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.