PENCIL & PAPER ACTIVITIES

Recoloring the Universe
Level 1 // De-Coding Starlight

The Scenario
You have just discovered a brilliant new supernova remnant using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The Director of NASA Deep Space Research has requested a report of your results in her office in 45 minutes. Unfortunately, your computer crashed fatally while you were creating an image of the supernova remnant from the numerical data and you also lost a small amount of back up data. To fix the situation you will create, by hand, an image of the supernova remnant.

Grade: 4-8 /Topics: coding, color, astronomy

Recoloring the Universe
Level 2 // De-Coding Starlight

The Scenario
You have discovered a new supernova remnant using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The Director of NASA Deep Space Research has requested a report of your results. Unfortunately, your computer crashed fatally while you were creating an image of the supernova remnant from the numerical data. To fix this, you will create, by hand, an image of the supernova remnant.

Grade: 8-12 /Topics: coding, color, astronomy

Learn more about the Recoloring the Universe program.

How does binary code from a spacecraft get to where it needs to go? Travel the roughly 40,000-mile path Chandra observations take to reach theIr destination and find out how binary code works along the way.
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A zine (think of it as shortened from "magazine") is a small, free, self-published folded print that is usually photocopied and handed out in small batches. Zines can be about any topic and are creative ways to dive into something that interests you, from art to science fiction to social justice to poetry. They are meant to be do-it-yourself, hand-made, and shared with others, great for those who like to cut, fold, paste, decorate, stamp, and more.

A flip book is a small book with a series of pictures that changes gradually from one page to the next. When you flip all the pages of a flip book, the images look like they're moving or being animated. How does a flip book relate to the Universe? It can be a fun do-it-yourself technique to show objects in our Universe changing over time.

A 16-page science activity book for kids includes binary code, paper airplanes, word puzzles, simple origami, coloring pages and more. Created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Chandra and the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings, this black and white PDF offers activities across elementary and middle school age ranges.

This 22-page activity book for kids includes general information on light, X-ray astronomy, and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. It also looks at our solar system and Milky Way Galaxy, black holes, supernovas, galaxy clusters and more. Each image is accompanied by a summary of information. Activities include mazes, word searches, connect-the-dots, and coloring. Color the Universe

Understanding cosmic distance to a supernova remnant
Students work with a photograph to determine its scale and the time taken by light and matter to reach a specified distance. 

Grade: 6-8 /Topics: Scale drawings; unit conversion; distance = speed x time

Rate of change of expanding debris for a supernova remnant
Using a millimeter ruler and a sequence of images of a gaseous shell between 2000 and 2005, students calculate the speed of the material ejected by Supernova 1987A.

Grade: 6-9 | Topics: Measuring; Metric Units; speed=distance/time

Chemical makeup of part of Cassiopeia A's atmosphere:
Students determine the mass of the carbon atmosphere of the neutron star Cas-A.

Grade: 8-10 | Topics: Volume of spherical shell; mass = density x volume

Other activities include:

A Pulsar Shot Out from a Supernova Explosion! Exploring the Evaporating Exoplanet Giant Gas Cloud in System NGC 6240 Chandra Sees a Distant Planet Evaporating Estimating the Size and Mass of a Black Hole The Crab Nebula: Exploring a pulsar up close!
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Galaxy Clusters Optical/X-ray Comparison

What is the X-ray Universe? Why observe the Universe with different types of telescopes? These questions and others are answered. Special feature: an activity in which you make an X-ray image of a galaxy cluster.
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Most of the Universe is dark. The protons, neutrons and electrons that make up the stars, planets and us represent only a small fraction of the mass and energy of the Universe. The rest is dark and mysterious. How can X-rays help reveal the secrets of this darkness?
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