Churchill Science

221 played this game on Friday… we collected all 12 cards with no problem! So we moved on to something a bit more challenging…

If you want to make this game more challenging for yourself, try filling them in in reverse order, or from the middle out…

Hopefully we’ll be posting more solar system games soon!

From Ask an Astronomer…

Ever wondered how many Earths would add up to one Jupiter? How many Saturns would balance out one Sun? Find out with one of our favorite websites ever, the Planet Mass Comparison. Click one of the pictures below to try it yourself:

One Neptune = 9,501 Plutos!

14 Earths = 1 Uranus.

OK, OK, there’s actually no cosmic scale out in space weighing planets. This is actually measuring mass, which is a bit different than weight. Weight depends on where you’re standing. For example, you’d “weigh” a LOT more if you were on Jupiter or the Sun. (Not that you would survive long enough to get on a scale.) You even weigh a tiny bit less when you’re up in the mountains than you would at sea level. But you are the same size, with the same amount of “matter” inside your body, no matter where you are.

Click the picture to learn more about asteroids from National Geographic.

An asteroid is a piece of stranded rock in the middle of nowhere. If it hits you, that is sad. Asteroids are left over from when the Sun and planets were made. If gravity had been a little stronger, the asteroids would have been another planet. They come in many shapes and sizes. Ceres is the biggest asteroid. It is almost big enough to be a planet. Ceres is a dwarf planet, like Pluto. Gaspra looks like a fish! Pallas looks like a smiley face. Ida has a strange little moon. Eros looks like a bone. There’s no place like asteroids!

This video starts with Pluto, a dwarf planet, and then moves up in size order. Can you see why everything in the solar system orbits the Sun and not Earth or another planet?

Also, look at the size of the Sun compared to other stars. What would happen if our planet orbited a bigger star? We are going to be talking more about stars and why bigger is NOT better!