Each topic offers extensive text with pictures, simple animated charts, and movies with original animations. In a sample section, students learn about how and why our solar system evolved and how common such systems may be. In another section, students explore some of the techniques that astronomers use to measure properties of stars, a classification system for stars, and the main steps in the evolution of a star, from birth in a nebula through contraction to a protostar and then on to stable life as a main sequence star. Each section introduces the concept under study with a text review in color coded hypertext format. Upon clicking on highlighted words in hypertext, students get more detailed information by connecting to a glossary.
Students also watch movies on sky observing tips, stellar parallax, and circumpolar stars in motion.
Each section ends with a list of books and articles. Also featured are short biographies of astronomers who are representative of astronomical personalities. The CD-ROM also contains a folder of other resources, including a list of topic related Websites, printable versions of the courseware, and a complete bibliography. U.S. price depends on the exchange rate. Big bang theory.