Astronomy Science Projects (Page 4)

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Sometimes a full moon can be so bright, you can walk around in the dark without a flashlight. How much brighter is a full moon than the other phases of the moon? How is the brightness of the moon measured? Read more

Where Did All the Stars Go?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

One of my favorite things to do when I was a kid was to go outside and look at the stars. As an adult, I moved to a major city and the stars seemed to vanish from the sky. Where did they go? Read more

Similar Triangles: Using Parallax to Measure Distance

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Want to stretch your imagination? One good way is to try to imagine how far it is to a distant star. How much farther away is it than the moon is from the earth? How much farther away than the earth is from the sun? How long would it take to get there? In this project, you'll learn one way of measuring the distance without leaving Earth. Read more

A Matter of Time

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Do you wake up at the crack of dawn, or do you need an alarm clock to wake you up each morning? It may surprise you that the two are not always in synch. Nowadays, we use Standard Time to set our watches instead of Solar Time. Which method of timekeeping is the most accurate? Get ready to synchronize your watches! Timekeeping is the science of how to keep time with precision and accuracy. People have been finding ways of measuring time for thousands of years, usually based on the movements… Read more

Detecting Exoplanets Using Transit Photometry—Advanced

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

In astronomy, a transit (or astronomical transit) is a phenomenon when a celestial body passes directly between a larger body and the observer. As viewed from a particular vantage point, the transiting body appears to move across the face of the larger body, covering a small portion of it. The word "transit" refers to cases where the nearer object appears smaller than the more distant object. Cases where the nearer object appears larger and completely hides the more distant object are known as… Read more

Build Your Own Dobsonian Telescope

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

For an advanced science fair project, you can build your own telescope and learn how to use it to make observations of the night sky. Can you make your own observations to determine the orbital period of Jupiter's major moons? The Dobsonian telescope, first built and popularized by astronomer John Dobson, is considered to be the best bang-for-your-buck if you want to build a good amateur telescope. The smaller the telescope's aperture the less expensive to build, but also the less… Read more

Sunspot Cycles

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Sunspot activity has been monitored continuously since about 1700. The historical data shows that sunspot activity rises and falls in a roughly 11-year cycle. This project shows you how you can use both graphical and statistical analysis to look for patterns in cyclical data. Read more

Why Does the Moon Appear Larger at Some Times?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Some claim the Moon appears larger when near the horizon. Make a series of observations of the Moon, measuring the Moon's angular diameter each time. You should also note the Moon's altitude above the horizon, and the Moon's phase. You should do background research on the lunar orbit to determine the necessary time period. Do you find predictable variations in the Moon's diameter? Can you relate this to the Moon's changing distance from Earth? From your data, try to determine when apogee and… Read more

Colorizing Images from the James Webb Space Telescope

Science Fair Project Idea

Engineering Design Process

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has shown us some amazing images of space, like its first "deep field" image (Figure 1). The JWST sees the universe in the infrared part of the electromagnet spectrum, which is not visible to the human eye. How, then, does it produce color images like the one in Figure 1? Scientists must colorize the images, or apply "false color." They map different bands of the infrared spectrum to colors of visible light, resulting in an image humans can view. Luckily,… Read more

How Far Away Is the Moon?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Let's suppose you can take advantage of the Internet and get a 'pen pal' located a 1000 miles away in another city. On the same night, and at EXACTLY the same time 'Universal Time', make a CAREFUL observation of where the Moon is located with respect to the background stars. You should be able to discern a slight (about 1/2 the Moon's diameter) shift in position due to parallax. Then, with a little geometry, you could estimate the distance of the Moon during the full lunar cycle (Odenwald,… Read more

Astronomy Science Projects (45 results)

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