Astronomy for Kids

Astronomy can be a life long pursuit. And as with many things, even very serious things, people often get an early start. This exciting science can provide hours of learning, that's why astronomy for kids is popular. A number of astronomy subjects interest kids. Movies like Star Wars only serve to increase this attraction.

The Earth's closest neighbor is the moon. It orbits our planet once every 27.3 days. Being so near, it has hosted the only human footsteps on a space object other than the Earth. Gravity between the moon and Earth causes the tides. Because it's close enough to see clearly with the naked eye, kids are often drawn to astronomy by it.

Consider Sol, our own star, the sun. The gap between our home and the sun is very large. We are between 91 and 94 million miles from the sun. The reason for the variance is Earth's elliptical orbit. If there were no sun, we wouldn't be alive. Important elements such as light and heat come from the sun. Over 98% of the total stuff in our solar system is in the sun. What a hog.

Our sun and solar system reside in a galaxy called the Milky Way. Like all other galaxies it's a collection of gas, dust, stars and planets. Most of the area in a galaxy is filled with nothing, just empty space. That means most of 3,000 light years high by 100,000 light years wide, the size of our galaxy, is empty. We're somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 light years from galactic central core. The nothingness is broken up by over 100 billion stars. In fact the galaxy takes its name from the appearance of the band of stars that shine from the main section of the galaxy. From Earth it looks like a Milky Way, a large pool of milk. Our galaxy is called a spiral galaxy as opposed to the other three main types which are elliptical, lenticular and irregular.

You can find a wealth of resources for astronomy for kids on the world wide web. From dictionaries and encyclopedic references, to programs that show different planets, solar systems and objects right on the computer, there's more information than a kid would ever read.