With the flurry on extrasolar planet discoveries within the last nine months, it's hard to keep track of all the new planets. Fortunately, there some good resources on the Web to keep you from confusing 51 Pegasi with 70 Virginis. The San Francisco State University Planet Search Project page provides resources on the work of Geoff Marcy and Paul Butler, who have bagged the most discoveries. You can learn details about each discovery and get some general information on their method to discover planets. The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, located in France, provides information on all extrasolar planets, possible discoveries, and brown dwarf candidates. However, at press time the site was unreachable. A similar resource is provided by the Darwin Project in the UK.
San Francisco State University Planet Search Project: http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~williams/planetsearch/planetsearch.html
Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia: http://www.obspm.fr:80/departement/darc/planets/encycl.html
Darwin Project Planets: http://ast.star.rl.ac.uk/darwin/darwin_planets.html
An alternative to the NASA Shuttle-Mir Web site for information on Mir is a site by Maximov Publications. The site focuses on Mir itself, and has information on the history, design, and current status of and activities on the station. A page of related links provides access to external information about Mir.
Maxmimov Mir Space Station page: http://www.maximov.com/Mir/mir2.html
The other day, while out walking around dusk, we saw a satellite pass by overhead. Naturally, our question was, "what satellite was that?" Fortunately, we got the answer from the Earth Satellite Ephemeris Service. Enter your latitude, longitude, and altitude of your city, along with date and time, and the site will produce a list of visible satellites and their locations in the sky. (We found out the satellite we were looking at was UARS, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite).
Earth Satellite Ephemeris Service: http://www.chara.gsu.edu/sat.html
Now that the observatory has passed most of the legal and environmental obstacles in its path, it's a good time to look at the telescopes planned at the observatory. The MGIO home page has links to the three telescopes planned for the observatory, including the Large Binocular Telescope: twin 8.4-meter telescopes designed by a partnership of the University of Arizona, Arcetri Observatory in Italy, and the Research Corporation. The home page also has the requisite links to legal, environmental, and cultural issues about the site.
Mt. Graham International Observatory home page: http://medusa.as.arizona.edu/graham/graham.html
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