Life on Earth Unlike other planets and even our own moon, the Earth has relatively stable temperature conditions and compared to other planets it doesn’t become too hot or cold. This is primarily possible because of the Earth’s atmosphere which acts like a shield. The presence of large quantities of water and oxygen also contribute to the existence of life on Earth. Besides this the Earth’s atmosphere has a layer of...

The Weight of Our Atmosphere Just as an orange is surrounded by peel, the Earth is surrounded all around by a 640 km thick shell of air. This shell can be broken down into various layers and it comprises of about 20 different types of gases out of which Nitrogen and Oxygen have the highest percentage. Without the atmosphere it would be impossible to live on the Earth since it protects...

The Size of The Universe Considering the size of our Milky way and the number of other galaxies known to man it is impossible for the human mind to imagine what the size of the universe might be. To start with we cannot even measure distances in space in miles or kilometres, we have to use light years, i.e. the amount of distance light would travel in a year at its...

Cosmic Rays `Cosmic’ means universal and as the name suggests, these rays are universal but arc still a mystery to mankind since man cannot explain their origin. These rays have been in the Earth’s atmosphere since Earth was formed without effecting anything. They were discovered about 60 years ago when it was seen that a sealed container of air had electrical conductivity in it. The container was shielded with various kinds...

The First Man in Space Man made his first journey into space in the year 1961. The distinction of this feat goes to Yuri Gagarin who went into space in a Russian built `Vostok’ spacecraft on the 12th of April 1961. He made his first orbit around the Earth and returned in 108 minutes. The mission was soon followed by the American John Glenn in a Mercury spacecraft on 20th February...

Spots on the Sun If we observe the Sun, by projecting it’s image through a pair of binoculars onto a white piece of cardboard, we would see that it has black spots on it, these are known as ‘Sun spots’. These black spots are areas which get cooled down on the Sun’s surface because of the pull from the Sun’s own magnetic field acting upon that area. Sun spots generally appear...

The Sun’s Changing Colour When we see the sun during the daytime it is like a bright yellow ball of fire but in the mornings and evenings we see it as a bright and glowing orange ball. In reality the Sun does not change it’s colour, this effect is produced by the earth’s atmosphere which acts as a light red filter. In the day time the Sun is high in the...

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...