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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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With this simple code realized with Scratch, you will be able to view (and hear) a message in binary code, as the one sent from Arecibo on 16 November 1974 and described in this activity. Let us see how to realize it, step by step. First of all, from the interface of Scratch, draw a new sprite (better square and small): this will be your bit. Give it the colour you prefer: the main thing is that it may be seen against the background that you will choose. In our project (which we invite you toLEGGI 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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We are in Siracusa around the IIIrd century before Christ. A man is immersed in a tub full of water and is taking a relaxing bath. At a certain point, he cries out “Eureka!”. That man was Archimede, a well-known scientist, who had just guessed that fundamental physical law  – later on named after him – which explains why bodies float. The principle of Archimedes states that “the upward buoyant force which is exerted upon a body immersed in a fluid, whether fully or partially, is equal to the weight of the fluidLEGGI 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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In ancient times it was already known that, unlike the Sun and the Moon, planets trace out complex motions in comparison with stars in the sky (not by chance, the word “pianet”, from the Greek, means “errant”). Even their direction of motion seems to be reversed, for a certain time, and then its direction is restored (apparent retrograde motion). That is why the  geocentric models, whose highest expression will be Ptolemy’s model, had to introduce various corrections to the originary idea, according to which planets simply orbit along circular trajectories whoseLEGGI 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