How did Leo(the lion)
get it's name?
BRAD, AGE 12, STONY CREEK
Answer: The majority of constellations get there
names from Greek, Roman, Egyptian and even Babylonian mythology.
How long does it take titan to rotate once on its
axis?
BECKIE, AGE 14, BATH
Answer: Titan takes just
under 16 days to spin once on its axis. Interestingly, it also takes Titan
just under 16 days to orbit around Saturn. This means that it always has
the same face pointing toward the planet, just like our Moon does here
on Earth.
Comet Hale Bopp over Stonehenge |
I am doing a project at school about the Solar System
and I was just wondering what shooting stars are all about!
JADE, AYRSHIRE
Answer: If you look outside
on any clear night you can often see shooting stars. They are not really
anything to do with stars. They are just pieces of dust and rock from
space that are falling to Earth.
Before they get to the Earth though, they have
to travel through the gas surrounding our planet, the atmosphere. When
they do they fall through all the gas, they get hotter and hotter and
start to glow as they fall.
We see that as the shooting star. They actually have
two proper names, meteors and meteorites. A meteor gets destroyed as it
burns up in the atmosphere, but a meteorite actually lands on the surface
of the Earth.
I have seen a set of stars that is shaped like a qustion
mark I want to know what it is called.
JOSH JUDE, AGE 5, NORTHAMPTON
Answer: Without knowing
where or when you were looking at the sky it is very hard to know what
this could be.
The head of Leo the Lion looks like a backward question
mark. This may have been what you saw.
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A star nursery
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What are stars made out of?
CHELSEA LEA WILSON
Answer: All the stars are
made of gas. If they weren't so hot and you tried to land on one, you
would sink right through the middle!
What is the mythology of the constellation Ursa Major?
KAITLYN, AGE 11
Answer: In Greek mythology,
Ursa Major was originally the daughter of a King, who was turned into
a bear as a disguise.
Her very own son was out hunting in the forest and on
coming across the bear he nearly killed it, not knowing it was his mother.
The gods placed them in the sky together as the Great
Bear (Ursa Major) and the Little Bear (Ursa Minor).
We say that stars move, the Sun is also a star. Does
it move?
NUPUR DESAI, AGE 13
Answer: Like all stars
in our galaxy, the Sun is travelling around the galactic centre. It moves
at about 2,150 kilometres per second.
There is a very bright star in the East when I get
up at 5.30 am. Can you tell me what it is
please? It is brighter than any other.
ADRIENNE, AGE 12
Answer: The object you
are looking at is the planet Venus. It is covered
in cloud all year round which means that the sunlight reaching Venus all
gets bounced back out into space. This makes it very bright in our sky.
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