Sun-Earth Day 2003
News story originally written on March 14, 2003

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March 18, 2003 is Sun-Earth Day! Sun-Earth Day is a national celebration of the Sun, the space around the Earth (geospace), and how all of it affects life on our planet. In classrooms, museums, planetariums, and at NASA centers, we plan to have a blast sharing stories, images, and activities related to the Sun-Earth connections in our solar system.

Please see the links below for more information on how to participate in Sun-Earth Day. Also, enjoy Sun-Earth web pages with further reading, classroom activities, Flip Books, FAQ's and GAMES!


This image shows views of the Sun and the Earth at two different time periods in history. Going from left to right, top to bottom, you see the Sun as depicted by the Anasazi around 1000 A.D., the Sun as seen from a satellite around 2000 A.D., the Earth as the Islamic artists depicted it around 1000 A.D., and the Earth as viewed from Apollo 11 around 2000 A.D. A lot can change in a thousand years!
Click on image for full size (61K GIF)
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Official Sun-Earth Day site

Events Happening in Your Area

Sun-Earth Web Resources (Further Reading...)

ACE Mission Update
All about the Earth
All about the Sun
The Aurora
The Earth's Atmosphere
The Earth's Magnetosphere
Earth Space Missions
Mythology about the Earth
Solar Activity
Solar Missions
Solar Mythology
Solar News
Space Physics and Aeronomy Research Collaboratory
Spaceweather.com
Space Weather Today
Stanford Solar Center
Sun Earth Connection Education Forum
Sunspots and the Solar Cycle
Ulysses Mission Update

Sun-Earth Web Resources (Real-time Data and Images...)

Earth Image Archive
LASCO/EIT Real-Time Movies of the Sun
Latest 48 hours of Solar Wind Data - Live from College Park
Real-Time Solar Images
Real-Time Solar Wind Data
Real-Time Solar Wind Monitoring by the ACE Spacecraft
SPARC Real-Time Solar-Terrestial Conditions
Solar Image Archive

Sun-Earth Flip Books

Aurora Flip Book Spectacular northern lights on July 14, 2000
Aurora Oval Flip Book See the auroral oval brighten and then dim again...
CME Flip Book A coronal mass ejection for the July 14, 2000 storm!
Another CME Flip Book Triple threat coronal mass ejection!
Solar Eruption Flip Book A powerful prominence from 1999!
Solar Flare Flip Book Make a flipbook of one of the brightest flares of the decade!

Sun-Earth Games

Order it Up: Solar System Edition
Junk in Space
Color the Earth
Color the Sun
Solar Concentration
Solar Word Search
Sun-Earth Flip Books
Sun and Earth Adlib Stories
Weather Crossword Puzzle

Sun FAQ's

Fun with the Sun
Sun Quickies

Earth FAQ's

Extraordinary Earth
Earth Quickies

Sun & Earth Classroom Activities

Auroras
Blackout!!!
Comparison Activities for the Sun
Create a Tornado
Create Your Own Cloud
Create Your Own Fog
Create Your Own Lightning
Create Your Own Thermometer
Daytime Astronomy
Graphing Sunspot Cycles
The Hidden Picture
Latent Heat and Clouds
Let's Take a Rock Apart!
Lunar Lollipops
The Magnetometer
Make it Rain!
Mechanical Weathering Lab
Observing the Sun
Our Sun
Pangaea Puzzle
Paper Magnetosphere
Par 5
Plotting Sunspot Activity
Shadows...
The Singing Sun
Solar Events
Spectral Surprise
Solarscapes
Sun-Earth Flip Books
Sun and Weather
Tracking an Active Sunspot Region
Tetrahedron Model
Thunder and Lightning
Watch the Sky
Weather and Careers Exercise

You might also be interested in:

ACE Mission Page

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Solar Activity

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More and more Moons of Jupiter

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Mars Opposition in August 2003

On August 27, 2003, Earth and Mars will be closer together than they have been in thousands of years. Mars will pass within 55,758,006 kilometers (34,646,418 miles) from Earth. Astronomers have calculated...more

More Moons around Jupiter & Saturn

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Mercury Transit on May 7, 2003

The planet Mercury appeared to cross in front of the Sun on May 7, 2003. Astronomers call the event a transit. A transit is like a solar eclipse. However, a transit occurs when a planet, instead of Earth's...more

Sunspots and space weather storms

Two very large groups of sunspots have appeared on the Sun. Each of the groups is about as big as the planet Jupiter, which is the largest planet in our Solar System! Sunspots are places on the Sun where...more

More than 100 planets orbit distant stars!

Astronomers have identified another exoplanet, that is, a planet outside our solar system. This makes a total of 102 exoplanets that have so far been found by astronomers! The astronomers that identified...more

Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part is sponsored in part through grants from federal agencies (NASA and NOAA), and partnerships with affiliated organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Earth System Information Partnership, the American Meteorological Society, the National Center for Science Education, and TERC. The American Geophysical Union and the American Geosciences Institute are Windows to the Universe Founding Partners. NESTA welcomes new Institutional Affiliates in support of our ongoing programs, as well as collaborations on new projects. Contact NESTA for more information. NASA ESIP NCSE HHMI AGU AGI AMS NOAA