As part of the collaborative efforts with SSDC, Dr. Franco Paoletti incorporated two remote space data analysis activities in the curriculum of the “Introduction to Modern Astro-Plasma Physics” course, recently approved by the Board of Education of the East Windsor Regional School District in Hightstown, NJ (USA).

The two activities will see students analyzing data coming from both Solar System exploration and high-energy observations of the Universe, and will be performed using the SSDC interactive online analysis tools: MATISSE for Solar System observations and AGILE-LV3 for the gamma-ray AGILE satellite data.

The activities point to reproduce published scientific results, such as the characterization of dark material on the Vesta asteroid (e.g. Palomba et al., 2014) and the analysis of a couple of exceptional bright flares seen in gamma-rays from monster black holes in distant galaxies (e.g. Astronomer’s Telegrams: ATel #9186 and ATel #7631).

The final goal is to provide the students with knowledge, skills, and competences required to correctly use tools specifically designed at our data center for professional researchers, and to get a better understanding of the day to day work of an astrophysicist.