It's a Fact About 1,300,000 planets the size of earth could be packed into the sun. Millions of miles (kilometers) out in space there is a gigantic ball of hot, glowing gas we call the sun. The...
The black emptiness
Space is---emptiness. It is black because emptiness has no light of its own. It is neither cold nor hot because emptiness has no temperature. And, of course, there is no air or water in space. But...
Planets, Stars, and Galaxies
Planets, Stars, and Galaxies Planets, Stars, and Galaxies
Icy daggers
It's a bitterly cold winter day. Snow lies in a great white sheet on the ground and on the roof of your house. The roof is warm from the heat inside the house, so the snow on the roof is slowly...
Sparkly pictures on your window
The door was shut, as doors should be Before you went to bed last night; Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see, And left your window silver white. He must have waited till you slept; And not a...
Lacy crystals
> Look up during a snowstorm. Watch the snowflakes come spinning down > out of the sky. You can see that snowflakes aren't drops, like rain; > or lumps, like hail; or tiny beads, like sleet. They...
Beads and balls of ice
Hail and sleet are frozen rain. But they are very different. Sleet is tiny beads of ice. Hail is lumps of ice and snow that may be as big as baseballs! Hailstones begin as ordinary raindrops in a...
The bridge in the sky
Long ago, people thought that rainbows were magic. Some people believed that a rainbow was a bridge that appeared in the sky when the gods wanted to leave heaven and come down to earth. People also...
Flash and bang
Oh, oh---you're caught in a rainstorm! The sky is dark and angry and rain is spattering down all around you. Suddenly, a zigzag flash of lightning brightens the sky for just an instant. Almost at...
How much did it rain?
You've probably heard weather forecasters on radio or television tell how many inches or centimeters of rain fell during a storm. But how do they know how much rain fell? Scientists measure rainfall...