Space - KS2

Sometimes, I look out at the stars and I wonder, “what's really out there?”

Hey! Follow me.

Oh ! Whoa! It's getting pretty hot now

First stop, the Sun. Our very own star. It's so bright and so big that you could fit a million Earths inside it.

Look over there. That's Jupiter. Can you see that giant red spot? That's a storm. That's just like a hurricane. That storm is bigger than our whole planet, and it's been raging for hundreds of years.

We can't just hang here. Lots more to see.

Saturn's rings are so pretty. From far away, they look solid, but they're not. They're made of billions of bits of ice and rock. Some are tiny, like grains of sand. And some are as big as a house.

Hmm. Where should we go now? Let's travel even further.

This is Neptune. It's the windiest planet, and it's so far away.

A year here lasts for 165 Earth years. I reckon it's time to head home.

Oh, look, there's the Moon. I've heard that because there's no wind up there, the footprints left by the astronauts in 1969 are still there. Perfectly saved.

There's so much out there to see. What will you discover?

From up here on the International Space Station I get a great view of Earth.

Our planet is just the right distance from the Sun for life to exist.

We call it a Goldilocks planet because the Earth’s temperature, like the porridge in the Goldilocks fairy tale, is not too hot and not too cold.

This is because the Earth has an atmosphere which holds onto the Sun’s warmth whilst also protecting us from the Sun’s rays.

But what’s it like on other planets?

There are eight planets in our Solar System. The closest one to the Sun is Mercury, then it’s Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

The eight planets travel around the Sun at different speeds. These lines show us the paths they take which we call orbits.

On a clear night from Earth we can sometimes see the five planets which are closest to us - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Using a powerful telescope can also see Uranus and Neptune but to get an even clearer view we send telescopes into space, like this one - the Hubble space telescope.

We have also sent probes into space.

Probes are space crafts with cameras to send images back to Earth. This allows us to compare the planets in even more detail.

Mercury and Venus are both rocky planets. Mercury is closest to the Sun, so it gets very hot during the day. But it has a very thin atmosphere which does not hold on to any heat, so it gets very cold at night in the shade.

Venus, on the other hand, has a thick atmosphere which holds onto heat from the Sun. So, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun, Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System.

Mars has a hard, rocky surface with lots of iron in the soil which rusts, making the surface and atmosphere look red. This is why we call Mars, the Red Planet.

Mars is most like Earth.

Both have valleys and mountains, weather and seasons, ice caps and volcanoes.

Robotic vehicles called rovers have been sent to Mars to collect information. The Perseverance rover is up there now, studying the Martian climate and weather.

It tests technologies that could help humans survive on Mars.

The two largest planets are Jupiter and Saturn.

They are called Gas Giants as they don't have hard surfaces, but instead have swirling gases above a solid core.

On the surface of Jupiter there is a huge red spot twice as wide as planet Earth.

When the Voyager 1 probe flew past Jupiter, the images it sent back showed that this Great Red Spot is a huge storm which has been raging for over three hundred years.

Saturn is best known for its rings, which are made of chunks of ice and rock.

Uranus and Neptune are the furthest planets from the Sun. They are known as the Ice Giants.

Uranus is the coldest planet in the Solar System. Unlike the other planets, Uranus spins on its side.

Neptune is the furthest planet from the Sun, thirty times further than Earth. Its orbit is so huge that one year on Neptune takes almost 'one hundred and sixty five' Earth years.

The James Webb space telescope is currently one million miles from Earth. It is being used to explore the beginning of the Universe, study how stars are born, and look for Goldilocks planets in other solar systems.

FATIMA: Which explorer shall we talk to today, Ollie?

OLLIE: What about someone who has been to the final frontier, Fatima?

FATIMA: Where’s the final frontier?

OLLIE: Space.

FATIMA: Oh yeah. Let’s talk to somebody who’s been to the Moon!

OLLIE: Great idea. Holo-Lab, find the first person to set foot on the Moon.

HOLO-LAB: Searching, Searching… Found. First person to set foot on the Moon: Neil Armstrong.

FATIMA: The Holo-Lab is going back in time, before mobile phones.

OLLIE: Before the internet?

NEIL ARMSTRONG: Hi, I’m Neil Armstrong. In 1969, I was the first person on the Moon.

FATIMA: Hi Neil, we’re Fatima and Ollie and we want to ask you a few questions about the Moon landings.

NEIL ARMSTRONG: Okay, sure. Nice to meet you guys. Shoot.

OLLIE: How did you get to the Moon, Neil?

NEIL ARMSTRONG: I got to the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission, aboard the Saturn V rocket.

OLLIE: Why did you go to the Moon?

NEIL ARMSTRONG: Because no one had been there before and we wanted America to be the first country to do so. The President asked NASA to design and build a rocket to take us to the Moon.

FATIMA: How did you get ready to go to the Moon?

NEIL ARMSTRONG: I and the other two astronauts spent months training. We had to understand how to fly the rocket and land the lunar module, and how to get home again.

FATIMA: Was training hard work?

NEIL ARMSTRONG: It was really hard work. It was great fun too. It was a real adventure into the unknown. No one had ever been to the Moon before. NASA had to develop most of the technology we needed for this trip from scratch.

OLLIE: Was it scary?

NEIL ARMSTRONG: Between me and you, it was scary. Sitting in the huge rocket, waiting for take-off, I was super excited and super scared. We were sitting on nearly a million litres of rocket fuel, which could explode at any moment if something went wrong. But I tried to be brave – this was it. The moment we’d been training so hard for.

NASA: Three, two, one… Zero… Lift-off.

FATIMA: Wow! Look at that!

NEIL ARMSTRONG: The Earth is moving around the Sun at 70,000 miles per hour and the Moon is orbiting the Earth at 2,288 miles per hour. The maths that allowed us to calculate the route to the Moon was so complicated that NASA had to get some of the best mathematicians in the world to figure it out. Like Katherine Johnson. She was very, very clever and got us there safely. If she’d made a single mistake in the calculations, we might not have come home at all. Our lives were in her hands.

NEIL ARMSTRONG: One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.

FATIMA: How did you know what to say?

NEIL ARMSTRONG: We knew it was going to be a big moment and that the whole world would be watching, so we thought really hard about it.

OLLIE: How come you’re so bouncy?

NEIL ARMSTRONG: When you’re on the Moon, gravity is just one sixth of what it is on Earth so on the Moon, I only weighed about fifteen kilograms.

FATIMA: What did it feel like being on the Moon?

NEIL ARMSTRONG: When I was on the Moon, I looked back at the Earth where everyone I knew and loved lived, and it looked so small, like a beautiful marble.

FATIMA: Wow!

OLLIE: Thank you very much for answering all our questions, Neil Armstrong.

NEIL ARMSTRONG: Thanks guys. Maybe one day, one of you will go to Mars. Whatever you do, good luck!

FATIMA: Mars! That would be so cool. Thanks, Neil.

Scientist, Doctor Maggie Pocock answers some of her all time favourite questions about the universe.

Like what would happen if I fell into a black hole?

And are there rainbows on other planets?

Packed full of facts, explanations and mind blowing insights, Doctor Maggie and robot assistant, IQ, take us on a journey of space discovery.