Planet Families
Build your own solar system. But watch out: even the gravity between planets can pull them out of position. For more about how this computer model works, and some things to try, try this one page handout.
Want more? Starchitect is longer term game where you earn Feats while building planets and life in scaled real time (a million years a minute). Requires Flash.
Space Stage
Use this app with a green background to take photos or videos on the Moon or Mars. This app was originally designed for use in library programs. For ideas and tips, visit http://clearinghouse.starnetlibraries.org and search for Space Stage.
Solar Vision
Explore the Sun's features and see current solar images courtesy of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. You can also get a preview of what you'll see in a total solar eclipse.
Star Maze
Light can take tens of thousands of years to get from the fusion core of a star to its surface. Can you do better? Steer the photon through the maze, collect letters, and build a phrase to help you escape. The game includes twenty seven different mazes corresponding to stars ranging from red dwarfs to blue supergiants!
For teachers: Star Maze can be used as an educational game to supplement classroom discussions on the sun, stars, and astronomy. The hint phrases borrow from both the Benchmarks For Science Literacy and NASA SMD's Heliophysics Concept Map. Development was supported through grants by the National Science Foundation.
Rubble!
Asteroids can be single rocks, or clumps of smaller rocks held together by their mutual gravity. And a bunch of them are headed towards Earth! Your job: use bombs and impactors to deflect them away from Earth before time runs out. Humanity is depending on you! And remember: those movies where they just blow up the asteroid and the pieces don't matter? That doesn't actually work.
This is a simple, one level game built on the Box2D physics engine. Individual asteroids are attracted to each other by their mutual gravity in a physically consistent way.
For teachers: Rubble! can be used as an educational game to supplement classroom discussions on asteroids, comets, Earth impacts, and gravity as a universal force. Development was supported through grants by the National Science Foundation and NASA.
