Kathi Wagner - Everything Kids Astronomy Book

Avon, Massachusetts

DIRECTOR OF INNOVATION Paula Munier

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Laura M. Daly

EXECUTIVE EDITOR,series books Brielle K. Matson

ASSOCIATE COPY CHIEF Sheila Zwiebel

ACQUISITIONS EDITOR Kerry Smith

DEVELOPMENT EDITOR Katie McDonough

PRODUCTION EDITOR Casey Ebert

Copyright 2008, F+W Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews and photocopies made for classroom use.

An Everything Series Book.
Everything and everything.com are registered trademarks of F+W Publications, Inc.

Published by Adams Media, an F+W Publications Company
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN 10: 1-59869-544-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-59869-544-1

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the
American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. When those designations appear in this book and Adams Media was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

Cover illustrations by Dana Regan.
Interior illlustrations by Kurt Dolber.
Puzzles by Beth L. Blair.

See the entire Everything series at www.everything.com.

Contents

DEDICATION

To Marcia, who believes.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Mrs. Blomstedt for taking the time to share the skies,
and for quenching our endless thirst for knowledge.

Introduction

Blast off to a new world with The Everything Kids Astronomy Book! Every chapter offers a new adventure with places never before touched by humans and others that have never been seen, yet they are all out there just waiting for you. Page by page you can discover what lies beyond the world you know so well, and maybe even who might be out there, if anyone. So grab a friend and prepare to launch your way to nearby planets or faraway galaxies.

Will you choose to go where no one else dares to go, like the mysterious black holes and potential time warps? Or how about taking an eighty-year journey with a comet? Maybe you can solve all the unanswered questions of time and space and why light travels the way that it does. There are tons of activities to explore space and to see how it feels to float free of gravity. Your journey into space starts inside this book where you and your family and friends will find games and activities that will challenge your mind and your skills as astronomers and astronauts. Together you can cook up edible planets, create your own black holes, and possibly invent a new type of candy bar. Or maybe you will want to invent your own alien or become stars. Who knows, you may be the one to solve the mystery of dark matter or find where the universe starts or stops.

In the pages of this book you will find information on how to build your own sky-watching kit and how to change your room into a small universe. You can also find out why people thought the sun circled the earth and how they discovered the truth. Each chapter is jam-packed with plenty of questions you can use to stump your friends while you explore the skies and rocket away to endless galaxies. For fun, you can experience the life of an astronaut first hand at your own astronaut party. Together you can travel through time to a place few people have gone, and learn what the future may hold for everyone who lives in our universe.

Before you are through, you can take a trip to the far side of the moon, discover what makes Neptune so stormy, and explore the world of the extraterrestrial to see why some people think aliens could exist. It will be easy to impress your friends and family as you learn how to locate stars and the many other things in the sky. Everyone will enjoy tasting a part of space when you make an edible planet. And who wouldnt like spending some time outside under the stars? So get out your blanket, find a pair of binoculars, and join in the fun of unraveling the mysteries of space!

One of the first songs many children learn to sing is Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, but have you ever thought about the second line in the song: How I wonder what you are? Long before you knew what a star really was, you could see them shining in the sky at night. If you have ever tried to count all those stars, you probably guessed that there were a few hundred of them.

FUN FACT

Can You Name These Tunes?

Did you know that the song Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star has the same tune as the Alphabet song? For fun you could hum the tune and ask different people what song they think it is.

One way to count all the stars in the universe would be to count so many each night, but dont expect to find them in the same place at the same time. If two weeks have gone by, start looking for them an hour earlier. Many years ago people noticed that the stars seemed to be in different places from time to time, so they believed that the stars were circling our earth. Now scientists know that as the earth moves in its orbit around the sun, different areas of the sky are revealed. The North Star is the only star in the Northern Hemisphere that does not move as clusters of stars circle around it.

Some people also began to wonder what might lie beyond the stars that they could see. As they studied the stars, they came to believe that the universe, the space around them, was composed of billions of star groups and each of these groups also contained billions of stars. Some scientists wondered, could there be even more stars? Could there be another universe beyond this one?

UNIVERSE: The universe is everything around us as far as the eye can see. It contains stars, galaxies, planets, space, and us. Some people think there are other universes that go on beyond the one where we live.