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The Earth is the only planet of the Solar System which hosta life.  What does it make such a special planet? There are several features which make our planet suitable to life, but there are two main ones. First of all, it lies in the so-called habitable zone, the region around a star (indicated in green in the imagine aside) where it is theoretically possible for a planet to maintain clear water on its surface. The planets beyond the habitable zone have too low a temperature, therefore water – it present – isLEGGI TUTTO

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Mars is the fourth planet of the Solar System in order of distance from the Sun, and the last of the earthly planets, after Mercury, Venus and the Earth. It was also called the red Planet because of its characteristic colour, caused by the huge quantity of  oiron oxide which covers it. Upon its surface, we can see mountains, valleys, canyons, deserts and volcanoes. Its atmosphere is rarefied, its pressure is very low (1/10 of the terrestrial one). The temperature goes from -140 °C to 20 °C: it is not so bad! On the poles,LEGGI TUTTO

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Exploring the Solar System has never been so easy and amusing. With this activity, you will realize an interactive panel  in which you will introduce the planets of the Solar System, the Sun, the Moon and the main belt of asteroids, which is placed between Mars and Jupiter. In order to realize this activity, you need: 1 cardboard panel, A1 format 1 black cardboard A1 format 2  Makey Makey kits 1 microphone (even the one of earphones is ok) Scratch   Makey Makey is a kit which can make common-useLEGGI TUTTO

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Blu is a small, very curious … Extraterrestrial creature, you will call him. Indeed, he comes from a very distant planet, a very small planet, lost in our Galaxy, which you won’t find in any map. Blu gets bored in his bleak little planet, so he decides to leave to explore space, to try and understand the surronding world. So start the adventures of Blu, the guide-character created in 2018 for INAF Astronomical Observatory of Cagliari by the researcher Silvia Casu and the instructional designer Alessia Luca, experienced in new educational technologies, and designed by the skillful pencilLEGGI TUTTO

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In 1995 two astronomers, Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz, detected around the star 51 Pegasi the first extrasolar planet, 51 Pegasi b. This is a giant gaseous planet, with dimensions similar to Jupiter, orbiting around a Sun-like star. Sofar, almost 4000 extrasolar planet have been discovered, and their number is costantly increasing. The refinement of observational methods and the development of space missions make the search for exoplanets – in particular of those which might have suitable conditions for hosting forms of life – one of the most exciting topics of astronomy. Most extrasolar planest weLEGGI TUTTO

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High-mass starts end their life with catastrophic explosions known as Supernovae (SN). What is left of these dramatic space explosions are called Supernova Remnants (SNR), composed of dust and gas. Cassiopeia A  is one of the most known and studied Supernovae of our Galaxy. Cassiopeia originated from an explosion occurred about 11.000 years ago. Only recently did its ligh reach the Earth. Indeed, nowadays we observe the Supernova Remnant as it appeared about 350 years after the explosion of the Supernova. Supernovae explosions are very important for the evolution ofLEGGI TUTTO

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Through this activity, you will be able to realize and light up your favourite constellation with Arduino. In order to reach this goal, we will use Arduino UNO, an hardware platform used to build up projects of robotics, electronic and automation, on which a software (in C language)  is installed, so as to allow us to check a series of sensors connected to the card itself, and interact with them. Over and beyond the Arduino card, we will need a series of leds of different colour – which will represent the stars ofLEGGI TUTTO

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Through this activity, you will be able to discover how the variation of a magnetic field may produce an electric current, just as in the dynamo of a bycicle. To this aim, we shall use Arduino UNO, an hardware platform used in order to build projects of robotics, electronics and automation, on which we can upload a software (in C language), which will enable us to check a series of sensors connected to the card itself, and interact with them. In this project, Arduino will exclusively act as voltmeter o, allowing us to measureLEGGI TUTTO

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In order to go looking for intelligent life forms in the Universe, astronomers have developped a scientific programme called SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). According to the prerequisites of the programme, if there was such an evolved civilization capable of communicating, probably it would send radio signals, just like we do on the Earth with our mobile phones. Starting from this concept, SETI researchers use radiotelescopes in order to look for artificial extra-terrestrial (ET) signals. A radiotelescope is a telescope which, unlike the classical ones, which observes the invisible, is specializedLEGGI TUTTO

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In order to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations capable of communicating within our Galaxy –  the Milky Way – the astronomers use a mathematical formula called Drake equation e. The name comes from Frank Drake, the US astronomer and astrophysicist who first issued it. In the game we are proposing – realized with Scratch – you can estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our Galaxy by using a simplified version of this formula. The original formula contains seven terms, whereas here we only have three terms: A: number ofLEGGI TUTTO

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We can realize activities with Ozobot by creating a code from scratch with OzoBlockly – an online interface based on Blockly (a library developed by Google in order to bring young people closer to programming, akin to Scratch) – for either computer or tablet. Always select the Evo setting of OzoBlockly in the upper left corner – if you have Ozobot bit, select the setting bit; the codes will work in a different way –  and select your programming level from 1 to 5. The higher the level, the moreLEGGI TUTTO

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In the occasion of events, at school or during summer camps, we introduce some concepts of educational robotics by using a small educational robot, which can be found in shops  – mBot – and can be programmed by using mBlock (based upon Scratch, plus a library which allows us to act upon the robot). An assembly kit is provided, and it takes about half an hour to put it together. As a general rule, junior secondary school pupils manage to assemble it on their own, from the mechanical components to the elettronic boardLEGGI TUTTO