Astronomy is a very serious science, although many people become interested in it when they are quite young. Astronomy is inspiring hobby that can teach children about the sciences in general. A number of astronomical subjects inspire kids and movies like Star Wars and they only serve to increase this attraction.

The Earth’s nearest neighbour is the moon. Its orbit around the Earth takes a little over twenty-seven days to complete. Mankind has only ever set foot on the Earth and the moon. The gravity between the moon and Earth is responsible for the tides. Its brightness in the night sky attracts many children to want to study more about it and the subject of astronomy in general.

Then there’s our sun. Earth is quite far from the sun. The distance fluctuates between about 91 million miles and about 94 million miles, although these measurements are not completely accurate. They are inaccurate measurements, because the Earth orbits the sun is in an uneven ellipse. Life on Earth is only possible because of the sun, because it provides us with important elements such as light and heat. It is not a well-known fact that the sun holds about 98% of all the mass available in the solar system. Think about how small a person is compared to that – it is truly imponderable!

Our planet is in the galaxy called the Milky Way. Like all other galaxies it’s a very large collection of gas, dust, stars and planets. Most of the area in a galaxy is filled with nothing, just empty space. That means that most of its volume, 3,000 light years high by 100,000 light years diameter, the volume of our galaxy, is nothingness.

We’re situated somewhere in the vicinity of 30,000 light years from the central core of our galaxy. The nothingness is broken up by over 100 billion stars. In fact, the galaxy was named for the thick group of stars in the main portion of it.

It looks just like a pool of liquid, which is why it was given the name Milky Way. There are four kinds of galaxies: elliptical, lenticular, irregular and, like the Milky Way, spiral.

There is a great deal of information on astronomy on the Internet that is suitable for children: it ranges from dictionaries and encyclopaedic references to programs that show the orbits of the different planets, solar systems and objects right on the computer’s monitor! In fact, there’s more information out there than a child could ever get through.

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