A Useful Space Book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Universe-Stunning-Satellite-Imagery-Outer/dp/1844034372/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271581105&sr=8-9

Rocks And Astroids

Millions and Millions of years ago,a meteor hit earth.It was 10 km wide.If the Rock was small it would burn up in the atmosphere.To test it out,you will need...

A hose,5 light balls(to be the small Rock)and a basket ball(to be the meteor that hit earth).

You might want to do this in a swimming pool,but you don't have to.

There are caraters on the moon because,the moon has no atmosphere to burn up the Rocks.

Space Quizz

Download my Space quizz here .... !!

Challenge yourself to a Quiz by clicking the purple words.Some of the Quistions you have not learnt on this blog.Give Yourself a pat on the back if you get them all right.But if you don't,don't worry.

Titan (One of Saturns moons)

Titan is much larger than the neigbouring Saturnian moons.It is larger than Mercury and Pluto and the second largest moon in the solar system after Jupiters Ganymede.It was discoverd in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christan Huygens,the first moon to be detected following Galileos revolutionary discovery of four moons orbiting Jupiter.Titan is the only body in the solar system to contain a nitrogen-rich atmousphere like Earths,although it is much more dense.

Callisto (One of Jupiters moons)

Callisto's dark and dirty,icy crust is coverd with craters.The largest,Valhalla,has shockwaves that spread out some 3,000 km (1,865 miles).Astronomers believe the crust hides a rocky core.

Europa (One of Jupiters moons)

Europa has an icy surface criss-crossed with lines that suggest deeper activity.Sientists believe the ice may cover a liquid salty ocean,with a possibillity of aquatic life.in fact, it has become the most likely place extraterrestrail life in our solar system.

Ganymede (One of Jupiters moons)

Ganymede in lager than Mercury,but it is not a planet as it doesn't orbit the sun.Scientists think this moon has a molten core,surrounded by a rocky mantle,possible salt water,and an ice shell.

Io (One of Jupiters moons)

Io is constantly undergoing volcanic eruptions across its surface,the result giving it an amazing yellow-orange colour.In fact it has more than 100 active volcanoes! The eruptions happen because this moon is continually tugged and pushed around by the gravities of the other three.

Dying Star

When a stars core stops fusing hydrogen to make helium,it exits the main sequence and enters its death throes.The equilibrium the star fought so arduosly to attatin at the beginning of its life is upset,as the radiation output ceases and the star begins contracting under gravity.The energy generated by this collapse heats up the stellar atmosphere where hydrogen is still present.The stellar atmosphere becomes so hot and pressurized thet fusion of this hydrogen store takes place.This process causes to swell in size to become a giant.

Light echoes

Twenty thousand light years away-at the very edge of our galaxy-starV838 Monocerotis underwent a sudden outburst in January 2002.It became 600000 times brighter than the sun,making it the most iuminous star in the Milky Way.These three images from the Hubble Space telescope chronical the progress of the flare-up,which researches still cannot explain.

Cone Nebula

Both part of a huge starbirth complex in monoceros,the Fox fur nebula-and the Cone Nebula,seen here-are stellar maternity wards.The Cone is seven light years long,but in this image from the latest camera on the hubble space telescope,we only see the top two and a half light years.It's being sculpted by powerful winds and radiation from a star that lies on top of this image.

How To Make A Moon Chart

Equipment

A pencil,a ruler,A3 paper and something to draw circles with.

Making the Moon chart

1.Get the ruler and draw 5 lines horizontal and 7 vertical.

2.Draw 30 circles in the the boxes you have just made.

3.Now what you need to do is, look at the moon and shade in what you can't see.

Amdromeda Spiral

The Amdromeda Spiral (or M31) is the largest galaxy in our local group, covering an area of the sky five times the diameter of the moon.It is the mont distant phenomenon that can be veiwed with naked eye.M31 is moving towards The Milky Way at a rate of 9 million kilometers each day and eventully the two will collide causing an eruption of new stars.As M31 contains two nuclei this will probaly not be the first time it has consumed other galaxys.

Trifid Nebula

Its name has nothing to with John Wydham's famous fiction novel.The day of the Trifids; instead,this nebula is divided into three by dark lanes of cosmic soot.John herschel-son of William,discoverer of Uranus-described it in the 19th century as singulary trifid,consisting of three bright and irregulary-formed nebulous masses.It lies close to the Lagoon nebula.

Pencil Nebula

The long straight feature-just one light year in length-is the Pencil Nebula. It was identified by John Herschel (son of William who discoverd Uranus) in the 1480s. The Nebula is a shockwave ,moving from right to left across this Hubble image.Here,expanding gases from explosion have encounterd a dense reigon of material in space. The gases,colour-coded red (hydrogen) and blue (oxegen),may eventully compress their surroundings to trigger star formation.

Amazing Facts

Did you know that woodpeckers delayed a launch in 1995 by pecking a hole in the fuel tank.

The scientists hope to discover more as time goes by.

What are Quasars

."Quaser" is a contraction of quasi-stellar referring to hevanly bodies that look like stars,but are actually very bright cores of far-distant galaxies.The galaxies themselves cannot be observed due to their very great distance.

Out there in the Universe there are other planets orbiting other stars.

Most people think the Universe started with the big bang.

Black holes

Black holes are a great mystery .Astronomers know they are there becuse of their effect on nearby stars.Black holes are born and when a star dies.

Earth

Earth is the only planet with water ( however Mars has frozen water).Nearly 70% of it is coverd with water.This is a wonderful place to live, only if we protect the environment. It is 14 degrese celcius and it takes a day to spin and a year to orbit the Sun.

Pluto

Pluto is the smallest planet in the solar system. It is made of ice and rock.It is a dark cold place.Only with powerful telescopes you can see Pluto with.Pluto's orbit passes through Neptunes orbit, so between 1975 and 1995,Neptune was the outermost planet in the solar system. Pluto orbits the Sun in an oval shape.It takes 6 days 10 hours to spin on its axis and 248 years to orbit the Sun

Neptune

Too faint to be viewed with the naked eye, Neptune is the outermost planet of the gas giants and has the houner of being the first planet position was calculated before it was discoverd.It has very voialent winds reaching 2,000 km per our.It takes 20 hours to spin and 165 years to orpit the Sun.The tempreture is -220 degrese celcius.

Uranus

Uranus is the third largest planet in the solar system, Four times bigger than Earth.It has at least 22 moons.A planet-sized body is thought to have collided with Uranus early in thesolar system's history.It takes 17 hours to spin and 84 years to orbit the sun.The tempreture is -210 degrese celcius.Uranus is tiltid on its side so it is dark for 42 years and light for 42 years.

Saturn

Named after the god of time, Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system, yet it has the smallest density; strange as it seems , Saturn would actully float if immersed in an ocean, as it is less dense than water. Saturn's rings make the planet one of the most beautiful objects in the solar system.The tempreture is -180 degrese celcius.It takes 10 hours to spin and 30 years to orbit the sun.

Saturns Rings

One of the greatest fascinations of the solar system is the rings of Saturn.They are ussally visible with an amateur telescope,provided the planet is at the correct angle.The rings are located in the plane of Saturns equatour,and like the equatour they are inclined at 27 degreese to the orbital plane,which means that for a short period, the rings are facing an Earth-based observer edge-on when they are too thin to be seen from Earth.The first person to see the rings of Saturn Galileo when he was the first observer to look at the planet through a telescope in 1610.He had no idea what he was looking at.Galileo named the rings the 'ears' of Saturn,explaining that they might be huge mountain ranges extending high above the planet on both sides,or they might be twoother small planets.

Jupiter

Jupiter is named the king of the gods because it is the largest planet in the solar system.It is a gas giant. Most of it is gas.It only has a rocky core so you can't land on it because you will just sink into it. It only takes 9 hours to spin and 11.9 years to orbit the Sun. It is very cold on Jupiter, the tempreture is -120 degrese celcius.It is very windy.Winds reach 700 km per hour.

The Great red spot is 3 times bigger than Earth.It is very windy on the red spot.Winds are 250 miles per hour.
Jupiter can be seen very easily with a telescope because it is bright.It is surounded by thin rings that can't be seen from earth.It has 16 moons.

Mars

Mars is the god of war because it is red like blood.If you stood on Mars you would see a pink sky.It looks hot but it is freezing cold at -55 degrese celcius. Our nearest neighbour.

Is there water

Surface tempreture is to low for liguid water to exist and Mars has no rivers,seas or oceans. However,there was water once.We know this because the existence dried-up water channels.

It takes 2 years to orbit the Sun and 24 hours to spin.

Venus

You wouldn't want to visit Venus.You would be crushed in an instant and your remaines fried into a crisp.But the most amazing thing on Venus is that it takes 243 days to spin and 225 days to orbit the Sun.So a day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.Winds on Venus reach 300km per hour.You can't see the Sun from Venus because the atnosphere is to dusty.The atnosphere traps the Suns heat.The tempreture is 460 degrese celcius.

Mercury

The closest planet to the Sun,and far smaller than Earth,Mercury has blistering hot days,but freezing cold nights. The nights get cold because Mercury has no atnosphere to trap the Suns heat.Mercury has a very short year because it only takes 88 days to orbit the Sun and it spins very slowly taking 59 days to spin once on its axis. If people moved there,they would be four times older. The during the day the Sun bakes it's surface up to 428 degrese celcius.At night it falls to -180 degrese celcius.

How far is Mercury from the sun and Earth

Mercury's elliptical orbit lies a considerable distance from the sun: 46 million kilometers away when closest; 70 million kilometers away at its furthest point.The distance beetween Mercury and Earth varies beetween 77 million kilometers and 222 million kilometers. On average, this is roughly three times the distance beetween Mercury and the sun.Mercury is so close to the sun that it can only be viewd from earth at dusk shortly before or shortly after sunset.

The Sun

Our Sun is a star but it is closer to us than any other star.Like all stars,it is a massive ball of burning gas,fed by constant explosions.Without it,our planet would be lifeless.Our Sun doesn't move like the other stars do.It spins every 25.4 days.

Long Lived

The sun was born under five billion years ago.Although it burns four million tonnes (tons) of fuel each second,it is so big that it will continue to burn for another five billion years.

Solar winds

The Sun sends out a stream of invisible particles called the solar wind.When these pass Earth's North and South Poles,they can create stunning colours.

The Sun spins every 25.4 days.The core is so hot, it is 15 million degrese celcius.The surface tempreture is 5,500 degrese celcius.

NEVER EVER look into the Sun because it is very bright and it could damage your eyes and you might have to go to hospital.The sun has very strong winds it can blow out gas wich can cause power cuts on Earth.

The Suns surface

Although the sun has not got a solid surface-it is entirely made of super hot gas-its so-called 'photosphere' is the outermost region of our local star's opaque gases.Here,in an image from the national solar observbatory in new Mexico,we can see the structure of our stars 'surface'.Rising gases within produce a bubbling structure,called 'granulation', where currents of heat ascend and descend.Each cell on this photograph is as large as Texas.