The pinpoints of light that you see in the night sky are stars. Your ability to see the stars depends on how bright they are, as well as how close they are to Earth. Stars are giant balls of gas in space that shine through the darkness. The Sun is an average star that Earth orbits.
Astronomers use a special term to talk about the brightness of stars. The term is "magnitude". The magnitude scale was invented by the ancient Greeks around 150 B.C. The Greeks put the stars they could...more
Daniel Wolf Savin, a scientist at Columbia University, has published a paper on the research he and his colleagues have done on how stars began. In their research, the scientists built an apparatus to...more
Astronomers have discovered a planet about 40 light-years from Earth that contains water. The planet, called GJ1214b, is a super-Earth, which means it is close to the size of Earth. It is too hot to contain...more
Did you know that our Sun is a star? You probably know there are 9 planets in our solar system. But did you know that there are planets that orbit stars other than our Sun? We know of 76 planets that are...more
NASA has two new missions! The Swift and FAME projects were chosen to be part of the MIDEX program. Swift will launch in 2003 and FAME will launch in 2004. The Swift spacecraft will use three different...more
The country of Peru has a new president. His name is Alejandro Toledo. Toledo really wants to help the people of Peru, but he has a really big job to do! He wants to help the poor and homeless people find...more
More than two thousand years ago, Greeks believed the god Zeus placed the figure of a gigantic lion in the sky with the rest of the stars. This lion lived in the city of Nemea. The people who lived in...more