HUMANITY HAS studied the stars since the beginning of time. Today, thanks to Astronomy On-Line (AOL), those study methods have taken off in cyberspace, and Irish students can participate.
AOL is an enormous event being sponsored by the European Commission as part of the European Week for Scientific and Technological Culture. It involves connecting students from all over Europe to the Internet in order to access the latest astronomy pages, co-ordinate astronomy projects and interact with various astronomy clubs across Europe.
The European Southern Observatory and the European Association for Astronomy Education are also involved in this programme, which aims to bring pupils of 12 years of age and older together with professional and amateur astronomers via the Internet.
There is lot happening in astronomy to stimulate the imagination. Whether it's evidence about fossilised life on Mars, ice flows on Europa (one of Jupiter's moons), comets colliding with Jupiter or the latest pictures from the Hubble space telescope detailing the furthest reaches of the universe, astronomy is rarely out of the news.
Once students get hooked up to the Internet, their principal activities will be retrieving text and pictures. They will also get the opportunity to prepare and execute actual observation programmes on real telescopes with students from other countries.
Apart from learning all about astronomy, students will gain an appreciation of the usefulness and limitations of today's communications technologies. Other benefits include co-operating with students in different countries and foreign-language practice.
The first phase of the Astronomy On-Line project, which began on October 1st and lasts around six weeks, is devoted to familiarising students with their computers, Internet access and the subject of astronomy.
From November 19th to November 22nd, the event will reach its climax. According to Gerry Moloney, co-chairman of the national AOL steering committee, "students from all over Europe will be going on-line to swap information about the findings of their various projects.
"During the preparation stage, students will retrieve astronomy information from thousands of sites on the Internet. Groups like NASA and the European Space Agency have fabulously interesting Internet sites where students can access any information they require for their projects. One school, for example, is making a collection of deep-space photographs."
