EARTH-Home Planet … ORBIT-Earth from Space

Earth, third planet from the Sun, developed the right environment for life to evolve in the oceans, green plants to produce breathable air, and humankind to flourish. Orbiting satellites help predict weather (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, drought) and more. Telecommunication and navigation devices utilize satellites for many important functions.

MOON-Our Partner in Space … JAW DROP-Eclipses and Auroras

Earth's moon was probably formed when a body the size of Mars collided twice with the planet. Our moon is steadily receding into Space; eventually, due to the loss of this lunar regulator, Earth will start to wobble creating climate chaos. Eclipses can be seen; the Sun obscures the Moon or vise versa. Another light show, the Aurora, occurs when electrified particles from the solar wind interact with Earth's upper atmosphere, is visible particularly in the Polar Regions.

SUN-Powerhouse of the Solar System … GALAXY-Our Milky Way

It's a nuclear reactor losing four million tons of mass every second, enough energy to keep the Sun blazing for another five billion years. Solar wind is a stream of electrically charged particles. Twists in the magnetic field trigger gigantic eruptions that change wind to storm. In five billion years time, the Sun will bloat into a red giant and die as a white dwarf. Of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the nearest star is Alpha Centauri, 4.25 light years away.

RED PLANET-Mars … QUEST-The search for Extra Terrestrial Life

The Martian day is a comfortable 24.5 hours long. Dust storms, freezing temperatures and the biggest volcano in the Solar System make Mars unique. Recent probes have confirmed that water once flowed on this arid planet. On Europa, a moon of Jupiter, the possibility of life is being explored. In a Martian ocean beneath an icy surface, bacteria-like organisms could feed on volcanic vents, like those in the Pacific Ocean.

ASTEROID-The Threat … JUPITER-The King Planet

Jupiter is the largest planet is our solar system. It is a ball of gas with no solid surface. Regal Jupiter is orbited by more than 60 moons of which four are large enough to be small planets. Between Mars and Jupiter is the asteroid belt. Every so often, asteroids collide and tumble towards the Sun, if they pass Mars,
they can be drawn towards Earth, sometimes colliding. Sixty-five million years ago an asteroid impact most may have killed the dinosaurs.

SATURN-Ringed Planet … OUTER GAS GIANTS-Uranus/ Neptune

Second largest of the gas planets, Saturn rules a dazzling domain. Its famous rings are billions of moon-lets range from the size of tanks to grains of dust. The planet is so light it would float in water, and its largest moon Titan is bigger than Mercury. Uranus is twice as far from the Sun as Saturn while Neptune is Science Discovery so distant it takes 165 years to orbit the Sun. Uranus rotates on its side, possibly knocked over in a collision while Triton, Neptune's only large moon is the coldest place in the Solar System.

Pluto—Farthest Planet … & Comet—Visitors from Space

Pluto: Long considered as the most distant planet from the sun, Pluto is so small it was not discovered until 1930. It was identified by Clyde Tombaugh, who photographed 45 million objects in the process–and it was not until 1978 that Pluto’s huge moon Charon was discovered by Jim Christy.
COMET: The nomads of the solar system, comets swing through the planets on wild eccentric orbits. Comets plunge into the sun, others swing ‘round it like Halley’s Comet which completes a vast elliptical orbit once every 76 years. Comets are from the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, a great halo of debris that envelops the solar system and stretches a third of the way to the nearest star.

Discovery—History of Astronomy … & Night Sky—Navigating the Constellations

DISCOVERY: A thumbnail history–from the ancients of Babylon and China to the Egyptians who created today’s calendar and the Greek, Eratosthenes, who worked out that the earth is round. In the 16th Century Copernicus reasoned that the planets orbit the sun and, early the following century, Galileo first used a telescope on the sky. Isaac Newton improved it–and described the effects of gravity. Last century, Edwin Hubble revealed an ever-expanding Universe—into which today we peer ever deeper.
NIGHT SKY: Discovering the stars and the 88 constellations of the night sky. A beginner’s guide to using vivid and easily recognizable patterns–like Orion, the Hunter, and Ursa Major, the Great Bear–as signposts in the heavens. Why the position of stars changes a little at night and a lot season by season. Why different places see different skies.

High Hopes—Space Stations … & Whither? —Manned Spaceflight

HIGH HOPES: A review of the International Space Station (ISS) currently being assembled, and its forerunners.
WHITHER: The story of humans in space. With the German Werner von Braun launching American rocketry and Sergei Korolev masterminding the Soviet space program, the Russians put the first cosmonaut in space and the Americans the first astronaut on the moon. Then came America’s Space Shuttle and the development of orbiting space stations, largely by the Russians.

Telescope—New Eyes on the Cosmos … & X-Ray—Invisible Astronomy

TELESCOPE: For well over 15 years, free from the distortions of Earth’s atmosphere, the Hubble Space Telescope has collected breathtaking images of the cosmos with remarkable clarity. Now, ground-based telescopes are fighting back. They are combining the sight of several instruments and correcting atmospheric shimmer.
X-RAY: Much of the cosmos cannot be seen through optical telescopes. But it can be detected in wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from gamma-rays, through X-rays and ultra-violet to infra-red and radio. They reveal cauldrons of starbirth, exploding stars, neutron stars and black holes.

Zero to Zillions—Theory of the Big Bang … Black Holes—Cosmic Vanishing Acts

ZERO TO ZILLIONS: How the Universe exploded from an infinitesimal speck to create matter, radiation, time and space. In the first trillion-trillion-trillionth of a second, the cosmos grew a hundred million times to less than the size of an atom. Then, in another instant, the Universe was the size of a galaxy. Now, 14 billion years later and strung along vast filaments, the Universe has some 50 billion galaxies that continue to expand as stars within them are born, live and die.
BLACK HOLES: Black holes occur when a massive star dies. As its outer layers cascade into space, the core collapses to beyond the visible. It becomes a voracious gravitational trap from which nothing, not even light, escapes. Black holes can be detected by bright surrounding disks—material swirling to the event horizon and oblivion. But at the brink, some material hits a shockwave and shoots at right angles from the disk blasting out vast jets and plumes.

Far Out—Measuring the Universe … & Yonder to Infinity—End of the Universe

FAR OUT: Scaling and measuring the cosmos. How far is a star or a galaxy? Distances are so vast they are described in light years – the distance light travels in a year. Nearby stars are measured by trigonometry—the technique of parallax. Farther out, astronomers use so-called “standard candles”.
YONDER TO INFINITY: Rather than slowing down, the expansion of the cosmos seems to be speeding up. The 50 billion galaxies thought to comprise the Universe are moving farther and farther part. As energy runs out, the ultimate prospect is cold, dark and lonely. Intriguingly, other universes may exist. But, within our own, we have yet to understand the nature of mysterious dark energy and dark matter—together believed to comprise 96 percent of the Universe.