Astronomy

Science Snippet: Explore Jupiter Jupiter is much farther away than Mars. Despite this, it is currently close to 40 times brighter. In fact, Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky after the sun, the moon, and Venus. How can Jupiter be so much brighter than Mars? Jupiter is much larger than Mars. In […]

Science Snippet: Explore Mars Anyone who completed my astronomy challenge last year should remember Mars as a brilliant red “star”. But if you try to find Mars now, it won’t look the same; it is over six times dimmer than it was in December. Mars is not very large. It is only about half the

Science Snippet: Explore Mercury Mercury is a difficult planet to observe. It is the smallest planet and it is currently over 121 million miles away. But that is not why Mercury is hard to see. While Mercury may be small for a planet, it is not that small. It is slightly larger than the moon.

Science Snippet: Explore The Sun Our Sun is the closest star; the Earth and all the other planets are in orbit around it. All life on Earth depends on its warmth and light; without it, the Earth would be a frozen wasteland. Let’s learn more about our star and its influence on our solar system.

Science Snippet: Explore Venus At the time of my last post, Venus was 65 million miles away. Now it has come closer and is only about 60 million miles away. Imagine that you start walking down the Pacific coast of North America. When you’ve traveled along the whole coast from north to south go a