: Planets Planets: The planet count in our solar system has gone as high as 15 before new discoveries prompted a fine tuning of the definition of a planet. The most recent change was in 2006 when scientists reclassified Pluto as a new kind of object - a dwarf planet. Dwarf Planets: This new class of worlds helps us categorize objects that orbit the Sun but aren't quite the same as the rocky planets and gas giants in our solar system. Moons: This count includes only the moons orbiting the eight planets in our solar system. Asteroids: New asteroids are discovered on an almost daily basis. Comets: Orbiting spacecraft such as SOHO have raised this tally in recent years by catching the comets as they plunge toward the Sun - and sometimes vaporize.
Top 10 Facts About Space Food Space may be the final frontier, but it is also one hell of a restaurant. Over the the past half-century, scientists and space engineers have not only been racing to get their rockets safely outside the Earth’s atmosphere, they’ve been working to ensure the menu keeps their astronauts coming back for more. While there have been all sorts of innovations and improvements, it seems now the options are better than ever, to where we might consider studying rocket science just to gain access to NASA’s kitchen. While these days it seems there is little hope in revisiting space any time soon, here are ten facts about space food, to give us food for thought as we wait until we can become weightless once more. Fact: Early Space Food Was Weird. When Yuri Gagarin become the first human being to go into outer space, he also become the first to eat and do whatever else a human must as a necessary condition of survival. Fact: Regular Foods are Eaten in Space Now. Fact: Jerky is Huge in Space.
The Nine Planets Solar System Tour Planet The planets were thought by Ptolemy to orbit Earth in deferent and epicycle motions. Although the idea that the planets orbited the Sun had been suggested many times, it was not until the 17th century that this view was supported by evidence from the first telescopic astronomical observations, performed by Galileo Galilei. By careful analysis of the observation data, Johannes Kepler found the planets' orbits were not circular but elliptical. History Printed rendition of a geocentric cosmological model from Cosmographia, Antwerp, 1539 The idea of planets has evolved over its history, from the divine wandering stars of antiquity to the earthly objects of the scientific age. The five classical planets, being visible to the naked eye, have been known since ancient times and have had a significant impact on mythology, religious cosmology, and ancient astronomy. Babylon Greco-Roman astronomy The ancient Greeks initially did not attach as much significance to the planets as the Babylonians. India
Top 10 Cool Facts about Space Space There is still so little known about outer space by modern science, but of that little we do know, there are some extraordinarily amazing things. This is a list of the top 10 cool facts about Space. 10. Lightweight Fact: If you put Saturn in water it would float The density of Saturn is so low that if you were to put it in a giant glass of water it would float. 9. Fact: We are moving through space at the rate of 530km a second Our Galaxy – the Milky Way is spinning at a rate of 225 kilometers per second. 8. Fact: The moon is drifting away from Earth Every year the moon moves about 3.8cm further away from the Earth. 7. Fact: The light hitting the earth right now is 30 thousand years old The energy in the sunlight we see today started out in the core of the Sun 30,000 years ago – it spent most of this time passing through the dense atoms that make the sun and just 8 minutes to reach us once it had left the Sun! 6. Fact: The Sun loses up to a billion kilograms a second due to solar winds
Olympic Games Facts for Kids One of the most well-known symbols of the Olympics is the five rings. Designed by de Coubertin, the interlocking rings are represented by the colors blue, yellow, black, green, and red. The rings signify the major continents that participate in the Olympics. North and South America are combined as one ring, and the continent of Antarctica is not represented. The interlocking rings are a sign of admiration that nations from around the world can unite without prejudice. The rings appear on the Olympic flag, which has a white background.
Solar System Discovery and exploration Andreas Cellarius's illustration of the Copernican system, from the Harmonia Macrocosmica (1660) For many thousands of years, humanity, with a few notable exceptions, did not recognize the existence of the Solar System. People believed Earth to be stationary at the centre of the universe and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects that moved through the sky. Although the Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos had speculated on a heliocentric reordering of the cosmos,[11] Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematically predictive heliocentric system.[12] His 17th-century successors, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, developed an understanding of physics that led to the gradual acceptance of the idea that Earth moves around the Sun and that the planets are governed by the same physical laws that governed Earth. Structure and composition The orbits of the bodies in the Solar System to scale (clockwise from top left)
Milky Way Stars and gases at a wide range of distances from the Galactic center orbit at approximately 220 kilometers per second. The constant rotation speed contradicts the laws of Keplerian dynamics and suggests that much of the mass of the Milky Way does not emit or absorb electromagnetic radiation. This mass has been given the name “dark matter”.[22] The rotational period is about 240 million years at the position of the Sun.[9] The Galaxy as a whole is moving at a velocity of approximately 600 km per second with respect to extragalactic frames of reference. The oldest known star in the Galaxy is at least 13.6 billion years old and thus must have formed shortly after the Big Bang.[6] Surrounded by several smaller satellite galaxies, the Milky Way is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which forms a subcomponent of the Virgo Supercluster. Appearance[edit] The Milky Way has a relatively low surface brightness. Size and mass[edit] Schematic illustration showing the galaxy in profile
The Australian Bushrangers The Australian Bushrangers Who, What, When, Where Why? The term “Bushranger” has definitely changed over the years. In the very early years, it simply referred to good bush men who possessed the horsemanship, hunting, and survival skills needed for living in the Australian bush, or wild, after they fled Australia’s prison colonies. Now, the term is used to refer to criminals who attacked travelers on the road in the bush. It’s impossible to say just how many bushrangers walked Australia’s bush, although there had to be hundreds. Australia was originally colonized largely by English criminals. Gold Rush The second major contributing factor to bushranging was the Victorian Gold rush that occurred in the 1850s and 1860s. Dress Bushrangers typically dressed in very cheap, rough clothes. Famous Bushrangers Other resources: Activities: Different Australian history and activities, including bushwalker activities. Related Categories
The Solar System - Astronomy For Kids - KidsAstronomy.com Our solar neighborhood is an exciting place. The Solar System is full of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, minor planets, and many other exciting objects. Learn about Io, the explosive moon that orbits the planet Jupiter, or explore the gigantic canyons and deserts on Mars. What Is The Solar System? The Solar System is made up of all the planets that orbit our Sun. In addition to planets, the Solar System also consists of moons, comets, asteroids, minor planets, and dust and gas. Everything in the Solar System orbits or revolves around the Sun. How Did The Solar System form? This is an important question, and one that is difficult for scientists to understand. Scientists believe that the Solar System evolved from a giant cloud of dust and gas. At the center of this spinning cloud, a small star began to form. Further away from the center of this mass where the star was forming, there were smaller clumps of dust and gas that were also collapsing. A Great Storm Beyond The Oort Cloud
The Milky Way Our own galaxy consists of about 200 billion stars, with our own Sun being a fairly typical specimen. It is a fairly large spiral galaxy and it has three main components: a disk, in which the solar system resides, a central bulge at the core, and an all encompassing halo. The spiral galaxy M83 which is believed to be similar in size and shape to the Milky Way (AAO) Disk: The disk of the Milky Way has four spiral arms and it is approximately 300pc thick and 30kpc in diameter. Bulge: The bulge, at the centre of the galaxy, is a flattened spheroid of dimension 1kpc by 6kpc. Halo: The halo, which is a diffuse spherical region, surrounds the disk. A view of the Milky Way from the southern hemisphere - towards the centre of our galaxy (AAO) [Back][Hot big bang][Galaxies][Relic radiation][Cosmic strings][Inflation][Cosmology][Next]
Black hole A black hole is defined as a region of spacetime from which gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping.[1] The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole.[2] Around a black hole, there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that marks the point of no return. The hole is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect black body in thermodynamics.[3][4] Quantum field theory in curved spacetime predicts that event horizons emit radiation like a black body with a finite temperature. This temperature is inversely proportional to the mass of the black hole, making it difficult to observe this radiation for black holes of stellar mass or greater. Objects whose gravity fields are too strong for light to escape were first considered in the 18th century by John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace. History General relativity