Cosmic Decoders: Card Games for the Whole Family – with a Cosmic Twist
The Family ASTRO Cosmic Decoders Card Set (a take-home activity for families) consists of a deck of 72 cards featuring beautiful color images of cosmic objects and some well-known telescopes. These can be used to play four different fun astronomical games. The cards are also available for purchase to anyone through the SocietyтАЩs AstroShop.
Topics:
Frequently Asked Questions about the Cards and the Games
More Information and Web Links for the Images Depicted on the Cards:
- Build A Galaxy: In this game, the aim is to be the first to build your own galaxy тАФ to add the right kinds of star clusters and nebulae to your Galaxy Builder Card! Be sure to try “Version 2,” where players can only win by cooperating with another member of the family to form an alliance of linked galaxies.
- Telescope Trouble: In this game youтАЩll uncover new “Deep Space Objects” and compare their characteristics to the last object played. The aim is to be the first one to get rid of all their cards. Sometimes players will do this by making a direct match, but sometimes they will need to go one “Size Category” bigger. And watch out, opponents can play Telescope Cards that spell trouble!
- Distance Derby: In this game, you win cards by paying attention to how far away from Earth the Deep Space Objects are. The goal is to add as many cards as possible to your own “observing list” of Deep Space Objects. To collect a card, you must have a card in your hand whose distance is between two other object cards already in the “distance chain.”
- Galactic Gobble: This game is similar to War, where players turn over cards simultaneously and the player with the largest Size Category object wins the hand. In other words, just as in real life collisions (at least among galaxies), the larger object “gobbles up” smaller ones.
Frequently Asked Questions about the Cards and the Games
The Cards
Q: How Can I Obtain Additional Copies of Cosmic Decoders?
A: Cosmic Decoders is available for purchase by anyone through the Society’s AstroShop.
Q: How and Why Did You Pick the 52 Images of Deep Space Objects and 12 Telescopes that are Depicted on the Cards? What Makes Them So Special?
A: To begin with, we wanted our card games to have four “suits” (like a standard deck of cards), so our images had to come in four categories. Once we agreed on the four categories of Deep Space Objects that would best help players learn about the variety of objects in space (and lend themselves to the best pictures), we then set about narrowing down our choices by looking over the many “galleries” of astronomy pictures now on the web. If you want to see some of the major galleries we looked at, click here.
Once we got to that point, we confess that picking the images was not (pardon the expression) an exact science. We first assembled a series of pretty images that demonstrated the science points we wanted the cards to make. (Our gallery search had yielded over a hundred such images from the world’s biggest telescopes!) For our final group of 52 Deep Space Object images, we simply picked pictures we and our test audiences liked best. Different people could have picked many different objects. We apologize, therefore, if we left out any of your favorites.
Overall, we wanted the pictures to show some visually arresting examples of each type of object. So, for example, among star death nebulae, we wanted to show a nice variety of both planetary nebulae (the “death shrouds” of smaller stars) and supernova remnants (what remains after the explosion of larger stars). Among galaxies, we wanted to show different shapes (spiral, elliptical, and colliding galaxies) and different sizes (from giant to dwarf galaxies). In addition, we wanted to show images from several of the most important telescopes, both on the ground and in space. So, in addition to the Hubble Space Telescope images, you will also see pictures from the European Southern Observatories Very Large Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and many other major telescopes around the world.
For the 12 telescope cards, we wanted to show a range of telescopes at the forefront of astronomy research, and at the same time, include some that captured the