The Earth is wrapped in a blanket of air called the ‘atmosphere’, which is made up of several layers. About 19-30 kilometres above the Earth is a layer of gas called Ozone, which is a form of oxygen. The Ozone Layer is known as the Troposphere. The troposphere extends up to the stratosphere layer. The […]

The Great Red Spot is a giant, spinning storm in Jupiter’s atmosphere. It is a football-shaped area of storms. It is like a storm on the Earth, but it is much larger. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is twice the size of the Earth. The spot has a high pressure and storms with winds. It is

The Asteroid Belt is located between planets Mars and Jupiter. It was first discovered in 1801. It is disc-shaped. It contains thousands of rocks and debris known as asteroids and some dwarf planets. The asteroids are made of rock and metal. They are irregularly shaped. All these orbit the Sun. Most asteroids are named by

Ganymede is the biggest moon in the entire solar system. It is the moon of Planet Jupiter. Ganymede was discovered in 1610 by astronomer Galileo Galilei. Ganymede’s distance from Jupiter is 1,070,400 kilometres. This moon has a number of layers. Ganymede is without a substantial atmosphere containing oxygen, but not enough to support life. Ganymede

The North Star or Pole Star, called Polaris, is located nearly at the North Pole. Some say it’s the brightest star in the sky. But Polaris ranks only 50th in brightness. The northern pole star is known by various names, including Golden Peg, Evil Star and The Star That Does Not Walk. Finding Polaris is

The Andromeda Galaxy is a large galaxy closest to the Milky Way. It is also known as Messier 31, M 31 or NGC 224. It is one of the few galaxies that can be seen from the Earth. In 4.5 billion years, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are expected to collide. Since it

All objects in the solar system, including the Moon, get their light from the sun. The Moon has no light of its own. It shines because its surface reflects light from the sun. At any time, half of the Earth and half of the Moon are lit by the sun. The brightness of the Moon

Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the Moon. The date was July 21, 1969. After months of practice and preparation, the Apollo 11 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, in 1969. Neil Armstrong had to take over manual control of the landing of Apollo 11 spacecraft. The landing was

The Kuiper Belt is a disc-shaped area of the solar system found further from the Sun than Neptune. This area is filled with many small bodies including comets, asteroids and icy objects. The Kuiper Belt lies near Pluto. This belt has millions of icy comets which circle the Sun very fast. The Kuiper Belt is

The Oort Cloud is a spherical cloud of icy objects. It extends 13,950,000,000,000 miles from the Sun. The Oort Cloud is not really a cloud. It is a mass of comets which circle the Sun at a great distance. The comets in the Oort Cloud circle the Sun in every direction. These objects break the

Space Junk is human-made object orbiting the Earth without a purpose. Scientists say that about 500,000 pieces of Space Junk orbit in the sky. Any time spaceshuttles travel into space, they leave junk behind. It might be tools, old engine parts, fuel tanks or even an astronaut’s gloves. Satellites eventually wear out and stop working.

The East Cape in New Zealand has the world’s first sunrise each and every day. Cape Mulinuu on the small South Pacific island of Samoa is the place to see the sun before it sets every day. Both New Zealand and Samoa are the two countries located closest to each side of the International Date

Stars don’t disappear from the sky. But as the Sun appears in the sky, the sunlight falls on the Earth. Therefore, we are unable to see the tiny stars that we see in the night sky. When the sun is up, the blue colour in sunlight gets scattered all over the atmosphere, turning the sky

The Sun is our nearest star. It is located 1.4 million kilometres away from the Earth at the centre of the solar system. The Sun provides us with light and heat. Light from the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach the Earth. From the Earth, the Sun looks like it moves across the sky. This

A comet is a big ball of ice, dust and rock. The word ‘comet’ comes from the Greek word meaning ‘hair of the head’. It came from the Greek philosopher Aristotle who observed comets as ‘stars with hair’. Comets come from two major areas of our solar system: the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud.