Puzzles, Experiments, and Amazing Facts Journey Through our Solar System and Beyond! Kids Ages 7 -12
2 4 Birth of the Solar System 6 The Sun: our nearest star 12 Welcome to the inner Solar System 14 Mercury: the speedy planet 20 Venus: Earth’s “evil twin” 26 Earth: our home planet 32 Comets: dirty snowballs 34 Meteors and meteorites 36 The Moon: our closest companion 40 Mars: the Red Planet 46 You’re now leaving the inner Solar System 48 The asteroid belt: the leftovers 50 Welcome to the outer Solar System 52 Jupiter: the giant planet 58 Saturn: the Ringed Planet 64 Uranus: topsy-turvy world 70 Neptune: far-out windy world 76 Pluto: the dwarf with a heart 82 Dwarf planets: Pluto’s siblings 86 The Kuiper Belt: our frozen backyard 88 Farewell, outer Solar System 90 The Oort Cloud: where icy comets live 92 Solar System experiments 96 Fun facts 6 14 What’s ins de
Scan the QR code with your device’s camera or download a free QR code reader app. Many iPhone and Android devices include these features When you see the “Scan with your phone or tablet” prompt, use your phone to scan the QR code, which looks like this Hold your mobile device over the image and watch it come to life! Your device needs to be connected to the internet for this to function INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE 3 20 26 36 52 70 88 58
OUR SOLAR SYSTEM: HOW WAS IT BORN? T he Solar System is the Sun and everything that goes around it: eight planets and their many moons, thousands of smaller bodies called dwarf planets and asteroids, millions of icy objects called comets, and billions of grains of dust. The Solar System is a huge place, but compared to the size of the entire universe it is almost unimaginably tiny. If you picture the universe as an enormous country, like the United States, then our Solar System is just one street in one of its cities, and Earth is one of the houses on that street. We know that most of the stars we see out in space have at least one planet, and many have their own systems of several planets, but our Solar System is special to us because it is our home. It was born almost 5 billion years ago when a massive cloud of dust and gas drifting through space began to collapse, maybe after it was jumbled by the passing shock wave of an exploding star. The cloud got smaller and denser in the middle, and hotter too, until eventually a new star burst into life – a star we now call the Sun. But there was lots of gas and dust left over, and as it whirled around the baby Sun in a ring, like a huge dusty doughnut, it gathered into smaller clouds, which collapsed to form the planets, including Earth. It took a long time for all of the worlds to settle down and take up the positions we see them in today. We have now sent space probes out to explore all the planets in our Solar System – and many of its moons, asteroids and comets too – but there are so many fascinating things in our solar neighborhood that we’ll probably never see them all. 4 4. The Leftovers The Sun gobbled up 99 percent of all the material in the cloud, but there was still a lot of gas and dust left. It formed smaller clumps inside the spinning disc. 1. In The Beginning… 4.6 billion years ago, a dark cloud of cold gas and dust began to collapse. JUPITER PLUTO EARTH WET GASSY ICY WHAT ARE THE PLANETS LIKE? Draw a line to the word that best describes the planet An AU is known as an astronomical unit and we use it to measure distances in space. It is equal to 149 million kilometers or 93 million miles WHAT IS AN AU?
OUR SOLAR SYSTEM: HOW WAS IT BORN? 5 3. A Star s orn The heat, density, and pressure in the center of the cloud all became so high that nuclear reactions began. A new star was born: our Sun! 2. Under Pressure As it shrank, the spinning cloud flattened into a disc and grew denser and hotter in the middle. 5. A Family of ffllanets These clumps became the planets, moons, asteroids, and comets which make up our Solar System. Make your own Solar System • A yard stick or long tape measure • A big outdoor space, like a school playground or playing field – don’t try this on a windy day! • Paper, pencil, and black marker • A large glass or small bowl for you to draw around • Scissors • Eight friends to hold your planets, or you can set the worlds down on the ground after you measure the distance from the Sun 1 Using the pencil, draw around the outside of the bowl or glass to make nine circles – since this scale model only shows the distances between the planets, it doesn’t matter that they’re all the same size. 2 Label the circles “Sun,” ”Mercury,” ”Venus,” ”Earth,” ”Mars,” ”Jupiter,” ”Saturn,” ”Uranus,” and ”Neptune” with the marker pen before cutting them out carefully. 3 Position yourself as the Sun and then give each of your friends a cut-out planet to hold. 4 Have your friends walk away from you to the distances given in the table. Your friends holding the inner planets will be very close together because those planets are close – in cosmic terms, anyway. 5 Once everyone is in position, hold up your planets so you can see the amazing scale of the Solar System. Look how close together the inner planets are and how far away – and how far apart – the outer planets are! WHAT YOU’LL NEED STEPS To be safe, make sure you have some adults on hand to help you with cutting BE CAREFUL! AVERAGE DISTANCE FROM SUN MODEL DISTANCE FROM “SUN’ 0.39 AU 39 centimeters 1.5 AU 1.6 yards 0.72 AU 72 centimeters 5.2 AU 5.6 yards 1 AU 1 yard 9.5 AU 10.3 yards 19.2 AU 21 yards PLANET Mercury Mars Venus Jupiter Earth Saturn Uranus Neptune 30.1 AU 33 yards TRY IT OUT! TRY IT OUT!
T he Sun is an enormous ball of gas, so huge everything else in the Solar System could fit inside it. It shines so brightly in the sky because it is very hot – on its surface the temperature is 9,941 degrees Fahrenheit, and in the middle it is even hotter, about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit! The Sun lies in the center of our Solar System and is by far the biggest and most important thing in it. All the planets, asteroids, and comets orbit the Sun. Our star gives us all the light and heat we need to live here on Earth. The Sun is a star. When you see stars in the sky at night, you’re looking at other suns – they’re just so far away out in space they look like tiny points of light. If you flew to a planet in orbit around one of those stars and looked back at our Sun, it would just be a tiny star twinkling in the night sky. The Sun was born around 4.7 billion years ago and formed out of a huge spinning cloud of dust and gas. The planets all formed out of what was left over. Unfortunately, the Sun won’t last forever: stars are born, live their lives, and eventually die. When the Sun reaches the end of its time, it will swell up like a huge red balloon and then collapse down to a dead, cold ball – but that won’t happen for another 5 billion years or so, so don’t cancel any vacations–and you’ll still have to do your homework! 6 THE SUN: OUR NEAREST STAR JUPITER BETELGEUSE SIRIUS RIGEL Now that you know the differences, can you spot the object that isn’t a star? WHICH ONE IS THE ODD ONE OUT? Stars are huge balls of gas that shine brightly because they are so hot. Planets are smaller and go around stars, reflecting their light HOW ARE STARS AND PLANETS DIFFERENT? Photosphere The surface of the Sun we see from Earth. It often has dark magnetic storms on it, which are called sunspots. Chromosphere A transparent layer of very hot gas above the Sun’s surface. Temperatures here can reach almost 8,100 degrees Fahrenheit! Corona The Sun’s “atmosphere.” It is extremely hot, almost a million degrees, but is so faint it can only be seen during an eclipse. © Getty Source: Wiki/ Dave Jarvis Source: Wiki/ Dave Jarvis © Getty
THE SUN: OUR NEAREST STAR 7 It’s hard to imagine just how enormous the Sun is because it is so much bigger than Earth. It is much easier if you compare it to something bigger than our planet, like Jupiter. Jupiter is the biggest planet in our Solar System. If it was hollow, like an Easter egg, Earth would fit inside it a thousand times. And the Sun is so big that Jupiter would fit inside it a thousand times – so a million Earths would fit inside the Sun! HOW BIG IS THE SUN? HOW AN ECLIPSE HAPPENS HOW Inner Core The very dense center of the Sun where nuclear reactions occur, creating heat and light. Radiative Zone Energy and particles from the core flow through this densely packed zone very slowly. Convection Zone The gas in this zone bubbles and churns slowly, like water boiling in a kettle. Scan with your phone or tablet https://youtu.be/jxanWTR8-yM
MERCURY BRAIN TEASERS 18 HOW QUICKLY CAN YOU WORK OUT THE SPEEDY PLANET’S PUZZLES? ALIENS ON MERCURY Use the hints below to draw an alien that would be able to survive on this tiny planet HOW MANY MERCURYS? 18 little Mercurys can fit inside the volume of Earth. There are six Mercurys below – what number would you assign to them to equal 18? + + + + + =18 • The sunlight on Mercury is very strong and dangerous, so an alien would need to protect its eyes… • Because the rocky ground on Mercury is so hot, an alien would need to prevent its feet from being burned… • There is no air to breathe on Mercury, so an alien would have to carry its own air… • There is no water to drink on Mercury, so an alien would have to carry water with it and recycle what it uses… • The temperature on Mercury can be dangerously high, so an alien would need to find a way to stay cool… © NASA © NASA Answer: 3
MERCURY: BRAIN TEASERS 19 TRUE OR FALSE? MERCURY IS THE FARTHEST PLANET FROM THE SUN MERCURY TAKES 880 EARTH DAYS TO ORBIT THE SUN MERCURY HAS A HUGE IMPACT CRATER ON ITS SURFACE CALLED THE CALORIS BASIN WORD SEARCH Core, Ice, Craters, Hot, Ridges, Messenger Find the words that describe Mercury in the word search. Can you find all of them? Q J C N AF K R A U U XS I G M O T DS X E U I N BC E M U W X PY A B E A Z UX E Y U M H QE N E R I H GF D A A X C SE P H T I R LR N J S R O AL J H K F D AH S V M M Q AF F E U U W ES C S L N D EB C B S G O EA V C U O Y LE R V A P H IK S J O E E IN T D C R R PY R B O D C XE E A K Z O JG M W U H E IO C T P F O LD G C B T X VN O T M U E EZ E T D U S NJ T N Y A A SW M Ridges, Messenger 2. TURSC DAYS TO ORBIT THE SUN WORD SCRAMBLE 3. ERMGNESSE 1. SCTERRA 5. APEMUTTERER 4. ECOR ANSWERS:.1. CRATERS, 2. CRUST, 3. MESSENGER, 4. CORE, 5. TEMPERATURE All images © Getty © NASA © NASA
24 VENUS BRAIN TEASERS TRY SOLVING THE PUZZLES ABOUT EARTH’S WARMER TWIN © NASA/JPL-Caltech WHICH IS THE ODD ONE OUT? Check out the images of some of the surfaces of different worlds. Which one doesn’t quite fit? A Magellan radar image of the surface of Venus The surface of the Moon, taken during one of the Apollo missions The surface of Mars, taken by the Curiosity rover The surface of Saturn’s moon Titan, as seen by the ESA’s Huygens probe The icy mountains of Pluto, as seen by NASA’s New Horizons space probe The watery surface of Earth, our beautiful home planet A Magellan radar The surface of The surface of The surface of The icy mountains of The watery surface of A B C D E F Venus is home to Maxwell Montes, one of the biggest mountains in the Solar System. But which is the biggest? Maxwell Montes Planet: Venus Height: 6.8 miles Olympus Mons Planet: Mars Height: 13.6 miles Everest Planet: Earth Height: 5.4 miles Venus is home to Maxwell Montes, one of the biggest mountains MOUNTAINS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM ANSWERS: The “odd one out” is Venus – it’s not a real photo, but an image created using radar data taken by the Magellan space probe
VENUS: BRAIN TEASERS 25 COLOR IT IN! Color in the picture of Venus. If you could make it any color, what would it look like? CROSSWORD 1 2 3 5 8 10 12 11 13 6 9 7 4 ACROSS 2 The thick layer of gases surrounding Venus 5 Venus was once thought to be covered with these 7 Number of moons Venus has 8 This flashes in Venus” sky 9 This type of probe might fly on Venus in the future 11 Venus” most popular nickname 12 The first probe to fly past Venus 13 Venus is the ______ planet out from the Sun DOWN 1 A mountain range on Venus 3 Venus” surface is covered in this 4 Series of Russian probes that landed on Venus 6 Venus” atmosphere is mostly this gas 10 This American probe mapped Venus using radar 13 This can’t be seen from the surface of Venus Solve the clues about Venus to fill in the crossword puzzle ANSWERS: 1. Maxwell Montes, 2. Atmosphere, 3. Rock, 4. Venera, 5. Swamps, 6. Carbon dioxide, 7. Zero, 8. Lightning, 9. Balloon, 10. Magellan, 11. The Evening Star, 12. Mariner, 13. Sun (down), Second (across)
Here we are – the outer Solar System! Time to put away our sunglasses and sunscreen because the Sun is now far, far behind us, so far away that our own planet is just an icy-blue star shining in the darkness. It’s much colder and darker out here than it was when we were exploring Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars because the Sun is so much farther away. Planets move much more slowly out here too, taking tens, dozens, or even hundreds of years to go around our star because they aren’t held in place as strongly by its gravity. The planets out here are very different to the worlds closer to the Sun. Jupiter and Saturn are enormous planets made of strange gases, and Uranus and Neptune are made of frozen gas and ice, not solid rock or metal like the worlds found in the inner Solar System. These planets also have lots of moons going around them. Some of them are just as fascinating as the much bigger planets they orbit, with their own valleys, mountains, and even lakes! Out here we’ll also see the smaller dwarf planets, and icy comets with beautiful glowing tails. There’s no sharp edge to the Solar System, just lots of rocky rubble that gets thinner and thinner. The most distant object found so far has been named Farfarout. It is a body around 250 miles across, and is so far from the Sun that it takes over 798 years to complete one orbit! Many astronomers think that there could be large planets hiding in the darkness of the outer Solar System, waiting to be found. 50 WELCOME TO THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM WHICH PLANETS ARE THESE? Unscramble the letters to find the names of the worlds you’ll meet in this chapter ATSRUN EPITRUJ NAURUS NUNPEET TULOP Answers: Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
WELCOME TO THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM 51 © Getty COLOR IT IN! Color in the very famous storms that you’ll meet in this chapter. Make sure to look out for it and make a note of the planet it belongs to. Did you get the shade right? Answers: Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
60 HOW DID SATURN GET ITS RINGS? Out of the four planets in our Solar System that have rings, Saturn’s are by far the biggest and most beautiful. But it hasn’t always had them. We think Saturn’s rings were formed a long time ago when one of its smaller moons either broke apart on its own or was smashed to bits when it was hit by an asteroid or comet. The pieces of ice left over spread out around Saturn to form the rings we see today. They are very broad, extending over 250,000 miles from Saturn, and they can be seen from Earth with even a small telescope, looking like a hoop thrown over the planet. But the rings are really thin – on average only around 65.6 feet thick. Saturn has three main rings and several minor ones, but those main rings are made up of many thousands of very thin rings called ringlets. If you flew right into Saturn’s rings, you’d be surrounded by millions of pieces of ice tumbling around the planet. Some would only be as big as grains of dust, but others would be the size of houses. Small moons called “shepherds” move through gaps in the rings and help them keep their shape. But Saturn’s rings won’t be there forever. They are slowly drifting apart, and in the far future they’ll vanish. We’re lucky to be around when they are at their best! Saturn doesn’t have a Great Red Spot like Jupiter, but it does have a great polar hexagon! This bizarrely shaped storm swirls around the north pole of Saturn all the time… it never stops. SATURN’S POLAR STORM © NASA © Getty
SATURN: THE RINGED PLANET 61 When it was observing the Ringed Planet, the Cassini spacecraft discovered that Saturn’s outer atmosphere was much hotter than its interior. It was actually hotter than Earth’s, which is much closer to the Sun! Use the clue and unscramble the letters to help Cassini to work out what’s making Saturn’s atmosphere really warm Clue: You need this to power your TV and lights CASSINI’S CONUNDRUM Worked it out? Where else can you find this power around your home? List them below! LIAETCERCL CERRTNU 61 WORD SEARCH GAS, STORMS, TITAN, RINGS, CASSINI Find all the Saturn-related words A F C B JL O F H G M KI J X P I C QW N E Z P Y OJ E L K C N OS L J S C F IF N U N S A LN G G P E S FG M H S F T XR T T A K H CI U W S I O XT T E K D K PS A R F L Z OI J I E C M PN D T H A X MM Z X V V S RO P Z Y N M YS A D H L B MD M G B X A FC X I J D N VU A Q O S K XO C N Y U T NQ G K U R B GM X P G H G NH N G T O E OO I R P Q M NG D M G D C JN K Y V J O QG V NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spent more than 13 years orbiting Saturn, studying its moons and rings. It sent back tens of thousands of stunning images before burning up in the planet’s clouds. CASSINI SPACECRAFT© NASA
Puzzles, Experiments, and Amazing Facts Journey Through our Solar System and Beyond! Kids Ages 7 -12 Get Ready to Launch into Outer Space! Journey through the Solar System and explore the planets in our cosmic backyard! Meet Mercury, the fastest planet around our Sun, and get up close with the giant planet of Jupiter and its massive storms. Discover how our Solar System was born and design your own spacecraft to travel to one of the coldest worlds in the known universe. Scan interactive QR codes to watch a comet soar from the space station, a rover land on Mars, how an eclipse happens, and other amazing videos. You’ll also have a blast as you complete puzzles, mazes, word games, brain teasers, coloring pages, and tons of other awesome activities, all while learning about outer space and our amazing Solar System! 9 7 8 1 6 4 1 2 4 3 0 9 4 ISBN: 978-1-64124-309-4 EAN 5 1 1 9 9 $11.99 US | $14.99 CAN