Rosetta is the European Space Agency's comet exploration spacecraft. Materials presented here describe the space craft and its mission, which is to rendezvous with and orbit Comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and soft-land an instrument package on the comet's nucleus. En route to the comet, it will perform fly-bys of two asteroids, Steins and Lutetia. Topics include a mission summary, background science, ... Full description.

This "interview" with a fossil Protoceratops provides students with an introduction to fossils and paleontology. The information includes what the Protoceratops was like when it was alive, how it became a fossil and how it got to the museum, and what its name means. In addition, there is information about how fossils are treated and displayed at the museum. Full description.

This site discusses the fossils of a Velociraptor and a Protoceratops that were evidently fighting and somehow were buried in mid fight. There are three parts to the site. The first part allows the student to view the fossil through the eyes of a paleontologist. The second part explores some theories of how the animals were rapidly buried and the third part gives students the opportunity to match ... Full description.

Devised as part of their general Science and Nature website, this British Broadcasting Company (BBC) site offers a number of educational resources on prehistoric life. There are picture galleries, games and quizzes, links to the latest finds and theories, and information about current and classic television and radio series about prehistoric life. Full description.

Animal Diversity Web (ADW) is an online database of animal natural history, distribution, classification, and conservation biology. It features descriptions of individual animal species which may include text (written by college students), pictures, photographs or movies of specimens, and/or recordings of sounds. Taxonomic descriptions above the species level, especially phyla, classes, and in some ... Full description.

This interactive slide show provides accounts of eight of history's most deadly volcanic eruptions. These eruptions are from both ancient and modern times, and include such volcanos as Mount Vesuvius, Tambora, Krakatau, Nevado del Ruiz, and Mount Pinatubo. Each slide features an illustration from the event, a written description with the name of the volcano, date, number of casualties, an account ... Full description.

The development of our solar system can be viewed as a continuous and complicated process that started about 4.6 billion years ago. As scientists continue to study the solar system, and Earth in particular, their understanding of the sequence of events that led to the planetary conditions we see today continues to gain detail and clarity. This illustrated timeline from the Lunar and Planetary Institute ... Full description.

Minerals are all around us. They're in our kitchens and bathrooms, our classrooms and school buildings, and our cars and bicycles. This interactive feature lets users discover which minerals are found in items they probably encounter every day. Rolling the cursor over items in an illustrated room accesses pop-ups that describe what mineral products may be found in them. A background essay and list ... Full description.

Earth's orbit around the Sun, together with the tilt of its axis, results in periodic climate changes around the globe known as seasons. Different locations experience different types of climate changes. For example, some places have extreme seasonal changes in temperature, while others have little temperature change but may have rainy and dry seasons. This interactive feature explains why Earth experiences ... Full description.

This teacher's guide includes a collection of activities intended to accompany the 'The Hidden Lives of Galaxies' poster. The activities deal with the formation, history, and properties of galaxies. Topics include how galaxies get their names, the components of a galaxy, and clustering of galaxies. There are also discussions of the hidden aspects of these bodies, including black holes, hidden mass, ... Full description.