EX T
&
AC
TR IVI
AC TIE
T S
THE MYSTERIES
OF THE
E X P L O R E T H E U N I V E R S E PA C K
The Solar T he Sun sits at the centre of an enormous family of objects that
whirl around it as they all move through the Milky Way.
System
Together, this extraordinary collection is known as the Solar System.
It includes the eight main planets and their moons, and also a
fascinating array of smaller worlds like Pluto and Ceres. It’s also
home to asteroids and comets – these objects are tiny compared
to planets like Earth, but they swarm around the Sun in vast numbers.
There may be another world orbiting at a
huge distance from the Sun – we just
haven’t discovered it yet!
Pluto
The Sun
Saturn
Ceres Mars
Mercury Earth
Venus
Path of orbit
Jupiter
Asteroid Belt
Uranus Neptune
The Kuiper Belt
Imagine if we found another planet orbiting our Sun! Content from: The Mysteries of the Universe
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The Pillars of Creation are
found in the Eagle Nebula, about
5,870 light-years from Earth.
The Pillars
of Creation
The Pillars
of Creation
T he billowing clouds of dust and gas where stars form don’t last
forever. They are gradually sculpted and eventually destroyed by
particle-filled winds and the harsh light produced by the stars around
them – often the very ones they gave birth to.
The spectacular Pillars of Creation, in the constellation Serpens, give
us a glimpse of this extraordinary process in action. The name comes
from their location within an enormous stellar nursery called the Eagle
Nebula, and the fact that there is a smattering of baby stars
cocooned inside them. These dense fingers of gas and dust will
ultimately break up and drift out into the galaxy, their glowing
forms and swirling shapes never to be seen again. In this image,
the green is nitrogen
and hydrogen, the
red is sulphur, and
the blue is oxygen.
Nebulas are gigantic clouds of dust and gas scattered throughout the galaxy. Content from: The Mysteries of the Universe
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Stars
E very night, the sky glitters with the light of countless twinkling
stars. They appear as tiny points to us only because they are so
far away. If we could travel to explore them up close we’d see that
they are, like our Sun, blazing balls that shine as matter fuses, or joins
together, inside them.
Since the stars are so distant, it takes a long time for their light to
reach us. For example, the light we see now from the middle star in
Orion’s Belt, Alnilam, started its journey almost 2,000 years ago.
When you look at the sparkling night sky, you’re actually gazing
deep into the past. Isn’t that amazing?
Stars can have life-spans of
billions of years!
This group of stars
was photographed
by the Hubble
Space Telescope.
Once you’ve read this page, take a look up at the night sky. Content from: The Mysteries of the Universe
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Create Your
Own Cosmos!
A fter reading the previous pages, have a
go at creating your very own universe!
When you’re ready, start drawing planets, stars,
black holes and more in the space on this page!
If you are stuck for ideas, have a read below about
more of the wonderful things found in our universe.
Black Holes: The most mysterious
objects in the universe! These warp
the space around them with such
a strong gravitational pull even
light itself is dragged into them!
Exo-planets: These are planets
that orbit a star other than our sun.
There are thousands of different
exoplanets out there!
Supernova: Sometimes
a star can explode in a
violent blast. Astronomers
call this spectacular event
a supernova!
Galaxies: Our Sun is one
of billions of stars that swirl
through space in an enormous
gathering known as a galaxy.
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