stargazing

This is now my space experience….

As you might remember, I mentioned that we went stargazing at San Mateo. The people there were from the Orange County Astronomy Club. They had really high tech telescopes set up for us to use. They would type the coordinates of a star and the telescope would turn itself and find that star in the sky. Then we would look through the telescope and see things that we couldn't see with our naked eye. Some of the things we saw through the telescopes were: Jupiter and 4 of its moons (Jupiter has over 60 moons!), a star that was flashing rainbow colors, nebulas, and a flashing blue and silver star. Without a telescope we could see the Big Dipper, the Milky Way, Cassiopeia (it looks like a big W), Polaris (the North Star), Jupiter, and a satellite that was going really fast across the sky. We also went to a science presentation and learned that Pluto is no longer a planet. Why? Because scientists have found a bigger planet beyond Pluto, so if Pluto is a planet then scientists would have to name 53 other plants. Those other 53 planets are called dwarf planets so now Pluto is called a dwarf planet. Another thing I learned is that our galaxy is flat like a pancake. It is 90 light-years thick. Light-year is just a scientific way of measuring things in outer space. The definition of light-years is if something is 3 light-years away and we could travel at the speed of light, it would take us 3 years to get there. Jupiter is the biggest planet and it is entirely made out of gas. Jupiter makes a full revolution in only 10 hours while Earth takes 24 ¼ hours to make a full turn. A Nova is a new born star that is created from a nebula. That is so cool to think that when we went stargazing we saw a nebula and it is possible that we saw a new star being created out there! When a new star is born it is a reddish-pinkish sort of color. A Supernova is a dying star and when it dyes it's an explosion that lasts for 13 days then disappears. I also learned the difference between an asteroid and a comet. The difference is that a comet is made out of ice and rock and an asteroid is made out of rock and iron. To find out more about space, look at these websites: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/asteroidfact.html this is facts http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071003.html -A cool video about the sun and a comet http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html -space picture of the day! I got so exited about space so I went to the Irvine Public Library and got a book called Find the Constellations and here is some of the facts I leaned: Sun: -The sun is 865,000 miles across Mercury: - 3000 miles across - 36 million miles from the sun - 88 Earth days = 1 Mercury year - Mercury has no satellites and no atmosphere Venus: - 7575 miles across - 72 million miles from the sun - Thick clouds, dense atmosphere, 800 degrees Fahrenheit - 225 Earth days = 1 Venus year - No satellites Earth: - 93 million miles from the sun - 7926 miles across Earths Moon: - 2160 miles across - 240,000 miles from the Earth Mars: - 140 million miles from the sun - 4215 miles across - Thin atmosphere, very cold -150 degrees Fahrenheit - 687 days = 1 Mars year - 2 moons no more then 10 miles across Jupiter: - 484 million miles from the sun - 89,000 miles across - Over 60 moons - 12 Earth years = 1 Jupiter year Saturn: - 887,000 million miles from the sun - 75,000 miles across - 17 moons - 30 Earth years = 1 Saturn year Uranus: - 1784 million miles from the sun - 30,000 miles across - 5 moons X 9 rings - 84 Earth years = 1 Uranus year Neptune: - 2796 million miles from the sun - 27,000 miles across - 3 moons - 165 Earth years = 1 Neptune year Pluto (now a dwarf planet): - 37,00 million miles from the sun - 1400 miles across - One moon - 250 Earth years = 1 Pluto year