NEW FROM LGI

A new technical report, "Trafficability of Lunar Microrovers (Part 2)," TR95-01, is available free from the Lunar Geotechnical Institute. Order from LGI, P.O. Box 5056, Lakeland FL 33807-5056. Phone: 813-646-1842; fax: 813-644-5920.

NEW FROM THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFIC

ASTRONOMY ACTIVITY AND RESOURCE NOTEBOOK

The Universe at Your Fingertips, an 813-page astronomy activity and resource notebook for teachers in grades 3-12 (and astronomers who work with them) has been published by the nonprofit A.S.P. The loose-leaf collection includes 90 hands-on activities selected from a wide range of sources that allow students to investigate many different areas of astronomy. Also included are an annotated resources list, including reading materials, audiovisual aids, software, support organizations, and national astronomy education projects. The notebook also has articles on astronomy basics and fitting astronomy into the science curriculum at different grade levels. Created by the National Science Foundation's Project ASTRO, the contents have been thoroughly field tested and reviewed by teachers and astronomers. $24.95, plus $6.00 shipping and handling to U.S. addresses, from A.S.P., Notebook Order Department, 390 Ashton Avenue, San Francisco CA 94112. Phone: 1-800-335-2624.

1995 MAIL ORDER CATALOG

The 1995 mail order catalog, illustrated in color, includes a wide variety of materials for the teaching and enjoyment of astronomy. New items include The Universe at Your Fingertips activity and resource notebook; NOVA videotapes on eclipses, supernovae, and the infrared universe; a 25- slide set on the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact with Jupiter; the new third edition of the Cambridge Atlas of Astronomy; Jupiter Impact CD-ROM of images and QuickTime movies from observatories around the world; Apollo 11 25th anniversary commemorative videotapes; Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time on CD-ROM for Macintosh and Windows; and CD-ROMs of high-resolution deep space and solar system images. Free, from A.S.P., Catalog Requests Department, 390 Ashton Avenue, San Francisco CA 94112. Phone: 415-337-1100; fax: 415-337-5205. E-mail: [email protected]


NEW FROM LPI

MARS SLIDE SET

The Red Planet: A Survey of Mars is a 40-slide set that illustrates many different kinds of geologic features, including tectonic structures, volcanos, impact craters, landslides, and features formed or modified by ice and water. Although humans have not yet sampled them in situ, scientists believe that rocks from Mars have arrived on Earth. These rocks, known as the SNC meteorites, are also featured, as are the two small moons, Phobos and Deimos. Compiled by Walter S. Kiefer, Allan H. Treiman, and Stephen M. Clifford, the set includes a booklet with an introduction and overview, a locater map, captions for each slide, suggested further reading, and a glossary. $20.00 from LPI; see Order Form in this Bulletin.

CLEMENTINE RAW IMAGES ON CD- ROM AVAILABLE AT NSSDC

The first 45 CD-ROM volumes of the 88-volume Clementine Raw Image Archive Collection are now available at NSSDC. The CDs contain all imaging data from the five imaging sensors onboard the Clementine spacecraft, arranged by orbit number. More information on these CD-ROMs, including ordering information, is available on the World-Wide Web at:

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/clemcd.html

Additional information on the Clementine mission is available at:

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/clementine.html

Contact: National Space Science Data Center, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD 20771. Phone: 301-286-4136; fax: 301-286-1771.

Internet: [email protected]

WWW: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/


REVIEW

PLANETS OF THE SUN

Videotape in the Nature Series (1992) Diamond Entertainment Corporation 30 minutes. Includes the title film narrated by Leonard Nimoy and the film Flight to the Planets.

DANGER! WARNING! This video is not as advertised, and is (in my opinion) of minimal educational value for the target 6-12-year age group. Despite the 1992 copyright date on the video and the Voyager Saturn mosaic on the jacket, the two film cuts were individually copyrighted in 1974 and 1970! Even then, they were woefully out of date. Nor do the films contain ". . .outstanding nature footage. . ." as the jacket claims; they contain artists' conceptions rather than real images of the solar system.

The most obvious flaw in the films is the lack of current images of planets and the universe (despite the Voyager Saturn mosaic on the video jacket). Since the 1970 and 1974 publication dates, we have visible- light images of the universe from Mariner 10, Pioneer Saturn, Viking, Voyager 1 and 2, Magellan, Hubble, Clementine, and Galileo; we have had enormous strides in Earth-based telescopic observations; and we have incredible new data and imagery from other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. None of these advances in knowledge are, or could be, seen in this video.

Even worse, the films in this video did not use images current in their publication years, 1970 and 1974! Instead of images, films rely on paintings of planetary and astronomical scenes, with some simple animations. Between them, the videos contain only one real photo or image of a planet, Earth as seen from Apollo 8. There are no real images of the Moon, neither telescopic from Earth nor spacecraft from Luna, Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor, or Apollo. Rather, the videos contain paintings of the Moon's disk and a crude, unrealistic model of the Moon's surface. Mars is shown in Bonestell-like paintings, ignoring the availability of excellent telescopic images of the disk and Mariner views of the surface. Jupiter and Saturn appear only as paintings (including a few from Bonestell). Given time lags in production, perhaps the first films can be forgiven the lack of using the Pioneer images of Jupiter (1973).

Nor was the script up to date, even in 1970 and 1974. It was amusing and pathetic to learn that soil on the Moon is very much like that on Earth, and to hear Mars described without mention of volcanos, the Valles Marineris, polar ice, or flood channels.

Many good, current videos and CDs are available with stunning, real images of planets and the universe. Buy one of them rather than this historical relic. (Even the music is historical--I caught a few riffs from The Who's Teenage Wasteland. A wasteland indeed!)

--Allan Treiman

(Dr. Treiman is a staff scientist at LPI and a contributor to education and outreach projects at the Institute.)