Museum & Informal Education Alliance

Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801. And when Dawn arrived in 2015, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to receive a visit from a spacecraft. Called an asteroid for many years, Ceres is so much bigger and so different from its rocky neighbors that scientists classified it as a dwarf planet in 2006. Learn more about Ceres here and more about the discovery here.

Get your monthly overview of the night sky.

How do we decide it's the start of a new year? More about calendars here.

Do you love making art and using your imagination? So do we! Every NASA mission starts with a creative idea about how to explore something in a new way. Get creative and submit your art before the deadline at the end of the month!

Check out the NASA Kahoot! channel for some fun ways to test your knowledge!

After the United States achieved President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth, policymakers asked the question, after Apollo, what next? Shortly after taking office in 1969, President Richard M. Nixon empaneled a group of experts to provide him with recommendations on the nation’s future direction in space. Faced with tight federal budgets, President Nixon could not support most of the panel’s recommendations due to their high cost. In January 1972, he directed NASA to develop and build a reusable space transportation system, commonly known as the space shuttle. The reusability of the shuttle’s components was expected to provide regular access to space to many customers, while at the same time reducing costs. 
Read more here

In 1738, Bernoulli published “Hydrodynamica”, his study in fluid dynamics, or the study of how fluids behave when they are in motion.  Air, like water, is a fluid; however, unlike water, which is a liquid, air is a gaseous substance.  Air is considered a fluid because it flows and can take on different shapes.  Bernoulli asserted that as a fluid moves faster, it produces less pressure, and conversely, slower moving fluids produce greater pressure.

Bernoulli's Principle On-Board the International Space Station video here

Demonstrate the Bernoulli Principle with these hands-on lessons:
K-4
Grades 5-8