Hi guys:
Seems its time to clarify this NASA project for everyone.
As suggested in the pdf document Chris has just posted above, NASA's goals for Celestia and this particular website are far more lofty than has been mentioned. First, while the site is currently accessible via another NASA project involving telescopes, that is only through a secondary link. In fact, the main website where Celestia will be featured is not yet officially up and running. Everything on it (and there is little there yet), is only in draft form ... essentially just to get a domain active so that the developers can access the site.
This site is being designed to be purely educational. It will be a dedicated site, with its own Activities (all involving the use of Celestia). The target audience will initially be 5th to 8th grade students in Middle School (10 - 13 years old) all over the world. However, there are plans to also include High School level activities on the site in the future. Naturally, anyone who visits can take the Celestia tours.
The site's initial activities will be educational documents which teach the visitor a topic of astronomical interest, then use Celestia to take them there or demonstrate the topic in an innovative and visually beautiful way. They will have the following themes:
1. Inner Solar System - a tour of the planets and moons from the Sun to Mars.
2. Outer Solar System - a tour of the outer planets, moons, asteroids and comets from the Asteroid Belt to the comet belt.
3. The Universe - in two parts - a Celestia journey from a hilltop in Wyoming to the outer galaxies, with stops at some planets, moons, main sequence stars, red giants, exploded stars, nebula and galaxies.
4. The Primitive Earth and Moon - a themed journey back in time billions of years to a time when the Earth was young and there was no moon. Than along comes Orpheus (the rogue planet) and BOOM! The resulting debris is thrown into space, coalesces into the Moon and we have a new system, with the moon very close to Earth. (Don't worry - we clearly state that this is just a theory and is not yet conclusively proven)
5. The Terraforming of Mars - a journey into the future, to a time when the terraforming of Mars may be attempted. Using a ring of giant mirrors in space riding the solar wind for positioning with some fine tuning by orbiting lasers, the polar caps of Mars are melted, and the planet is slowly transformed into a verdant world with plants, water and even oxygen atmosphere.
6. The Life and Death of Stars - a Celestia activity which will take the visitor through the complete life cycle of stars, to include nebula, protostar, main sequence, red giant, nova/supernova, neutron star, pulsar, black hole and black dwarf. We will visit examples of each in our Celestia spaceship.
Also in the planning stage are activities focusing on the human space program, another activity which shows off some of the fictional solar systems and spacecraft that Celestia forum users have developed, and others still in the concept stage.
Naturally, if you asked 40 members of this forum to devise a single activity covering the solar system, you would get 40 different approaches. Some would focus on basic science, others show off some of the more complex eclipses and planetary alignments, others taking a close tour of each planet at eyeball level, etc. There is also the key issue of timing. Each activity cannot take more than 60 - 90 minutes to read and complete (including worksheets) by pre-teen students. That limits what can be included.
The arguments and debates over what should be included would go on for ages. As such, the activities that will be included in the site are one version only, but hopefully, they will meet the expectations of the visitor, NASA and this forum community, bearing in mind that the target audience is only 10 years old.
NASA asked me to do this because I am a teacher who has used Celestia in the classroom, and I can write good elementary activities for 10 - 12 year olds. They are closely editing each activity as they get done for scientific accuracy. Textures and add-ons are all being done by our own forum folks. I am citing credit in each activity for all contributors who wish to be named.
The website will have written worksheets and tests, a glossary of terms, and lots of educational and astronomical links to other pages. For practical purposes, it will have its own downloadable add-on files, which will include only those required of the activities (to keep size reasonable).
It will be a great website when up and running (probably around mid-July) and will place Celestia into the worldwide limelight. However, I would discourage you from visiting it yet. It is simply not at all ready and your initial impressions should not be skewed by an incomplete work-in-progress. For your information, its official location is
http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/celestia/
I wish to thank all of the talented and dedicated forum folks who are helping me on this great project.
What is not yet said is what NASA hopes for this site and for Celestia in the future. There is serious discussion of creating a virtual universe within NASA which uses Celestia for more than just a website. NASA is very anxious to begin using 3D virtual reality wherever possible. They have dreams of visitors being taken by Celestia through a 3 dimensional universe via 3D glasses, while listening to stereo sound. There is also some possibility of Celestia being used in museums around the world and even in IMAX theatres. It is that good and they like it that much. Of course, the fact that it is open source and no NASA visitor has to pay for it, is a major factor in their interest.
'll keep you all posted as things progress.
Regards,
Frank
