How to get more informed?

hello all, im 15 and am really really really interested in space and all it has to offer, i dont really get much from my sceince class at school so i was wondering if you have any sites that cover bsics to more advanced space terminology and how things work. One of the reasons i ask i becouse alot of what it said in here i dont understand, man i love science but the grade 10 crap sucks so much!

The Particle Adventure is a nice introduction into particle physics with lots of pictures and no math.

Try Nasa.gov
www.nasa.gov...

They have different sections for kids, students, and teachers to learn about whats going on, including understanding the basics.

dont forget space.com

Another nice site:
www.solarviews.com...

Jet Propulsion Laboratory's site is also good.
www.jpl.nasa.gov...

Also I recommend you read some science fiction books. Those are fiction but theres a lot of facts in them. Just hang out on ATS and you'll pick up a lot of cool info.

here's a few more good links...
www.kidscosmos.org...
www.pbs.org...
www.lpl.arizona.edu...

as for science fiction, i'd recommend larry niven. he's pretty good on keeping a lot of the science in his novels to fact... that is unless you get your hands on a first edition of his novel "ringworld;" the earth rotates the wrong direction.

plus, as people said, just hang out around here on ATS and you'll pick up a lot.

Keep watching the discovery channel. Plus if you have satellite or digital cabal theres the science channel. Have a look at threads on black projects such ones involving particle beams and you'll get plenty of physics. Of course theres plenty of good non-fiction books out there. BTW with science fiction stay away from believing most movies. Some are good but most make up or exagerate science.

Another very good resource is Cornell Uni's Curious About Astronomy? Ask an Astronomer! page. It's a smorgasboard of wide-ranging space related questions and answers. Kinda like a space FAQ

Best way to start is just by browsing the Question and Answer Archive on the left of the page. Check out anything that takes your fancy.

Oh how on Earth could I forget Celestia!. That is an excellent toy

And I thought starry night was good!!! Can't wait to go home and download celestia!!

Originally posted by TheBandit795
And I thought starry night was good!!! Can't wait to go home and download celestia!!

yeah, starry night and celestia are awesome hand in hand... i use starry night for the extrasolar stuff, and celestia for the solar system. celestia DOES allow you to have stuff from Star Wars in it though!

the programs i use to run my scopes are MegaStar Sky Atlas (for deep sky CCD images) and the Meade program that came with one of my scopes.


here's a couple other links that may be of use (if not just plain ol' fun!):
www.astronomyforum.net...
www.badastronomy.com...
www.heavens-above.com...
www.spacesounds.com...

Talking about programs, if you want "enough" stars download Sky Chart and then that US Naval Obsevatory's catalog with half billion stars (and size of 6 GB)

Well, actually "original" catalog is 80 GBs and contains over billion objects.
ftp.nofs.navy.mil...

Space Science (any branch of physical and even psycho and medical sciences) is the highest of the fields, it is in a sense the true "unifying field". That is, all sciences are necessary to have manned space flight, rudamentary medicine does not need theoretical physics for instance. Basic physics doesn't need an understanding of quantum mechanics or even theoretical math.

But as you progress in those sciences, the fields tend to become more unified, theoretical physics and chemistry are not too different in some respects. Biology uses both, Geology is all those combined into understanding the earth. Theoretical Maths is just about the only field I can think of that exists in of itself with little need for practical application.

So since space sciences for manned space flight requires all of this, there is no "website" that can clue you in to anything. On my computer at home (obviously I'm not home) I have a bookmarked webpage that comprises the entire photo-journal of Apollo. It also has the entire data series collected, and full scientific journals of the data from the Apollo missions.

It is mind-blowingly large and complicated, and that is the Space Program. If you want to get informed I suggest you continue in a path of a physical science or math or both since they are so related and from there Ph.D in a field or two that are more useful to NASA (Physics, Planetary Geology, Astro-physics...so on) and then you'll really be able to get informed on all this stuff.

If you just check out sites that say "this or that" it's just really basic information.

Everyone here I guess posted some good site for using terminology, but I doubt many here, or anyone here can truly do the work to come to the conclusions that you could find on fore-mentioned Apollo journals. When I get home and find time I'll post that site here, and you can thumb through that for a while untilt he categorization of the pictures alone makes your brain numb. Then you can go to Apollo 17 and look up the data sets because Apollo 17 was the most comprehensive of the geological efforts on the Moon and it's extremely extensive.

They did more than walk around up there, oh that's sure as hell.

Anyway, I just don't believe you can become more informed from websites, you're just going to have to go through 11 more years of education to begin to be informed on this stuff.