Astronomy For Kids
Astronomy is a serious science. Many people get involved with it when they are very young. There are a lot of resources for astronomy for kids who are interested in the planets, the solar system, the universe and everything else that’s part of this exciting science. Movies like Star Wars only serve to increase this attraction.
The Earth’s closest neighbor is the moon. It orbits our planet once every 27.3 days. Being so near, it has hosted the only human footsteps on a space object other than the Earth. Gravity between the moon and Earth causes the tides. It’s brightness in the night sky attracts many children to learn more about it and the overall subject of astronomy.
Let’s move to the sun. Earth is quite far from the sun. The distance fluctuates between about 91 million miles and about 94 million miles. The reason for the variance is Earth’s elliptical orbit. Without the sun there would be no life on Earth. Important elements such as light and heat come from the sun. Most people don’t realize that the sun accounts for around 98% of all the mass in the solar system. What a hog.
Our own galaxy is the Milky Way. Like all other galaxies it’s a collection of gas, dust, stars and planets. Most of the area in a galaxy is filled with nothing, just empty space. At over 100,000 light years wide and 3,000 light years high, that means the galaxy contains a whole lot of nothing. Our sun is over 30,000 light years from the center of the galaxy. Even with all that space there are about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. In fact the galaxy was named for the thick group of stars in the main portion of it. From Earth it looks like a Milky Way, a large pool of milk. There are four types of galaxies – elliptical, lenticular, irregular and like the Milky Way, spiral.
You can find a wealth of resources for astronomy for kids on the world wide web. Kids could spend hours wrapped in detailed 3D representations of the universe around us.
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