Astronomy can be a life long pursuit. And as with many things, even very serious things, people often get an early start. This exciting science can provide hours of learning, that’s why astronomy for kids is popular. For children, many parts of astronomy are magical and thus a huge draw. Movies like Star Wars only serve to increase this attraction.
The moon is Earth’s only satellite. Its path around the Earth takes just over twenty seven days to complete. Mankind has only ever walked on the Earth and the moon. The moon is important for the Earth because it causes the tides through gravitational forces between the Earth and the moon. It’s brightness in the night sky attracts many children to learn more about it and the overall subject of astronomy.
Then there’s our sun. The sun is a long way away from us. The distance fluctuates between about 91 million miles and about 94 million miles. It’s not an inaccurate measurement, it’s because the Earth orbits in an uneven ellipse. If there were no sun, we wouldn’t be alive. Our light and heat comes 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. Just as other galaxies, ours contains gas and clouds of dust, stars and planets and other space materials. Even with all this stuff to fill it, it’s mostly empty. At over 100,000 light years wide and 3,000 light years high, that means the galaxy contains a whole lot of nothing. The center of our galaxy is about 30,000 light years from Earth. The nothingness is broken up by over 100 billion stars. The galaxy’s name comes from the many stars near the center. From Earth it looks like a Milky Way, a large pool of milk. Our galaxy is called a spiral galaxy as opposed to the other three main types which are elliptical, lenticular and irregular.
Astronomy for kids is well covered online. From dictionaries and encyclopedic references, to programs that show different planets, solar systems and objects right on the computer, there’s more information than a kid would ever read.