A brief journey
through the universe

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and is the third largest planet. It is a gas giant and it is tilted so much it is rotated on its side. It has very faint rings but they are tilted on the side due to the planetary tilt. Because of this tilt, parts of the planet don’t see sunlight for 42 years at a time. It takes Uranus 84 years to orbit the Sun and it has 27 moons.

Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is the third smallest. Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky after the Moon. It is sometimes called Earth’s sister planet because they are very similar in size, although Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system with surface temperatures over 800 F (425 C).

Weight is the force on an object due to gravity. You would weigh a different amount if you were to stand on different planets or moons. If you weighed 100 pounds here on Earth you would only weigh 16.5 pounds on the Moon, or over 250 pounds if you were on Jupiter!

X-rays are another form of electromagnetic radiation in the universe. They have a much shorter wavelength than visible light. Just like doctors can use X-rays to help see inside our bodies, we can also use them to look at distant stars and galaxies and see things that would otherwise be hidden.

Yuri Gagarin was a Russian Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12th, 1961.

The Zenith is the highest point directly above a specific location, such as where you are standing. It can also be used to describe the highest point an object makes in the sky. The highest point the Sun makes in the sky on a given day is the Sun’s zenith.