The Weightless Space On the Earth everything is held on to the ground by the force of gravity, when we try to lift any object we try to counter the force of gravity, it is a result of this force that we feel weight. Out in space a spacecraft is held in orbit because of the Earth’s gravitational pull. The Astronauts within the spaceship don’t have anything holding them down, because...

Gravity on the Moon and Its Effects   When Neil Armstrong first walked on the Moon’s surface, he did so in leaps and bounds, he found it easy to pick up things since there was a weak counter gravitational force on the Moon. The Moon has a gravity which is one sixth of the Earth’s. As it revolves around the Earth, it’s gravitational field, though weak, produces ‘tides’ in the Earth’s...

Light from the Moon Since ancient times it was believed that the Moon had light of it’s own. As time passed many myths about the Moon were cleared. The Moon has a 1/4,25,00th brightness as compared to the Sun. The light we see from the Moon on clear nights is in fact only a reflection of the Sun’s light, in other words the Moon acts merely as a mirror which reflects...

Lunar Eclipse The cycle of waxing and waning begins with a New Moon and ends with a Crescent Moon which changes into a New Moon once again. It is in the process of waxing and waning that, on occasions, the Earth gets perfectly aligned between the Sun and the Moon so as to cast a shadow on the Moon, this causes what we call a Lunar eclipse. Eclipses don’t happen frequently...

Waxing and Waning Of the Moon   If we watch the Moon for a month, we would see that it keeps changing it’s  shape, sometimes it is a full circle and then on occasions it is just a semi-circle, The changing of in the Moon’s shape is called waxing and waning, The light, that we get from the Moon at night is not it’s own, it is in  fact, acting only...

The Moon The Moon is our nearest neighbour in space and a natural satellite. It was believed earlier that the Moon was a piece of the Earth which broke away billions of years ago. Today the astronomers believe that both the Earth and Moon were formed from the same cloud of dust close to 5 billion years ago. The Moon is located 3,84,400 kms away from us, it has a diameter...

The Exploration of Mars   Whatever was known about Mars till 1964 was based on the research work carried out by astronomers and scientists. In 1965 the Mariner-IV, an unmanned spacecraft, took the first pictures of Mars. Subsequent to this the Mariner-IX took close-up pictures of this desolate planet in 1971. Based on the data available from the pictures taken by these two space probes, the Viking-I and Viking-II unmanned spacecraft...

Why Are Stars Seen Only At Night? The atmosphere which surrounds the earth gives us the blue sky as we see in the daytime. Stars don’t disappear during daytime, it is just that they cannot be seen because of the Earth’s blue sky and the light from the Sun. If we were to stand on the Moon we would see the stars clearly since lack of air gives the sky a...