The Space Lab

Let’s DO space science together! 

This class is designed for the space enthusiast who wants to learn and practice space science related skills. 

Types of activities include: reading current astronomy peer reviewed papers, calculating gravitational attraction between celestial objects, stellar parallax, reading star charts, plotting HR diagrams, and discussing space videos.  

Students may join at any time and will not need to leave the Outschool website or use any outside resources. 

Learners are encouraged to keep a “lab binder” in which they store their notes from each activity. The instructor will demonstrate how to organize and record their data. 

This is a highly interactive class, designed to follow learners’ curiosity, develop skills, and explore space science topics through discussion and hands-on activity.  There is no prerequisite but it is suggested that the learner have some familiarity with prealgebra or higher math. 

Topics for each week are decided by the learners based on their unique interests and what material they would like to spend more time on.

Example classes:

Gravity - We will use Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation to calculate the gravitation attraction between various celestial objects. 

Exoplanets - We we use real TESS data to help detect exoplanets around distant stars with the transit photometry method. 

Scientific Paper - We will read and critically evaluate new research published in “The Planetary Science Journal.”

Star Charts - We will learn to and practice using star charts.  

Materials: 
- Notebook or binder (optional)
- Paper
- Pencil
- Calculator
- A curious mind