Maths | The Schools' Observatory

Brightness

Light is the main signal we receive from space. Almost everything we know about space has been found by measuring light.

One of the main ways to measure light is to look at the brightness. Measuring the brightness of something in space isn't as easy as you'd think though.

A dense star cluster filled with thousands of bright stars, some shining with a blueish hue, while others emit a warmer orange glow, set against the blackness of space. — The star cluster NGC6496

Johannes Kepler

Occupation

Astronomer, Mathematician, Scientist, Teacher

Year born

1571

Research Areas

Planetary motion, Optics, Geometry

A painting of Johannes Kepler. He is stood with a hand on his hip. There is a table in front of him with parchment papers and a globe placed on it.

Hypatia

Occupation

Astronomer, Mathematician, Philosopher

Year born

Sometime between 350 – 370 AD

Research interests

Geometry, Algebra

Hunt the Asteroids

How do we find asteroids?

Read more about Hunt the Asteroids

Distances in Space

Distances to objects in space are very, very large. The nearest star (excluding the Sun), Alpha Centauri, is 41.23 trillion km, or 41,320,000,000,000 km!!

Read more about Distances in Space

Investigate the Size of a Galaxy

Have you ever wondered how big a galaxy is? They contain millions to billions of stars but what does that really mean for size?

Reading about sizes in a book is one thing, but what if you could make an observation of a galaxy and then measure its size?

Read more about Investigate the Size of a Galaxy

Investigate the Size of a Planet

Have you ever wondered how big each of the planets is? Bigger or smaller than the Earth?

Read more about Investigate the Size of a Planet

Measure a Day on Jupiter

You may know that the Earth takes 24 hours to rotate around its axis, but did you know other planets rotate as well? However, they do not all spin at the same rate.