Laboratory astrophysics and astrochemistry are emerging fields highlighting the importance of laboratory simulations and experiments to benefit remote observations. In particular, ice mixtures found in the outer solar system may offer insight into the early evolution of organic molecules. H[subscript 2]O-ice mixtures containing other species such…

Fully online courses and degree programs are popular with students. These courses should provide the rigor and value of traditional learning in a face-to-face classroom to ensure mastery of concepts and learning objectives. This research expands previous work to investigate the effectiveness of online laboratory exercises in enhancing student…

In this paper, we describe a study of cosmic ray muon rates and energies at various elevations on Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii. The study was originally conceived as an extension to the upper-division modern physics laboratory at the University of Hawaii at Hilo and used the TeachSpin Muon Physics apparatus (abbreviated TSMP below) from that…

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, two black holes, one of mass 36 solar masses and the other of mass 29 solar masses, were dancing their death waltz, leading to their coalescence and the emission of gravitational waves carrying away with them three solar masses of energy. More precisely, it happened 1.3 billion years ago at a distance of…

Providing exposure to the process and methods of science is a fundamental goal of any general education college science course. This is largely because most students taking such courses are generally "not" science majors, so they are likely to take few, if any, other science courses. Meeting this goal can be a challenge in courses such…

What follows is a description of the procedure for and results of a simple experiment on the formation of impact craters designed for the laboratory portions of lower mathematical-level general education science courses such as conceptual physics or descriptive astronomy. The experiment provides necessary experience with data collection and…

Astronomy and astrophysics are very popular with pupils, but the experimental work they can do tends to be rather limited. The search for life elsewhere in the Universe ("exobiology") has received an enormous boost since the detection of a rapidly increasing number of planets ("exoplanets") orbiting other stars in our galaxy. Recently (March…

The field of extrasolar planets is still, in comparison with other astrophysical topics, in its infancy. There have been about 300 or so extrasolar planets detected and their detection has been accomplished by various different techniques. Here we present a simple laboratory experiment to show how planets are detected using the transit technique.…

Scientists and teachers have worked together to produce teaching materials for the Very Small Radio Telescope (VSRT), an easy-to-use, low-cost apparatus that can be used in multiple laboratory experiments in high school and university physics and astronomy classes. In this article, we describe the motivation for the VSRT and several of the…

Activity-based collisional analysis is developed for introductory physics and astronomy laboratory experiments. Crushable floral foam is used to investigate the physics of projectiles undergoing completely inelastic collisions with a low-density solid forming impact craters. Simple drop experiments enable determination of the average acceleration,…

Although mostly not perceived consciously, mirages are very familiar phenomena of everyday life. They can generally occur if light is incident on media with a gradient of refractive index. This article starts with the easiest mirage effect, known as astronomical refraction, then presents examples for inferior and superior multiple image mirages,…

Developments in the laboratory-based teaching of physics and astronomy are resulting from the collaboration between conventional and distance teaching universities. The collaboration, piCETL, is one of the Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning established as a result of a broad initiative by the Higher Education Funding Council for…

Provides a reading list for A- and S-level biology. Contains several experiments and demonstrations with topics on: the intestine, bullock corneal cells, valences, the science of tea, automated hydrolysis, electronics characteristics, bromine diffusion, enthalpy of vaporization determination, thermometers, pendulums, hovercraft, Bernoulli fluid…

Describes a device which employs two diffraction gratings and three or four simple lenses to produce arbitrary absorption or emission spectra that may be doppler shifted and spectroscopically examined by students some distance away. It may be regarded as a sort of artificial star whose spectrum may be analyzed as an undergraduate laboratory…

Atmospheric optical effects can teach much about physics and especially optics. Coronae--coloured rings around the sun or moon--are large-scale consequences of diffraction, which is often thought of as only a small effect confined to the laboratory. We describe coronae, how they are formed and experiments that can be conducted on ones in the sky.…