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10+ Things to Do with NASA at Home

Woman holding 3D glasses on a young girl.
NASA

A select collection of NASA resources to fill the days and nights while everyone is at home.

Animated GIF of a woman removing a pencil from a paper rocket and inserting a straw for launch
Straw Rocket: Create a paper rocket that can be launched from a soda straw – then, modify the design to make the rocket fly farther! - Go to Activity Page

NASA STEM Activities for Families

Launch rockets, build hovercraft, create a winning science project and more. These science, technology, engineering and math activities are fun for the whole family. Check back for regular updates: https://www.nasa.gov/stem-at-home-for-students-k-4.html

Sky chart showing Jupiter, Saturn, mars and the crescent Moon on March 18.
Get up early this week for planet and crescent Moon pairings.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Animated GIF of Moon phase calendar.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Activities

Never miss a Moon phase. Build this NASA Moon phase calculator and the lunar phases will be at your fingertips. It's just one free activity created by NASA to inspire and educate.

More Activities and Resources

https://youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries
A series of engaging, educational videos just for kids (but also great for adults).
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Things to Watch

NASA's new Perseverance rover, set to launch this summer, will land on Mars in 2021. The Mars in a Minute animated series that brings you up to speed on the Red Planet is just one of several NASA video products available on demand.

More Video Channels

[video src="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/video_items/680_sse.mp4" /]
This simulated view of our solar system runs on real data. The positions of the planets, moons and spacecraft are shown where they are right now.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Free Range Exploration

Experience Earth and our solar system, the universe and the spacecraft exploring them in real-time, using real NASA data, with these free immersive apps for Mac, PC and mobile devices.

Animated GIF showing series of visualization of distant worlds beyond our solar system.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Worlds Beyond Our Solar System

So far, we’ve discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets. Many of these planets beyond our own solar system are … weird. Super-Earths (bigger than Earth and smaller than Neptune) and hot Jupiters (gas giants that orbit really close to their stars) abound. You can visit some of these real worlds and see what conditions might be like, based on NASA’s science at our Exoplanet Travel Bureau. We have 360-degree visualizations of planet surfaces like one of the seven rocky worlds of the TRAPPIST-1 system and the lava-covered planet called 55 Cancri e. What would the view be from a potential moon of Kepler-16b? You’d have two shadows from the planet’s two suns! Viewable on desktop, mobile and optimized for viewers like Google cardboard. While you’re there, download the free travel posters.

Illustrated logo says "Rocket Ranch"
Rocket Ranch is the official podcast of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Listen and Read

Plenty of great NASA stories are available in our collections of podcasts and e-Books.

This Week's Suggestions

Young woman in hardhat underground at the CERN complex in Europe.
Citizen Scientist Katharina Doll on a student visit to CERN, also known as European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Katharina Doll

Do-It-Yourself Science

NASA’s citizen science projects are collaborations between scientists and the public. Volunteers (citizen scientists like Katharina) have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries. Want to work on some real NASA science? Use the links below to get started. Many projects with can be done by anyone, anywhere, with just a cellphone or laptop.

Citizen Science Projects You Can Do at Home

NASA Citizen Scientist Homepage
JunoCam
: Download raw pictures from Jupiter and use them to create your own imagery.
Snapshot Wisconsin: Track wildlife by classifying images captured on trail cameras
Stardust@Home: Look for interstellar particles in aerogel from the Stardust sample return mission
Globe Observer: Make environmental observations that compliment NASA satellite data.
Backyard Worlds: Search beyond Neptune for new brown dwarfs stars planets
Landslide Reporter: Find landslides online and submit them to a NASA database
Floating Forests: Help study kelp forests in oceans
Penguin Populations: Help understand and model present and future penguin populations
Sungrazer Project: Discover a comet as it dives toward the Sun
Cosmic: Help train a computer to think like a scientist for future Mars missions

U.S. map on a globe

Close to Home: NASA in the 50 States

Did you know that all 50 states are helping NASA explore space? Find out how your state and others contribute to space exploration and then test your knowledge with these three questions:

  1. Which state has the most NASA centers?
  2. Which three states fall in the path of totality for both the 2017 and 2024 total solar eclipses?
  3. Which state would be a good place to spot the aurora borealis (also known as northern lights)?
Saturn's icy moon Dione floats in front of the giant planet in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. - Full image and caption
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Take a Break!

If you made it this far, you deserve a break. Take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the distant worlds of our solar system.

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Last Updated
Jan 24, 2024
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