Potential Astronomy Science Fair projects.
Measuring the diameter of the sun: Students will use a variety of common products to craft a device they can use to calculate the diameter of the Sun. This can also be done for the moon.
Calculating the rotational speed of the sun using sunspots: Using maps of the sun from NASA’s website students will calculate the speed that the sun rotates on its axis by the displacement of its sunspots over time.
Using strong magnets to find meteorites in nature: This involves students using a strong magnet to find iron-bearing particulates in nature and looking at them under the microscope to identify if they originate from space or are manmade.
What direction should solar panels face: Students will experimentally determine the optimal direction for solar panels to face if they were to be installed at RMS using a compass, camera, outdoor thermometers and a tissue box.
Modeling the appearance of past and present solar eclipses, and predicting the appearance of future ones (original): Students will use information from NASA’s lunar mirrors on the current distance of the moon from earth and the rate that it is moving away from earth to create diagrams of how solar eclipses would have looked in the deep past, the present, and deep future.
Modeling the seasonal patterns of hypothetical Earths that have different tilts than our Earth does. (original): Students will use a heat lamp and a globe with thermometers attached to different parts of it to demonstrate proportional differences in temperature by latitude based on the axial tilt of the planet.
Demonstrating asteroid hunting. (original): Using an amateur telescope, digital camera, and photo-editing software students will take photographs of the night sky from the same location and superimpose them to identify and track moving objects. It is very possible the students will discover previously unknown asteroids, as apparently, amateur astronomers discover them frequently and report them to NASA.
Creating a scale model of a constellation that shows how perspective makes unrelated stars seem related. (original): Students will choose a constellation then research it to identify the names of the stars that make it up and how far away each of them actually are from Earth. After scaling down the distances, students will create a 3D model of the constellation. This project could also be done in conjunction with the art and/or technology teachers.
Modeling the size of impact craters created by different sized or shaped "meteorites": Students will use various materials (sand, clay, etc.) as a substrate and various projectiles as meteorites to demonstrate the relationship between impact crater size and the size or shape of the colliding body.
Modeling the size of waves created by different sized or shaped “meteorites. (modification of previous): Students will modify the previous experiment with an aquarium tank (marked with lines for measuring), water, and a camera to demonstrate the relationship between wave size and the shape or size of a colliding body.
Bending spacetime in the basement. Using household materials students will build a torsion balance that cancels out Earth’s gravity, allowing them to demonstrate the universal gravity (G) between any two objects.