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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Welcome to the UNAWE RESOURCE website

UNAWE is an international outreach activity that uses the beauty and grandeur of the universe to inspire very young disadvantaged children. Goals are to:

  • broaden children's minds,
  • awaken their curiosity in science,
  • stimulate global citizenship and tolerance.


This website is dedicated to the activities and materials that UNAWE offers. These materials are sourced from an extremely dynamic network of volunteers and professionals worldwide who thereby contribute to giving children from all over the world a great experience.

For the website of the Universe Awareness Organisation, CLICK HERE.
For the website of UNAWE en Español, CLICK HERE.
 
Poems on Hubble's Giant Carina Nebula image
The poems below were written by Jane Ahern’s 4th class at St Brigids National School in Greystones Co Wicklow in Ireland during a workshop run by Deirdre Kelleghan. See here for more information on the Giant Hubble Workshops

Carina Nebula by Ciara age 10

Colorful and wonderful
Amazingly beautiful cloud
Really big exploding stars
Interesting sight
Now I realise whats out there
A very spectacular thing in deep deep space




Carina Nebula by Ruairi age 9

Colourful clouds of stars
An absolute phenomenon
Red puffy clouds of sparkles and gas
Interesting and fascinating
No boring stuff here
Amazingly Amazing




Carina Nebula by Demitriy age 10

Colorful pink jets everywhere
Awesome
Riot of beauty
Intellectually hard to understand
Nearly nicer than my dogs ( but never will be )
Amazing sight of different colours


Photo credit: Bernard Kelleghan

ll the poems written by the children have gone on show in a Hubble Celebration Exhibition in Greystones Library and run till the end of May 2010.
 
Age-Weight Calculator
UNAWE releases its first software package!

The South African Astronomical Observatory has developed a programme (presently available in English Afrikaans and Xhosa) based on the UNAWE Online Tools, which will enable you to calculate any person's weight and age in the solar system. The software is available for Windows, Mac and any platform capable of running Java applications.

Download:

Windows version (.exe, 1.2MB)
Mac version (.dmg, 1.8 MB)
Java version (.jar, 1.7 MB)

Help us translate it!
Download this file (RTF, 900KB) that contains the expressions that need to be translated for a new version of the programme. If you send us your translation, we will make a new release of the programmes with your language added to it!
 
Eclipses explain in Tamil


Thank you to Mr. Mani from AID India / the Tamil Nadu Science Forum.
 
The Legend of Yacana (La leyenda de Yacana)

The Legend of Yacana (La leyenda de Yacana)

Based on Inca stories of the sky
Antonio Claret

Download the story in:
Arabic
English
Spanish

The llama is one of the most important animals for the Incas. Its silhouette appears in the dark areas between the stars. For this reason llamas with black fur were very important in the Inca religion. Two very bright stars in the constellation of Centauri (alpha and beta) represent the black Llama’s eyes.

The Inca legend tells us that Yacana (the llama) was wandering with her baby along a river that crossed the entire sky (the Milky Way). The more she walked, the blacker she got. Her baby accompanied her throughout the sky. When the baby became hungry, Yacana fed it. When Yacana woke up, it became daytime. It is said that the man who finds himself in a place where Yacana has fed her baby will have good luck for the rest of his days.

But Yacana was just and treated everyone equally. She would not give happiness merely to one man or one woman. At night, when nobody was looking, she used to go and drink water from the oceans. She drank the water of pain, the water of sadness, the water of thirst and hunger. She drank the water of the tragedy of humankind and prevented the seas from overflowing and flooding the earth.

Interstellar Clouds of Dust and Gas

To find our way in the sky, it is convenient to imagine that the stars can be joined together to form figures and shapes representing people and animals. These figures are constellations. In contrast to other civilizations, the inhabitants of South America saw figures in the shapes of the dark spaces between the stars of the Milky Way, which they could see clearly. These dark regions in the sky are in fact enormous clouds of dust that absorb the light coming from the stars behind them.



  Image: Maria Vidal
  Extract of the book "Tales of the Stars"
  CSIC-UNAWE 2008
  ISBN 978-84-613-0420-2
 
UNAWE in pictures
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Latest Additions

IYA 2009

UNAWE is a global cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy



Universe Awareness is affiliated with the International Astronomical Union.