Field notes from the universe

Let curiosity
take the lead.

Short explanations. A little math. An experiment to make it click.

Orbit simulator ↗

Take an orbit for a spin. Change the shape of an orbit and discover why planets move faster near their star.

The Moon changes. The reason doesn’t. Move through a lunar month and see how sunlight creates the Moon’s familiar phases.

Same you. Different gravity. Build a world and calculate its gravitational pull, your weight, and its escape speed.

Every look into space is a look back. Discover how long light takes to cross the solar system and the distances between stars.

Turn up the temperature. Explore how a star’s temperature and radius change its color, peak wavelength, and luminosity.

Find a better view. Match telescope and eyepiece to calculate magnification, exit pupil, and approximate field of view.

Find a planet in a missing glimmer. Watch a planet cross a star and reveal the dip in brightness astronomers look for.

Measure the stars with a tiny angle. Turn a star’s annual parallax into a distance in parsecs and light-years.

Where light loses its way out. Calculate the Schwarzschild radius for a black hole of a chosen mass.

A small number. A bright star. Compare the apparent brightness of two objects using the astronomical magnitude scale.