Looking for good astronomy resources

debirlfan · Oct 9, 2013

Can anyone point me towards any? I'm trying to find a website/websites that would tell me things like the length of day on various planets in our solar system, number of moons each planet has, what stars might support earth-like planets - that sort of stuff, preferably written in a way that's not too technical to understand. Sadly, my knowledge of astronomy dates back to well before Pluto got kicked out of the big boy's club, which makes it rather hard to write convincing sci-fi.
Thanks!

blacbird · Oct 9, 2013

Have you actually tried to search for such elemental information? Gooooogle can be your friend.

"planets rotation period" produces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotation_period

"planets moons" produces:

http://www.go-astronomy.com/planets/planet-moons.htm

A thousand or more relatively nearby stars are now known to have planetary systems, and it's likely that most do. Earth-like planets? Harder to detect than really big gas giants, but extremely likely everywhere.

Now, write yer story.

You're welcome.

caw

Michael Davis · Oct 10, 2013

In my SF releases I like to use actual stars, nebula, etc and accurately portray where they are. Here's a few websites I use that spatially provide locations of celestial objects relative to earth, and other stuff:

The Universe within 5000 Light Years - The Orion Arm

Stars within 50 light years

M stars within 100 light-years

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/milkyway.html

debirlfan · Oct 10, 2013

Thanks, all. I was sort of hoping to find a site that was the online equivalent of an astronomy textbook, as much of my knowledge is woefully out of date. These days it seems like in even six months, we learn so much more....

Looking for good astronomy resources

debirlfan

blacbird

Michael Davis

debirlfan