SPACE
WHAT IS SPACE ?
Space is everything in the universe beyond the top of the
Earth’s atmosphere. It contains of Galaxy, the Moon, the seven
planets, where the GPS satellites orbit, other stars, the Milky
Way, black holes, and distant quasars. it’s the near-vacuum
otherwise known as the interplanetary medium, the interstellar
medium, the inter-galactic medium, the intra-cluster medium,
etc; in other words, it’s very low density gas or plasma (‘space
physics’ is, in fact, just a branch of plasma physics!).
FACTS ABOUT STARS
• There are 9,096 stars visible to
the naked eye in the entire sky.
To see more, you have to use a
telescope to reveal stars fainter
than your eyes can see.
• You can only see about 2,000
stars on a very dark night with
the naked eye from any given
place on Earth. To do this, you
need to observe on a moonless
night and be far away from
sources of light pollution.
• Astronomers estimate there are a
trillion stars in the Milky Way
Galaxy.
FACTS ABOUT
TERRESTIAL PLANETS
• The terrestrial planets in our solar
system orbit relatively close to
the Sun, this gives them their
other name; the “Inner Planets”
• Earth is the most hospitable to
life. Mars may have supported
life in the past, but there is no
evidence that conditions have
ever been life-friendly on Mercury
or Venus.
• Each of the terrestrial planets has
a central core made mostly of
iron. The layer above the core is
called the “mantle” and is usually
made of silicate rocks. These are
rocks rich in silicon and oxygen.
The terrestrial planets are also
sometimes referred to as the
“rocky” planets.
FACTS ABOUT THE MOON
The Moon has only been walked on by 12
people; all American men.
•
The first man to set foot on the Moon in
1969 was Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11
mission, while the last man to walk on the
Moon in 1972 was Gene Cernan on the
Apollo 17 mission. Since then the Moon
has only be visited by unmanned vehicles.
The Moon has no atmosphere.
•
This means that the surface of the Moon is
unprotected from cosmic rays, meteorites
and solar winds, and has huge
temperature variations. The lack of
atmosphere means no sound can be heard
on the Moon, and the sky always appears
black.
The Moon has quakes.
• These are caused by the gravitational pull
of the Earth. Lunar astronauts used
seismographs on their visits to the Moon,
and found that small moonquakes
occurred several kilometres beneath the
surface, causing ruptures and cracks.
Scientists think the Moon has a molten
FIRST DOG IN SPACE
INDIA’S FIRST WOMEN ASTRONAUT