?" or "What is the universe made of, and how does it work?" From there, the Astronomy & Space News section updates readers on the latest in groundbreaking...

Developed at the University of California Berkeley, this Web site assists educators in integrating advanced space science research into their curriculum by allowing the Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer (CHIPS) mission to be available to the public. Users can learn about the topics such as the Interstellar Medium and the Local Bubble as well as concepts dealing with heat, light,...

The interactive and graphically stunning HubbleSite is produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach and covers all aspects of the Hubbel Telescope for the general public. The Striking Encounters multimedia activity shows how galaxies collide and how scientists study them using the telescope. Other features include a photo gallery, descriptions of discoveries that...

Growing plants on Earth can be hard enough, but what about growing plants in outer space? NASA takes on that very subject in this site designed to help educators address the rather intriguing subject of lunar plant growth. This particular resource is part of the NASA Engineering Design Challenge for students in grades K-12, and visitors can register to take part online at this site. Teachers can...

NASA's Deep Impact mission will attempt to impact a comet nucleus in order to answer basic questions about the nature of comets. Deep Impact's preliminary design phase was completed and approved last week. NASA will now begin building the mission's two spacecraft, a flyby spacecraft and a 350-kilogram (771-pound) impactor spacecraft, for a launch in January 2004. This news brief on Deep Impact...

The Guide to NASA Online Resources showcases NASA and NASA-related scientific, educational and government resources of interest to both general Internet users and the NASA science community: JPL Information Archive, Space Telescope Science Institute (home of the Hubble Space Telescope Data Archive), NASA Spacelink, the NASA/NREN K-12 gopher along with pointers to image databases and software...

Part of the Astrophysics Data Facility of the Space Science Data Operations Office at NASA, the Astronomical Data Center provides astronomical catalogs and journal tables to the scientific community. The site includes nine data categories: Astrometric and Positional, Photometric, Spectroscopic, Cross Identifications, Combined and Derived, Miscellaneous, Nonstellar and Extended Objects, Radio...

In April 2000, NASA released the first collection of images from Terra, "the first satellite to monitor daily -- and on a global scale -- how the Earth's atmosphere, lands, oceans, solar radiation and life influence each other" (discussed in the March 29, 2000 Scout Report for Science and Engineering). Launched in December, Terra has completed its on-orbit checkout and is now officially "open for...

In 1991, NASA launched the Earth Science Enterprise (ESE), a comprehensive program to study Earth System Science: how the Earth's systems of air, land, water, and life interact with each other. The ESE program uses a series of polar-orbiting and low inclination satellites to study long-term global observations of the Earth's land surface, oceans, biosphere, atmosphere, and solid earth. Launched...

[email protected], contains the latest information and news releases from NASA missions. Visitors can also find out information about NASA's four strategic enterprises: Aeronautics, Human Exploration and Development of Space, Mission to Planet Earth, and Space Science. NASA related sites describe current happenings at NASA and also provide homepages of NASA missions including the Cassini space probe,...