Churchill Science

Click on the picture to play the game!

Click on the picture to send your name to Mars about the new Mars Science Laboratory!

This video is an overview of the new Mars mission…

Animation showing the Mars Science Laboratory entering Mars and beginning its mission…

From Ask an Astronomer…

A comet is a mix of rocky material, water ice, and a variety of other ingredients (as pictured here). Try out making some different comets and launch them into orbit around the Sun!

Many of you (222 kids especially) had a ton of questions about sending animals into space. Now you can learn more about the history of monkeys in space. Click on the picture to see National Geographic’s 50th Anniversary photo gallery.

The number to focus on is the 2nd one – the number of years. On Saturn, for example, I’m only about 1 year old!

Here’s a website I can’t believe I haven’t found earlier. You can type in your weight and find out how much you weigh on other planets, the moons of Jupiter, even the Sun and other stars.

Click on the picture of Lisa’s weight on other planets to try it:

Weight is really all about gravity. I would weigh only about 9 pounds on Pluto, but 3,790 pounds on the Sun. Yet I would not be any bigger or smaller sized.

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.

Voyager was launched shortly before I was born and has now left the solar system. There is a lot of empty space between stars, so it doesn’t have much to take pictures of right now.

The first Star Trek movie ever made was about what might happen to Voyager if it keeps going on and on and learning more and more… not exactly realistic, but interesting.

The shuttle landing has been delayed again due to bad weather at the landing site. So, no video to show you of the landing yet.

In the meantime, here are some of the best images from Hubble over the years: