Science Snippet: Explore The Ice Giants Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants; Uranus and Neptune are ice giants. The ice giants both have extremely thick atmospheres made of hydrogen and helium. Uranus has a small amount of methane in its atmosphere as well which gives the planet a blue-green color. Neptune has a dark blue …
To enjoy this content, please join our 5sparrows family. If you can’t afford a donation or monthy support, there is a free registration option. You can also click on the About us link in the menu bar to learn more about us and our project. We look forward to hearing from you. If you are …
Science Snippet: Explore The Moon What object in the solar system is closest to the Earth? The closest object is our moon. On average the moon is 238,900 miles away. That distance is almost ten times the circumference of the Earth. This sounds like a long way, but it’s close compared to the other objects …
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 …
Science Snippet: Upcoming Lunar Events List of upcoming new moon times (All times in Eastern Time) Lunar events Visible in North America through 2024 August 24, 2023: Occultation of Antares for the Central and Mountain Time Zones of the United States. 8:29 PM MDT October 14, 2023: Annular Solar Eclipse (This is a lunar event …
Science Snippet: How Far Can You See? We can’t see objects on earth that are more than a few miles away. Because the earth is curved, our horizon is only about three miles away. But we can see farther than three miles if the object we are viewing is not at ground level or if …
