Tag Archives: planets

I Spy the Transit of Venus!

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Greetings Friends!

Your favorite blogger from Tiny Planets here to share some awesome pictures from this week. Many of you may know that the Transit of Venus took place earlier. What does this mean? Well, even I had to look that one up and ask my dear friends Bing and Bong. They showed me this awesome video by our friends at NASA:

The Transit of Venus occurs when the planet of Venus passes right between the Sun and planet Earth. When all you dears living on Earth looked up at the Sun, you would have seen a black ball passing directly across the face of the Sun. Actually, you would have needed some special glasses to do that because we all know how dangerous it is to look directly at the Sun — don’t do it!

Anyway, the reason this whole thing is so exciting is because occurs in pairs 8 years apart every 243 years. So basically we will never see something like this until 2255! I hope you didn’t miss it, but incase you did, here is a picture to show you what it looked like:

Look at how Venus passed by the sun in 2004 and then a few days ago in 2012.

Enjoy the world around you — especially these moments of a lifetime!

Signing out, Halley

Who Discovered Pluto?

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Clyde Tombaugh Discoverer of PlutoAstronomy at its best usually involves partnering with others. Pluto is just one more example of how astronomers build upon the works of others.  This was definitely the case with Clyde Tombaugh and Percival Lowell, the astronomers who discovered the dwarf planet of Pluto.

Percival Lowell was a businessman, author, mathematician turned astronomer. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He also formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death by Clyde Tombaugh. Continue reading →

Mars: A History

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The Planet Mars

Mars was first discovered by the ancient Egyptians over 4,000 years. (They sure did discover a lot of things…) And Mars has had a scary reputation for almost as long. For example, the Babylonians called Mars “Nirgal “which means ”The Star of Death!” The Roman name for Mars is symbolic of their god of war. Aside from the death connotations, it’s also called the “Red Planet,” because its surface rocks and dust contain large amounts of iron rust, which makes it look red when looking at it through a telescope.

Not much was really discovered about Mars until 1877, when Giovanni Sonia Paretti made maps and written studies of Mars. While Giovanni was busy with his mapmaking, Asaph Hall was busy discovering Mar’s two moons.

In keeping with the scary name of Mars, these two moons are called Phobos and Deimos. Phobos means “panic and fear.” Deimos means “terror and dread.” In Greek mythology, these were the dreaded sons of Mars who traveled with their dad into battle.

Earth astronomers didn’t really learn much more about Mars, until 1964 when the first spacecraft touched down on Mars and took 21 pictures and transmitted them back to Earth. Then in 2001, the U.S. Mars Odyssey successfully reached Mars orbit. Once it got there, it sent back a boatload (okay three boatloads) of new information on Mars.

The scientists were so excited that they sent space rovers (think of a robotic dune buggy) to land and explore the planet. As they drive around Mars, the rovers send pictures and other scientific data. Personally, I hope the rovers get a chance to visit Olympus Mons. It’s the largest volcano in the whole Solar System!

Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I want to get back to my new book called “War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells. Although it was written back in 1898, I think it is the big reason that humans are so interested in Mars. Anyway, the Martians are about to attack and I want to see if Earth survives or not. You should check it out when you get a chance.

Photo Credit: Mars in 1980 as seen by the Viking 1 Orbiter

Jumping Jupiter!

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Courtesy of NASA

When Bong and I first started studying your solar system our attention was immediately drawn to the majestic planet of Jupiter. It is by far the biggest planet you have. It is the firth planet away from the sun and is a vast planet of swirling gases and storms of unimaginable fury. It is no wonder that it was named after the king of the Roman storm god’s Jupiter, Lord of the Sky, Master of Lightning and Thunder.

Jupiter is the closets gas giant, a planet made almost entirely of gases. It’s not much smaller than a type of star called brown dwarfs. Continue reading →

Let’s Build a Constellation!

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Cygnus_03As an experienced space cadet you know that stars within a constellation are not related to each other. But it’s kind of hard to explain to your earthbound friends and relatives, so here’s a little project you can do to help the folks back home appreciate just how much travelling you really do in the course of a day.

You’ll need a piece of stiff paper or cardboard, some string and tape and small objects to represent the stars (buttons, beans, popcorn kernels, beads, etc.). We’ll use the Northern Cross in Cygnus as an example, since most people are familiar with that location.

  • Using your Star Map*  place a mark on you paper or each star in the Northern Cross following the layout o the constellation.
  • Number the star at the top of the cross as “1″, number the stars on the crosspiece as “2″, “3″ and “4″ while numbering the star at the bottom as of the cross as number “5″.
  • Poke a hole through the paper at each star position and run some string through each hole.
  • Adjust and cut the length of each string coming through the holes and then fix each string with tape so it’s length cannot change:
    • Star 1 = 1 inch
    • Star 2 = 10 inches
    • Star 3 = 4 inches
    • Star 4 = 8 inches
    • Star 5 = 6 inches
  • When the string lengths are properly adjusted, tape a “star” (i.e., buttons, popcorn kernels, etc.) at the end of each string.
  • Now hold your constellation board above your head and let the stars hang down toward you.

Some of the stars are much farther away than others. But if you close one eye, it will seem as though all the stars are the same distance from you — which is the way they appear in the night sky. The stars are all so far away from us that they are mere points of light in the sky and we cannot see their different distances.

Pretty cool, huh?

*Available for free at www.skymaps.com

Creative Commons License photo credit: madmiked