Twelve or so years ago there were a few web sites that I liked to visit on a regular basis and share with other teachers when giving professional development regarding the Internet. Three sites in particular have reasonably stood the test of time… The Nine Planets, Volcano World and Astronomy Picture of the Day.

The Nine Planets is always a fascinating site to visit due to the quality of the photographs of the various bodies that inhabit our solar system. The site was established and is maintained by Bill Arnett. Bill included multimedia elements, such as audio and video, at an early stage of the site’s evolution. My favourite planets… Jupiter and Saturn. You can even find out about the Oort Cloud. Of course, the site’s banner testifies to Pluto’s recent exclusion as a planet. I feel that the original site, without adverts, looked better.

Volcano World stood out from the rest of the other sites evolving on the web back then due to the constantly updated content and quality of the materials. It was always supported with a rich set of external links. It utilised multimedia and excellent images. The site also has a blog.

Parts of the site have remained as is since the early days complete with horizontal bars and large navigational icons.

Finally, Astronomy Picture of the Day, was a site I visited as often as I could. The site is maintained by Robert J. Nemiroff and Jerry T. Bonnell. One thing that has always fascinated me about APOD is the fact that each daily entry is rich with a large number of links to supporting and related information. Robert and Jerry had fully utilised the power of hypertext links. Favourite images? Cat’s Eye Nebula, M17~stellar nursery, Saturn and Jupiter.