Jupiter-Fastest Spinning Planet Besides being the largest planet in our system, Jupiter also has the distinction of being the fastest spinning planet. It takes just nine hours and fifty minutes to rotate once on it’s axis. In other words Jupiter has a day of only four hours and fifty five minutes. A unique thing about Jupiter’s rotation is that, since the planet is largely gaseous, different parts of the planet rotate...

Life on other Planets It cannot be said with conviction that the Earth is the only planet with any life on it because astronomers and space scientists are still trying to look for life on other planets. From what we know of other planets it is however established that life supporting conditions do not exist on any other planet in our universe. To be able to support life the planet must...

Planets and their Moons There are nine planets and close to sixty known moons in our Solar system. We have one moon with our planet, Mercury and Venus have none, and nearly all the others circle the giant outer planets with 23 moons circling Saturn and 16 around Jupiter. One of the moons called Titan which circles Saturn is 5120 kilometres across in size and is in fact bigger than both...

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...