Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work in the space sector? It goes way beyond astronauts...
Astronomers studying space have two big problems:
Astronomy is a fascinating, complex and deeply rewarding subject. Celestial objects have been studied by humankind for millennia and are...
Tātai arorangi, Māori astronomical knowledge, is fundamental to te ao Māori. It forms a significant pillar of whakapapa stretching back...
Although Aotearoa New Zealand is a relative newcomer to the international space industry, a deep knowledge of space enabled early...
This article explores light pollution and practical ways to minimise it. Readers are introduced to key science ideas including the Bortle scale (a way to measure...
When children draw pictures of the Sun, they often show rays radiating outwards – similar to the image below. These light rays travel in a straight...
An eclipse is an astronomical phenomenon that occurs when something obscures something else – it eclipses it! This may sound very simple, but there are various...
A significant part of our nightscape, the Moon has been the subject of myths, alternative conceptions and conspiracies for decades. Let’s take a look at some...
On 5 August 2017, 54.6 million kilometres from Earth, amongst the red dust and rocks, the familiar tune of Happy Birthday sang out on Mars as...
In 2018, NASA launched a thrilling mission unlike any other to date. From Cape Canaveral, the Parker Solar Probe was scheduled to launch within a small...
Using the Matariki star cluster as a context for learning can cover many different subjects. Matariki is also known as the Pleiades, and it is a...
Black holes are a scientific mystery – there is so much still to discover. The first image of a black hole was captured in April 2019....
Our Solar System, and all other star systems, form from a collapsing nebula. Often called stellar nurseries, nebulae are the birthplace of stars. They are made...
Māori ancestors possessed a wealth of astronomical knowledge that they referred to as tātai arorangi. The knowledge was important for many aspects of daily life, from...
Taking science and technology to new heights. Rocket science includes ideas of forces and motion, how rockets work and some of the challenges for those wanting...
In November 2014, the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta Mission landed a space probe called Philae onto the surface of Comet 67P, while Rosetta continued to...
The European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Rosetta spacecraft from Earth in March 2004. It then took Rosetta 10 years to catch Comet 67P. On 12...
Waka is the Māori word for canoe. Māori ancestors were great canoe builders, navigators and sailors. Thousands of years ago, Māori ancestors left South-East Asia, moving...
There has been renewed interest in the ancient art of wayfinding over the last 30–40 years. Wayfinding or navigating without instruments is about ocean voyaging using...
Wayfinding is about all of the ways in which people and animals orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place. Traditionally, wayfinding referred...
Wayfinder navigators always look for signs of weather at sunrise and sunset. This is when they try to predict the weather for the next 12 hours....
When clouds hide the celestial signs, navigators use ocean swells, as well as the wind and waves, to determine their direction. Mau Piailug – grandmaster navigator...
Knowledge about the apparent movement of the Sun, Moon and planets across the celestial sphere is important for wayfinding. You can estimate position and direction by...
To an observer on Earth, the stars appear to move together across the sky during the night, rising in the east and setting in the west....
Like the Sun, stars rise in the eastern horizon and set in the western horizon. Navigators who know the direction and position in which the stars...
The Waka Tapu journey from Aotearoa to Rapanui (Easter Island) and back, which closed the Polynesian triangle, was navigated without instruments. The three main techniques that...
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