life of an astronaut first hand at your own astronaut party. Together you can travel through time to a place few people have gone, and learn what the future may hold for everyone who lives in our universe.
Before you are through, you can take a trip to the far side of the moon, discover what makes Neptune so stormy, and explore the world of the extraterrestrial to see why some people think aliens could exist. It will be easy to impress your friends and family as you learn how to locate stars and the many other things in the sky. Everyone will enjoy tasting a part of space when you make an edible planet. And who wouldnât like spending some time outside under the stars? So get out your blanket, find a pair of binoculars, and join in the fun of unraveling the mysteries of space!
Chapter 1
The Universe and Beyond
O ne of the first songs many children learn to sing is âTwinkle, Twinkle Little Star,â but have you ever thought about the second line in the song: âHow I wonder what you are?â Long before you knew what a star really was, you could see them shining in the sky at night. If you have ever tried to count all those stars, you probably guessed that there were a few hundred of them.
FUN FACT
Can You Name These Tunes?
Did you know that the song âTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Starâ has the same tune as the Alphabet song? For fun you could hum the tune and ask different people what song they think it is.
More Than Meets the Eye
One way to count all the stars in the universe would be to count so many each night, but donât expect to find them in the same place at the same time. If two weeks have gone by, start looking for them an hour earlier. Many years ago people noticed that the stars seemed to be in different places from time to time, so they believed that the stars were circling our earth. Now scientists know that as the earth moves in its orbit around the sun, different areas of the sky are revealed. The North Star is the only star in the Northern Hemisphere that does not move as clusters of stars circle around it.
Some people also began to wonder what might lie beyond the stars that they could see. As they studied the stars, they came to believe that the universe, the space around them, was composed of billions of star groups and each of these groups also contained billions of stars. Some scientists wondered, could there be even more stars? Could there be another universe beyond this one?
WORDS to KNOW
UNIVERSE: The universe is everything around us as far as the eye can see. It contains stars, galaxies, planets, space, and us. Some people think there are other universes that go on beyond the one where we live.
Long Ago
If you find it hard to believe that there are so many stars in the universe, just think about the number of people that live on our world. You know there are only a few people in your family and not many people live in your hometown. When you watch television, you see there are many people in other countries around the world, but does it seem possible that there are billions of people on our world since you never see all of them? Did you ever ride in a plane and as it flew higher and higher, discover how much more of the world you could see? It was always there, just like our universe, but you couldnât see it! If you asked a grownup why the plane stayed up in the air, he might have told you how he thought it worked or joked about his super powers holding it up there! You wouldnât believe that story or myth, but people living thousands of years ago believed that their gods were controlling everything here on Earth and in the skies. Some thought that a god rode the sun as it traveled across the sky; others named the stars and planets after their gods, and even referred to them as âheavenly bodies,â as many people still do today. Each country developed its own myths. Some even made up stories about the shapes formed by the clusters of stars in the
Before you are through, you can take a trip to the far side of the moon, discover what makes Neptune so stormy, and explore the world of the extraterrestrial to see why some people think aliens could exist. It will be easy to impress your friends and family as you learn how to locate stars and the many other things in the sky. Everyone will enjoy tasting a part of space when you make an edible planet. And who wouldnât like spending some time outside under the stars? So get out your blanket, find a pair of binoculars, and join in the fun of unraveling the mysteries of space!
Chapter 1
The Universe and Beyond
O ne of the first songs many children learn to sing is âTwinkle, Twinkle Little Star,â but have you ever thought about the second line in the song: âHow I wonder what you are?â Long before you knew what a star really was, you could see them shining in the sky at night. If you have ever tried to count all those stars, you probably guessed that there were a few hundred of them.
FUN FACT
Can You Name These Tunes?
Did you know that the song âTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Starâ has the same tune as the Alphabet song? For fun you could hum the tune and ask different people what song they think it is.
More Than Meets the Eye
One way to count all the stars in the universe would be to count so many each night, but donât expect to find them in the same place at the same time. If two weeks have gone by, start looking for them an hour earlier. Many years ago people noticed that the stars seemed to be in different places from time to time, so they believed that the stars were circling our earth. Now scientists know that as the earth moves in its orbit around the sun, different areas of the sky are revealed. The North Star is the only star in the Northern Hemisphere that does not move as clusters of stars circle around it.
Some people also began to wonder what might lie beyond the stars that they could see. As they studied the stars, they came to believe that the universe, the space around them, was composed of billions of star groups and each of these groups also contained billions of stars. Some scientists wondered, could there be even more stars? Could there be another universe beyond this one?
WORDS to KNOW
UNIVERSE: The universe is everything around us as far as the eye can see. It contains stars, galaxies, planets, space, and us. Some people think there are other universes that go on beyond the one where we live.
Long Ago
If you find it hard to believe that there are so many stars in the universe, just think about the number of people that live on our world. You know there are only a few people in your family and not many people live in your hometown. When you watch television, you see there are many people in other countries around the world, but does it seem possible that there are billions of people on our world since you never see all of them? Did you ever ride in a plane and as it flew higher and higher, discover how much more of the world you could see? It was always there, just like our universe, but you couldnât see it! If you asked a grownup why the plane stayed up in the air, he might have told you how he thought it worked or joked about his super powers holding it up there! You wouldnât believe that story or myth, but people living thousands of years ago believed that their gods were controlling everything here on Earth and in the skies. Some thought that a god rode the sun as it traveled across the sky; others named the stars and planets after their gods, and even referred to them as âheavenly bodies,â as many people still do today. Each country developed its own myths. Some even made up stories about the shapes formed by the clusters of stars in the
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