Space Science on Pitara Kids Network

What is Pluto – a Star or a Comet?

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 09:10:50 +0000

Which is the planet farthest from the sun? Pluto, of course.
But, some recent findings suggest that Pluto is not a planet at all. It seems Pluto could actually be a comet, reports the National Geographic website – www.nationalgeographic.com

Basically, it is Pluto’s small size that has got it into trouble. It has a diameter of approximately 1,420 miles or 2,280 kilometers. This makes it six times smaller than Earth. This fact irked scientists who always suspected that something so small could never belong to the hallowed club of planets.

How the Moon was Created

Tue, 16 Oct 2001 13:28:03 +0000

Long long ago when the world was just created there was just the sun but no moon. So there was just day with the sun shining brightly all the time. The sun did not set. So there was no night. People worked until they were too tired to work any more. There was no set time for work or a fixed time for rest.

One day the creator of the world came to visit it. He saw men working in fields.

How Far Away are the Stars?

Thu, 04 Dec 2003 12:42:03 +0000

The sun is a star, just like the thousands of others we see in the sky each night. But it looks so very big. Is it the biggest star? No. The only reason the sun appears so big is because it is closer to us than any other star.

The sun is just 93,000,000 miles (or 14,88,000,000 km) away from the earth. That seems an awful lot of distance, but light can travel so quickly that the sun’s rays reach the earth in a little more than eight minutes! That is the wonder of light.

Why Do Stars Twinkle?

Fri, 04 Sep 1998 21:44:16 +0000

Watching stars on a moonless night can be an quite an interesting experience. As clusters of stars take familiar forms – of a bear, a man in armor wielding a sword, millions of other stars simply twinkle. As if they were playing hide and seek with one’s eyes.

We all know that each star is actually like the sun. And the huge collection of stars on the night sky is like a collection of many, many suns. But, the sun does not twinkle, one would point out. So why do other stars twinkle?

Why do Meteorites Strike the Earth?

Sat, 27 Apr 2002 10:32:14 +0000

On a hot summer afternoon, I sat down with my elder brother to play carom. I took the first strike and pocketed two coins. Then I did a little war dance. Wow!

Suddenly dada (Bengali for elder brother) had an idea. “How would it be if a fast-travelling object hit the earth? Quite like the way the striker hit the coins.”

I was amused. “How is it possible? The earth is so huge. Anyway there aren’t any strikers flying around in the solar system?”

Which Galaxy is Visible to the Eye?

Sun, 16 Nov 2003 01:16:32 +0000

The sun we see everyday is just one of the thousands of stars we see at night. Such a huge collection of stars is called a galaxy. And the stars we see belong to a galaxy called the Milky Way. There are millions of galaxies in the sky, most of whom are hidden from our view.

However, there are some galaxies which can be seen with the naked eye. The most famous and the brightest of these is the M31 or the Andromeda galaxy.