The solar system is an amazing place with its mysterious planets, mysterious moons and strange phenomena that are so out of this world that they cannot be explained.
Scientists have discovered volcanoes on Pluto spewing ice, while Mars is home to a truly "grand" canyon the size of the United States. Or maybe there is a giant, undiscovered planet hiding beyond Neptune?
We bring to your attention a list of the 10 most interesting facts about space for children, 4th grade students - short stories about the Universe.
Milky Way
To begin with, the Milky Way is a disk about 120,000 light-years in diameter with a central bulge 12,000 light-years in diameter .
The disk is far from perfectly flat and has a distorted shape, a fact that astronomers attribute to two neighbors of our galaxy - the Large and Small Magellanic clouds. These two dwarf galaxies, which are part of our "Local Group" of galaxies and may orbit the Milky Way, are thought to be pulling dark matter in our galaxy, like a game of galactic tug of war. The tug creates a kind of oscillating frequency that affects the galaxy's hydrogen gas, which is abundant in the Milky Way.
Black holes
A logical question is how dangerous is a black hole, is the Earth in imminent danger of being swallowed? Astronomers say the answer is no, even though a huge supermassive black hole lurks at the center of our galaxy . Luckily, we're not getting close to this monster—we're about two-thirds of the way out from the center relative to the rest of our galaxy—but we can certainly see its effects from afar.
For example, the European Space Agency says it is four million times more massive than our Sun and is surrounded by surprisingly hot gas.
Neutron stars
When a massive star dies, spewing most of its "innards" throughout the Universe in a supernova explosion, its iron heart, the star's core, collapses, creating the densest form of observable matter in the Universe - a neutron star .
A neutron star is basically a giant nucleus, says Mark Alford, a professor at the University of Washington. “Imagine a little lead ball with cotton candy around it,” says Alford: “That’s an atom. All the mass is in a little lead ball in the middle, and around it there’s a big puffy cloud of electrons, like cotton wool.”
In neutron stars, all the atoms have decayed. The clouds of electrons have been completely absorbed and the whole thing becomes one with electrons moving side by side with protons and neutrons in the gas or liquid.
Rogue planets
A rogue planet (or free-floating planet) is typically a Jupiter-sized body that lives in the space between stars, unbound by the gravity of its parent star.
It is believed that these planets either formed directly from the collapse of interstellar gas clouds (like stars) with no mass to support ignition (like a brown dwarf), or they were formed in a planetary system and they somehow overcame the gravity of their star and were ejected from systems _
The first rogue planets were discovered in the late 1990s by a team of Japanese astronomers when they found evidence supporting the existence of objects with masses similar to those of the planets in the chameleon cluster located about 500 light-years from Earth.
Due to their complete lack of order, rogue planets can be extremely difficult to detect. However, they can still be found using various techniques such as microlensing (a phenomenon in which a star acts as a gravitational lens when it passes in front of a background star).
Stage VII - the beginning of an international comprehensive study of space
Launch of the reusable spacecraft Columbia
In 1981, NASA launched a reusable spacecraft called Columbia, which has been in service for more than twenty years and makes almost thirty trips into outer space, providing incredibly useful information about it to humans. The shuttle Columbia retires in 2003 to give way to newer spacecraft.
Launch of the Mir space orbital station
In 1986, the Soviet Union launched the base unit of the Mir station into low-Earth orbit. The station itself, without exaggeration, became a symbol of the era. For more than 12 years, the Mir station had a permanent “population”: Valery Polyakov stayed on Mir for 437 days - and this is a record for a person to stay in space. 23,000 experiments were carried out and a huge amount of data was obtained about interplanetary space.
Launch of the Hubble telescope
The Hubble telescope, launched into orbit in 1990, has become the “eyes” of humanity. The orbiting telescope was able to look farther than anyone had ever seen before and show the beauty of the Universe that no one could have imagined.
Over 15 years of operation in low-Earth orbit, Hubble received 1.022 million images of celestial objects - stars, nebulae, galaxies, planets. The total volume of data accumulated over the entire operation of the telescope is approximately 50 terabytes. More than 3,900 astronomers have had the opportunity to use it for observations, and about 4,000 articles have been published in scientific journals.
Every year, in the list of the 200 most cited articles, at least 10% are works based on Hubble materials.
First rover
Sojourner is the first rover to be successfully delivered to the Red Planet. It landed on the surface of Mars on July 4, 1997 as part of a lander.
“Sojourner” literally means “temporary resident” or “travelling.” It was planned that the rover would work on the surface for 7 sols (sol - Martian day - 24 hours and 40 m Text taken from the gorgeous BroDude.ru inut), but it worked for 83 sols until the descent station, acting as a relay station, did not fail. In total, Sojourner covered a distance of approximately 100 meters before losing contact. After this, contact with Sojourner was lost, its location is now unknown.
Magnetars
Super-powerful magnetic neutron stars are playing hide and seek with astronomers. They are known to flare up without warning, some for hours and others for months, then dim and disappear again.
A magnetar is a common variant of a neutron star and a common explanation for some phenomena (such as anomalous X-ray pulsars). A magnetar is currently the most powerful magnetic object known . In fact, a magnetar's magnetic field is powerful enough that it would be deadly to get close to it (and that's an understatement).
If we could suddenly make a magnet about a thousand times more powerful, magnetars would be twenty billion times more powerful than anything we can make. A magnetar's magnetic field can be four billion times stronger than Earth's. In fact, it can wipe all your credit cards from a distance of 200,000 kilometers.
Stage IX – intensive exploration and commercialization of space
The beginning of the 21st century is marked by further intensive human conquest of outer space. Work and experiments on the ISS continue, images from the Hubble telescope are studied and analyzed. The discovery of new cosmic phenomena and objects is amazing.
The study of our solar system continues:
- June 24, 2000 - the NEAR Shoemaker station became the first artificial satellite of the asteroid (433 Eros).
- June 30, 2004 - the Cassini station became the first artificial satellite of Saturn.
- January 15, 2006 - the Stardust station delivered samples of comet Wild 2 to Earth.
- March 17, 2011 - the Messenger station became the first artificial satellite of Mercury.
"New Frontiers"
The automatic interplanetary station “New Horizons” was launched in 2006 as part of NASA’s “New Frontiers” program. Its goal is to study Pluto and other Kuiper Belt objects. The Kuiper Belt is a region of the Solar System similar to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, only this belt is at the outer reaches of the Solar System and consists of dwarf planets like Pluto. In addition, the New Horizons apparatus became the fastest in history.
Chang'e 4
In 2020, the Chinese automatic interplanetary station Chang'e-4 made a soft landing on the far side of the Moon for the first time in history. During the mission, a new communication system was tested, and for the first time, cotton seeds sprouted on the Earth's satellite. They, along with other crops, were placed in a container designed to test the possibility of forming a closed biosphere.
Commercial space exploration
Humanity can no longer imagine itself without space. In addition to all the advantages of practical space exploration, the commercial component is also developing.
Private space companies:
- SpaceX (founded in 2002) and its spaceport
- Blue Origin - founded in 2000.
- Virgin Orbit is a company created by Virgin Group in 2020. An air launch project is being prepared[1]
- Suborbital spacecraft SpaceShip from Scaled Composites: SpaceShipOne - the world's first private spacecraft; SpaceShipTwo is a tourist suborbital spacecraft, a further development of SpaceShipOne.
- Interstellar Technologies is the first Japanese company in the field of private space exploration; created in 2003.
- S7 Space is a Russian company whose main activity is launching space rockets and placing space objects into orbit.
Since 2005, construction of private spaceports has been underway in the USA (Mojave), UAE (Ras Alm Khaimah) and Singapore. Virgin Galactic Corporation (USA) is planning space cruises for seven thousand tourists at an affordable price of 200 thousand dollars. And the famous space businessman Robert Bigelow, owner of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, announced the project of the first orbital Skywalker hotel.
Dennis Tito - space tourist
For $35 billion, Space Adventures (a partner of Roscosmos Corporation) will take you on a space journey for up to 10 days tomorrow. By paying another 3 billion, you will be able to go into outer space.
Plans for the colonization of Mars from Elon Musk
SpaceX is a private company founded by Elon Musk with the ambitious goal of colonizing Mars. The most important achievement so far is not the return and landing of the Falcon first stage or the launch of the car towards Mars, but the renewed interest in space among the masses. Musk, together with SpaceX, has returned a great dream to humanity.
Today is characterized by new projects and plans for space exploration.
Hypernovae stars
Hypernovas are incredibly rare. In fact, the frequency of hypernovae throughout the Milky Way is estimated to be one million times per year , making celestial explosions particularly difficult to observe.
Twenty-five million light years away from Earth in another galaxy, astronomers have found what appears to be the remnants of a giant hypernova, providing new information about these huge explosions, but there are currently few theories as to what actually causes them.
One idea is that a massive star, spinning at very high speeds or locked in a powerful magnetic field, explodes, tearing apart its inner core. Alternatively, a hypernova could be the result of two stars colliding, merging into one giant mass, and then exploding.
History of space for children
The human mind sometimes triumphs over the mysteries of the universe, and this is what happened with space exploration. Just a little over fifty years ago, the first spacecraft was able to enter Earth's orbit. Some people still remember that once in their childhood, space flights seemed unreal, but sometimes the impossible happens. Now spacecraft are capable of delivering not only space cargo, but also astronauts and tourists into Earth orbit. Some astronauts can stay in Earth orbit for six months or more.
Over the last half century,
man has been able to visit the Moon,
as well as send satellites to other major planets.
Dreams of flying into space
For the first time, the opportunity to fly into space seemed real in the second half
the 19th
century. Then the secret of space began to be revealed to scientists and designers. They understood what needed to be done to overcome the earth's atmosphere. The whole problem was the difficulty of manufacturing the required engine. The inventors could not assemble an engine that would work evenly; they obtained either the effect of a bomb or the movement of a cart, but not the principle of a rocket engine. Also, scientists did not know how to regulate the thrust vector, as a result of which, a short time after launch, the rocket fell to the ground, without even getting close to space.
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centuries, scientists paid attention to the principle of operation of a rocket engine, which appeared more than two thousand years ago.
The first rocket that could overcome the limits of the earth's atmosphere was invented by Tsiolkovsky,
this happened in
1903
.
Launch of the first satellite
Due to two world wars, the development of rocket design and improvement was greatly slowed down.
After the war, a batch method for positioning missiles was developed, and this method is still used today. The idea is that several rockets are used simultaneously to propel a body beyond the Earth's atmosphere. It is worth noting that these rockets are at an equal distance from the center of mass. In this case, the body can move smoothly at a constant speed, which is almost 8
kilometers per second.
October 4 , 1957
, a revolution occurred in space exploration, as
the first artificial satellite was launched into space
.
The rocket that launched the satellite into Earth orbit was developed by Soviet design scientist Sergei Korolev
.
The first satellite, compared to modern ones, was very small in size and weighed about 85
kilograms. It could fly a full circle around the Earth's orbit in an hour and a half. The first satellite “lived” in space for three months, during which time it managed to travel a huge distance.
Living things in space
The success of launching a satellite into space inspired scientists and designers around the world, so the task was set of sending living beings into space.
A month after the launch of the first satellite, called Sputnik-1,
the second satellite was launched
with the dog Laika.
Laika's goal was to test whether a living creature could survive in space conditions, as well as survive flight through the planet's atmosphere.
Scientists did not expect Laika to return to Earth. The flight into space was successful, the satellite and the dog were able to make four full revolutions around the Earth, but after that, due to an error in the calculations made by the designers, the temperature inside the satellite began to rise sharply, as a result of which Laika died.
The satellite burned up in the atmosphere only after five months.
In August 1680,
two dogs were sent into space -
Belka and Strelka
.
Everything went well, they returned to Earth. The dog-carrying satellite was able to orbit the Earth 17
times.
However, you should not think that only dogs were in space; beetles, flies, turtles, monkeys and cats were sent there. the Luna 2
satellite was launched , which was able to transmit photographs of the far side of the Moon to Earth.
People in space
April 12, 1961
, another revolution in space exploration took place - the first man,
Yuri Gagarin,
.
The rocket launched at 9:07, with Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin on board. No one knew that such a flight was being prepared, since there was a risk of death of the cosmonaut; even members of Gagarin’s family knew nothing. Gagarin made a full revolution around the Earth inside the Vostok-1
.
The ship landed near Saratov
90
after
launch.
Yuri Gagarin became famous overnight. The spacecraft was controlled from Earth, the cosmonaut was a passenger-observer. The conditions in which Gagarin was found were very difficult. The fact that he returned safely to Earth was a real miracle. Modern flights take place in much more comfortable conditions. After Gagarin's flight into space, many sensations occurred in this area. In 1963
, the first woman went into space,
Valentina Tereshkova.
In
1965
,
Alexey Leonov performed a spacewalk.
There were many such sensations.
The most striking subsequent event in space exploration was the flight of people to the Moon on July 21 1969
.
Then Neil Armstrong
was able to set foot on the surface of the Moon.
Modern astronautics
Today, space exploration has developed to the point that people can go on a journey into space, but for this they need to be prepared, since they have to withstand heavy loads, although not like Yuri Gagarin.
In addition, ideas about a flight to Mars have long appeared. NASA
plans to send people to Mars within the next
10
years.
Elon Musk
says he will be able to send people to the red planet even sooner. However, there is no talk of returning to Earth yet, since this still seems impossible; nevertheless, there are many daredevils who are ready to join the team of the first people to land on Mars.
Speed of light in space
The speed of light in a vacuum is 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second), and theoretically nothing can travel faster than light. In miles per hour, the speed of light is very high: about 670,616,629 miles per hour . If you could travel at the speed of light, you could circle the Earth 7.5 times in one second.
Early scientists, unable to perceive the movement of light, thought that it must travel instantly. However, over time, measurements of the movement of these wave-like particles became more and more accurate.
Why are flights into space necessary?
People have always tried to find out what is beyond our planet. And from the moment the first satellite was launched, the era of space exploration began and humanity received new powerful tools of cognition - research spacecraft. Developed countries annually spend huge amounts of money on the creation of launch vehicles, spacecraft and special equipment, and space reconnaissance robots. Astronauts and cosmonauts risk their lives, entire armies of scientists and engineers develop space programs, design and build satellites and laboratories designed to work beyond the Earth.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, unique images were obtained of a comet-asteroid bombardment of the area of the south pole of Jupiter, during which “gaps” the size of the Pacific Ocean appeared in the cloud cover of the giant planet
And yet - why? What is the use of an ordinary inhabitant of the Earth from the fact that somewhere out there, in near and far orbits, complex and expensive devices have been floating around for years?
The home of humanity is planet Earth. But it is an integral part of an immeasurably larger house - the Universe. The goal of many studies carried out in outer space is to find out how this “biggest house” works, why and how “lighting” and “heating” work in it, where the energy comes from, what are the properties of the substance from which it is built. This knowledge will eventually open up new inexhaustible sources of energy to humanity, give it power over the climate, help control atmospheric processes and relieve the dangers threatening the Earth from the mysterious depths of the Universe.
International Space Station (ISS) in Earth orbit
Over the past two years, with the help of automatic stations launched by the United States, Japan, China and India, the presence of water on the Moon has been proven. The importance of this result can hardly be overestimated - after all, until now the main obstacle to creating a permanent base of earthlings on our satellite is the lack of water. And it is necessary not only for drinking and household needs - by decomposing water into its components, you can get oxygen for breathing and hydrogen, that is, rocket fuel.
This is what the twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity look like. During the entire period of exploration of the Red Planet with the help of spacecraft, three rovers visited Mars, and two of them continue to work today, collecting valuable information. These mobile laboratories are controlled from Earth
The American rovers-geologists Spirit and Opportunity . In 2009, they discovered significant amounts of methane and mid-latitude water ice there for the first time. In the Saturn system, the Cassini discovered lakes of liquid hydrocarbons on Titan, one of the satellites of the giant planet. The American probe Messenger flew over the surface of Mercury three times during the year, and on its last flyby it took close-up images of areas that no other researcher had ever seen. Meanwhile, the fastest probe in the history of space flight, New Horizons , moving towards the orbit of Pluto at a speed of over 16 km/s, has covered half of its journey, which will last a total of eight years.
Why spend huge resources and money to find out if there is life on Mars? Scientists believe that humanity cannot exist on Earth forever. In the future, the climate may change seriously, and reserves of minerals and fresh water will be exhausted. In this case, humanity should “have at hand” a suitable planet on which to establish new settlements. It's unlikely to be cold and dry Mars, but who knows?
On December 14, 2009, the WISE infrared space telescope was launched into low-Earth orbit, designed to survey the entire sky. Scientists have high hopes for the new telescope. It is designed to study previously inaccessible solar system objects and distant faint galaxies.
Cassini space probe
Microgravity
Microgravity is the degree to which an object in space experiences acceleration. In general, the term is used as a synonym for "zero gravity", but the prefix "micro" indicates accelerations equivalent to one millionth (10 - 6) of the force of gravity on the Earth's surface.
Microgravity makes you taller. In microgravity, the vertebrae in your spine are no longer compressed by Earth's gravity , causing the discs between them to expand and the spinal column to lengthen, making you taller.
Stage I – first launch of the spacecraft
The date when space exploration began is considered to be October 4, 1957 - this is the day when the Soviet Union, as part of its space program, was the first to launch a spacecraft into space - Sputnik-1.
On this day, the spherical satellite entered orbit, transmitting back a signal about a successful launch. It was launched into orbit using the R-7 rocket, designed under the leadership of Sergei Korolev. The silhouette of the R-7, the ancestor of all subsequent space rockets, is still recognizable today in the ultra-modern Soyuz launch vehicle, which successfully sends into orbit “trucks” and “cars” with astronauts and tourists on board - the same four “legs” of the package scheme and red nozzles.
First space satellite
The device consisted of two welded hemispheres made of magnesium alloy and four stabilizers, which simultaneously played the role of transmitting antennas. The total weight of the device did not exceed 88.5 kg.
It completed a full revolution around the Earth in 96 minutes. The “star life” of the iron pioneer of astronautics lasted three months, but during this period he covered a fantastic path of 60 million km!
It was so popular that in the Soviet Union even Christmas tree decorations and badges were made in its shape. The exploration of outer space by the USSR put an end to the efforts of the Americans to be the first to conquer space. The sole purpose of its launch was to test theories. In the end, space exploration in the 50-60s ceased to seem like a ghostly task. It also provoked a surge in a huge amount of science fiction, flooding the pages of books and television screens.
Gamma rays
Gamma rays have the shortest wavelength and most energy of any other wave in the electromagnetic spectrum. These waves are generated by radioactive atoms and during nuclear explosions. Gamma rays can kill living cells, an advantage that medicine takes advantage of by using gamma rays to kill cancer cells.
Gamma rays travel to us across the vast distances of the Universe, only to be absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere. Different wavelengths of light penetrate to different depths into the Earth's atmosphere . Instruments aboard high-altitude balloons and satellites, such as the Compton Observatory, give us our only view of the gamma-ray sky.
