Chapter 1 EXPLORATION People explore the universe in many ways Astronauts fly into space They have flown as far as Earth's moon To explore more distant places engineers and scientists launch machines Robots have visited nearby planets and their moons They send back pictures and information Astronauts explored the moon in the 1960s and 1970s How do scientists explore more distant places ea as
To explore distant stars scientists use powerful telescopes Telescopes are devices that collect light The light collected from distant stars can tell us a lot about the universe The Hubble Space Telescope circles Earth at a height of more than 340 miles 547
Jur Neighborhood in Space We live on the planet Earth Our solar system has seven other planets All the planets orbit the sun Most of the planets have moons The solar system contains other objects too These are called asteroids comets and dwarf planets They orbit the sun at great distances Many of the solar system's planets moons asteroids and dwarf planets have been visited by robotic spacecraft Earth is the only planet known to have
This galaxy is called NGC 4414 Each galaxy contains many stars But our solar system is only a small part of the universe Most of the points of light in the night sky are stars They are so far away that they look like points of light But they are actually huge balls of gas like our sun These stars are all within our own galaxy Our galaxy is called the Milky Way Galaxy It contains billions of stars There are billions of other galaxies in the
