Featuring Maria Celeste: Galileo's Daughter The Galileo Project is a source of information on the life and work of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Our aim is to provide hypertextual information about Galileo and t  ... more

Featuring Maria Celeste: Galileo's Daughter The Galileo Project is a source of information on the life and work of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Our aim is to provide hypertextual information about Galileo and the science of his time to viewers of all ages and levels of expertise. What you read and see here is a beginning -- we will continue to add and update information as it becomes available. We solicit contributions from our colleagues in the history of science and comments on how we can improve the project from everyone, particularly suggestions on how to make this tool more useful in primary and secondary education.   less

"Amazing Space is a set of web-based activities primarily designed for classroom use, but made available for all to enjoy." Nice introductory lessons on subjects in astronomy. These lessons are: * Galaxies galore * Star light  ... more

"Amazing Space is a set of web-based activities primarily designed for classroom use, but made available for all to enjoy." Nice introductory lessons on subjects in astronomy. These lessons are: * Galaxies galore * Star light, star bright * Solar system trading cards * Hubble deep field academy * Astronaut challenge * Galileo to HST * The Truth about black holes * Comets   less

Animation is part of a PBS Series on Galileo titled: Galileo's Battle for the Heavens. "In Galileo's version, light entering the far end (1) passed through a convex lens (2), which bent the light rays until they came into focus  ... more

Animation is part of a PBS Series on Galileo titled: Galileo's Battle for the Heavens. "In Galileo's version, light entering the far end (1) passed through a convex lens (2), which bent the light rays until they came into focus at the focal point (f). The eyepiece (3) then spread out (magnified) the light so that it covered a large portion the viewer's retina and thus made the image appear larger."   less

Biography of Robert Hooke as part of Rice's Galileo Project.  ... more

Biography of Robert Hooke as part of Rice's Galileo Project.   less

"The Galileo mission to Jupiter explored an exciting new frontier, had a major impact on planetary science, and provided invaluable lessons for the design of spacecraft. This mission amassed so many scientific firsts and key disc  ... more

"The Galileo mission to Jupiter explored an exciting new frontier, had a major impact on planetary science, and provided invaluable lessons for the design of spacecraft. This mission amassed so many scientific firsts and key discoveries that it can truly be called one of the most impressive feats of exploration of the 20th century."   less

Part of the PBS series on the Medici and the Renaissance. "Galileo Galilei was just five-years-old when he witnessed the power of Florence's first family with the coronation of Cosimo I. Galileo would become the greatest sci  ... more

Part of the PBS series on the Medici and the Renaissance. "Galileo Galilei was just five-years-old when he witnessed the power of Florence's first family with the coronation of Cosimo I. Galileo would become the greatest scientist in history, and the father of modern astronomy, but would end his life betrayed by his Medici patrons. He was fascinated by the forces of nature; whether ice was heavier than water and why objects always fall to earth. By dropping balls of different weight from a height, Galileo proved that objects fall at the same rate of acceleration. The Royal Professor had prefigured Newton's theory of gravity by 500-years. Galileo's hunger to observe was fed by a magnificent new invention, the astronomical telescope. Contrary to all contemporary knowledge, Galileo realized the moon was not the pure, white, heavenly body of Church doctrine. Galileo was the first to discover the sun had spots; the first to notice the unusual shape of Saturn; and to identify the Milky Way. Politically astute, Galileo christened the previously unknown moons of Jupiter after the Medici, who in turn made Galileo the most famous scientist in the world. Galileo arrived in Rome in 1633. Interrogated for months and threatened with torture, he resisted all pressure to recant, until Ferdinando II stopped paying his expenses. The Grand Duke put the survival of his dynasty before his promise to one man. On June 21 1633, Galileo denied what he knew to be true: “I still hold, as most true and indisputable, the stability of the Earth, and the motion of the Sun. I am in your hands. Do with me what you please.” Galileo was sentenced to house-arrest and died a broken man in 1642. The remorseful Ferdinando planned a huge memorial, but the Church over-ruled him again. It took the Vatican until 1992 to declare they had made a mistake. Galileo had been right all along."   less

This lesson plan is part of the DiscoverySchool.com lesson plan library for grades 9-12. The objectives of the lesson plan are: Students will understand the following: 1. Galileo’s conclusions about the position of Earth in  ... more

This lesson plan is part of the DiscoverySchool.com lesson plan library for grades 9-12. The objectives of the lesson plan are: Students will understand the following: 1. Galileo’s conclusions about the position of Earth in the solar system raised objections from the Church. 2. Galileo lived at the beginning of a period in which scientific inquiry flourished. The lesson plan includes objectives, materials, procedures, discussion questions, evaluation ideas, performing extensions, suggested readings, and vocabulary. There are videos available to order (VHS format) as well as an audio-enhanced vocabulary list, and links to teaching tools for making custom quizzes, worksheets, puzzles and lesson plans.   less

Wired Magazine's article on Galileo's telescope. Excerpt: "The invention of the telescope dealt a deathblow to that Earth-centric cosmology. In antiquity, it was known to glassblowers that, while making stained glass, spherical  ... more

Wired Magazine's article on Galileo's telescope. Excerpt: "The invention of the telescope dealt a deathblow to that Earth-centric cosmology. In antiquity, it was known to glassblowers that, while making stained glass, spherical blobs of glass could magnify images. But it took centuries for anyone to make the inventive leap of assembling two lenses into a telescope. Most reliable accounts place the invention of the telescope in 1608 in the Netherlands, by Hans Lippershey, Zacharias Janssen and Jacob Metius. But it was the refinement of the telescope the following year by Galileo that triggered one of the greatest scientific revolutions of all time. Before Galileo, debates were won not by making careful observations, but by arguing from the Bible and religious texts. According to church dogma, Earth was full of sin because of our expulsion from the Garden of Eden, but the celestial heavens were pure, perfect and divine. Galileo was a shrewd man. He did not become a shrill propagandist angrily haranguing the masses about their naïve beliefs. Instead, he gained notoriety among the rich and powerful, such as the Medici family, by hosting the world's first star-gazing parties, in Piazza San Marco in Venice and elsewhere. Seeing is believing. For the first time, people were witnessing the true splendor of the universe as never before, with their own eyes. Instead of seeing the perfect disks of celestial objects, they saw that the moon was pockmarked with horrible craters, that Saturn had strange "ears," that Jupiter had moons of its own, and that even the sun, the centerpiece in anyone's cosmology, had ugly spots. But Galileo went too far, perhaps unnecessarily tweaking the noses of powerful prelates in his books, and had to pay dearly for his sins, ultimately dying in disgrace under house arrest, a lonely, broken man. But in one letter, Galileo took solace in the expression, "the purpose of the church is not to determine how the heavens go, but to determine how to go to heaven."   less

Comprehensive British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) site on space science. There are free RealPlayer broadcasts of related BBC reports. The site also contains the latest news about space findings with galleries showing images of  ... more

Comprehensive British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) site on space science. There are free RealPlayer broadcasts of related BBC reports. The site also contains the latest news about space findings with galleries showing images of the planets, Sunspots, eclipses, auroras, the night sky section with observation notes, constellation guide for learning more about the star patterns, deep space, black holes, wormholes, and dark matter. Engaging section on the idea that life exists on planets outside of our Solar System, and astrobiology. Origins explores the Big Bang, from the first few seconds to the future. Cosmology covers theories of the creation of the Earth and Universe and how they continue to expand. The stars section illustrates different star types, and the life of stars from birth to death. There are biographies on all astronomers who have contributed to our current knowledge of space, such as Galileo, Copernicus, Ptolemy, Hubble, and many more. There are student and teacher resources, as well as space games to play.   less

PBS program, Broadcast Date: October 29, 2002. This accompanying website has a rich array of multimedia resources associated with Galileo, including history, technology, video clips, interactives and animations. "In this two-hour  ... more

PBS program, Broadcast Date: October 29, 2002. This accompanying website has a rich array of multimedia resources associated with Galileo, including history, technology, video clips, interactives and animations. "In this two-hour special, NOVA celebrates the story of the father of modern science and his struggle to get Church authorities to accept the truth of his astonishing discoveries. The program is based on Dava Sobel's bestselling book, Galileo's Daughter, which reveals a new side to the famously stubborn scientist—that his closest confidante was his illegitimate daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, a cloistered nun. The actor Simon Callow plays Galileo in dramatic reenactments of key moments from his life: his pioneering telescopic observations of the Moon and planets, his revolutionary experiments with falling objects, and his fateful trial before the Inquisition for heresy. Born in 1564, Galileo lived a generation after Nicolas Copernicus published his controversial theory that the Earth was not the center of the universe around which the heavens revolved. Galileo supported the idea that the Earth turned on its axis and that it, along with the planets, revolved around the sun. The view was considered absurd by most scholars since it contradicted certain passages in the Bible and challenged the commonsense experience of the Earth as a solid, unmoving object. But Galileo found merit in the idea, especially after he aimed a newly invented instrument called the telescope at the night sky and saw that the Moon and planets were far from the perfect realms accepted by the Catholic Church. His discovery of moons orbiting Jupiter and phases in the appearance of Venus, analogous to the phases of the Moon, supported the Copernican view. The Church insisted that Galileo couch his speculations in hypothetical terms only. But he stepped over the line in 1632 when he published his Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, in which a simpleton mouths the views of the then-reigning pope, Urban VIII. This was too much for the Pope, and Galileo was hauled before the Inquisition, which had tortured and burned to death malefactors for far less."   less