Lunar Lava Tube

We just learned about Lunar Soil.

A while back we learned how lava tubes on earth are tunnels underground formed by lava channels.

There are also lava tubes on the moon!

Scientists think they could make great places for astronauts to live if we ever have people stay on the moon.


(from: wikipedia - lunar lava tube)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Lunar Soil

We just learned about Lunar Impact Craters.

The dust, dirt and broken rocks on the moon are called lunar soil, or regolith.

When the Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon, their boots left footprints in the soil.

(from: wikipedia - lunar soil)

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Ranger 4 - First American spacecraft on the moon

Lunar impact craters

We just learned about the big long ditches on the moon called Lunar Grabens.

Lunar impact craters are large circle shaped things on the moon that almost look like big empty swimming pools.

They were created by smaller asteroids that crashed into the moon and left marks there.


(from: wikipedia - impact crater)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Luna 2 - First spacecraft on the moon

Lunar Grabens

We just learned about the Lunar Wrinkle Ridges

Let's keep learning about the Moon!

Another thing you can see on the moon looks like a big long ditch.

This is called a Graben.

One of the grabens on the moon is called Rima Ariadaeus:

(from: wikipedia - geology of the moon)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: First Americans in space - Alan Shepard, John Glenn

Lunar wrinkle ridges

We just learned about Lunar Domes.

Let's keep learning about the moon!

Another thing you can see on the moon look like wrinkled lines.
These are called wrinkle ridges.

If you look inside the crater Letronne, you will see some wrinkled lines that are wrinkle ridges.

(from: wikipedia - geology of the moon)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: First Human in Space - Yuri Gagarin

Lunar Domes

We've learned about the moon's highlands, maria and rille.

What about volcanoes on the moon?

There are no active volcanoes there, but there are some old ones that we call lunar domes.

The lava from the volcanoes is what made the rilles that we already learned about,
and the dark maria areas are from when lava flowed long ago.

The lunar domes look like circle shaped lumps or holes on the moon.

(from: wikipedia - geology of the moon)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Explorer - 1

Moon Rille

We've learned so far about the lunar highlands and maria.

There are long deep marks like grooves on the moon that are called rilles.

(from: wikipedia - rille)



Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Sputnik

Moon - Maria

Let's keep learning about the Moon.

Last time we learned that the bright markings are called lunar highlands.

The dark markings are called the lunar maria.

The maria are darker because the ground there is made up of cooled lava from a long time ago.


(from: wikipedia - geology of the moon)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Hubble Space Telescope

Moon - Highlands

We just learned about the Cat's Eye Nebula.

Let's learn a little more about the Moon!

We've already learned that the moon orbits the earth every 27 days or so.

And we learned about the first moon spacecrafts Luna 2 and Ranger 4 as well as the first people to walk on the moon in the Apollo 11 mission.

But what about the moon itself?

If you look at the moon you'll see that it has bright and dark markings on it.
The bright areas are called the lunar highlands, or terrae.

(from: wikipedia - geology of the moon)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Big & Little Dipper

Cat's Eye Nebula

We've learned about the planetary nebula, and the clownface nebula.

There are even more cool things in space like this!

The Cat's Eye Nebula is actually a planetary nebula with a star inside of it!


(from: wikipedia - cat's eye nebula)

It's over 3,000 light years away, and is part of the constellation of Draco.


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: North Star

Clownface Nebula

We just learned that a planetary nebula is a bunch of burning gas in space that was shot out from a red giant star.

There are some really amazing looking planetary nebulas in outer space,
like the clown face nebula.

(from: wikipedia - eskimo nebula)

It's over 2,000 light years away, and is part of the constellation of Gemini.


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Milky Way

Planetary nebula

A planetary nebula is a bunch of burning glowing gas that was shot out from a red giant star at one point.


(from: wikipedia - planetary nebula)



Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Earth's Seasons

Black hole

We just learned about a star system that has stars spinning around stars.

Let's learn about Black Holes!

A black hole is an area in space that has gravity so strong
it will suck in anything, even light!

(from: wikipedia - black hole)



Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Orbit

Star System

Remember we learned that a planetary system is a star
with a bunch of planets spinning around it, like our solar system.

There are also stars out there that have other stars spinning around them!

We call those star systems


(from: wikipedia - star system)

So far scientists have only discovered star systems with up to 7 stars in them.


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Solar System

Galaxy

A galaxy is a whole bunch of stars and planets all together in one area in space.


(from: wikipedia - galaxy)

Our solar system is in a galaxy called the Milky Way


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Planet Names

Planetary system

We just learned about the Interstellar Cloud.

We learned before that our solar system is our group of planets (like Earth and Mars)
spinning around our star which is called the Sun.

We use the word solar just for our Sun, not for other stars.

For other stars with planets that spin (or revolve) around them,
we use the name planetary system.


(from: wikipedia - planetary system)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Saturn's Rings

Interstellar cloud

We just learned about what a Black Dwarf is.

An interstellar cloud is a big bunch of gas, plasma and dust floating together in space.


(from: wikipedia - interstellar cloud)

Black Dwarf

We've now learned that our Sun is a Yellow Dwarf,
after it burns for 10 billion years it will turn into a Red Giant,
and after it burns for another 1 billion years it will turn into a White Dwarf.

That white dwarf will burn slowly for a very very long time,
over 10 Undecillion years (One undecillion is a 1 with 36 zeroes after it!),
then it will cool down and turn into a Black Dwarf.

That's such a long time, that no actual black dwarfs exist!
Scientists are just pretty sure that's what is going to happen some day.


(from: wikipedia - outer space)

White Dwarf

We've now learned that our Sun is a Yellow Dwarf,
and that after it burns for 10 billion years it will turn into a Red Giant.

After that Red Giant burns for 1 billion years, it will turn into a white dwarf

A White Dwarf is much smaller than a Red Giant or Yellow Dwarf, but very thick.

The big star Sirius A has a very small neighbor Sirius B that is a white dwarf.

It's measurements are:
stellar classification: A1 (white)
luminosity class: V (main sequence, or dwarf)

So we can call it an A1V star, or a white dwarf.

If you look in the picture of Sirius A, you can see a very small white dot
that is the small white dwarf Sirius B.

(from: wikipedia - white dwarf)

Red Giant

We learned last time that our sun is a Yellow Dwarf
and that it will burn for 10 billion years!

But what happens after that 10 billion years?
Well that's a long long way in the future, but once a Yellow Dwarf star burns up
it grows larger and becomes a Red Giant.

The closest Red Giant star to us is Gamma Crucis, it is 88 light years away.
Let's look at it's star measurements:
stellar classification: M3.5 (red)
luminosity class: III (giant)

So we can call it M3.5 III, or a red giant.

(from: wikipedia - red giant)

Red giants can be 4,000 degrees and 100 times larger than our Sun!
They usually last about 1 billion years.