Celestia
Celestia is a unique space simulation program that lets you and/or your students interactively leave your seats and experience our universe in stunning three dimensions. Celestia is capable of taking you deep into space. This program is installed in all Canyons School District Elementary Creativity Labs.
Celestia is a simulation program that places you in the command seat of your own hyperdrive spacecraft. Its destination is yours to set. You can personally orbit Mars, plunge through the rings of Saturn or travel anywhere in the Solar System and beyond into deep space, at any speed, in any direction you choose, and at any time in history. If desired, you can visit stars or nebula circling the Milky Way or view thousands of other galaxies and galactic clusters from intergalactic space. You can travel back in time to fly alongside famous spacecraft like Sputnik or Voyager as they make history. You can try docking with the International Space Station. You can even travel five billion years into the future to witness the death of our Sun and of Earth.
Celestia is a very accurate program. It depicts the Solar System of planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, comets and spacecraft in vivid detail, and can draw and track over 2 million stars and 10,000 galaxies in real time and proper position. It can also create rotating stars, planet atmospheres, drifting clouds, moving surface shadows, reflections off oceans and ice, magnetic fields, constellations, solar eclipses, speeding comet tails, erupting solar flares and swirling nebula gas. |
Uses:
1. Celestia gives the student an incredible amount of freedom to explore the entire known universe by clicking on objects and using the "Goto" key to get there or traveling freehand at any speed.
2. 3. Limitations:
1. It is very easy to get lost and turn around a not see the solar system behind you.
2. Teachers need to have a good working knowledge of the program in order to support these issues if a student should become lost in the universe. 3. There are so many activities that can be done using Celestia, teachers should have activities planned for students to do so as not to overwhelm them with the phenomenal amount of information available in Celestia. Documentation
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CSD Education Technology
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