Space Centre, Leicester

Year 5 visited the Space Centre on Thursday 8th September. Photos to come soon!

Our questions and the answers we found
 
Why is the Sun hot?
Nuclear reactions are constantly taking place in the Sun’s core, generating huge amounts of heat and light energy. The temperature at the surface (the corona) is even hotter than the core, at 2 million degrees centigrade, although scientists don’t yet understand why.
 
Why do people float in space?
Because they are outside the gravitational pull of the planets.
 
How far is it to space?
Approximately 100km.

Why is it always dark in space?
The light from a star travels outward in all directions. Any object, such as a planet, that gets in its way will be illuminated. Otherwise, the light continues to travel

Are there other planets like Earth?
This is difficult to answer, because we don’t yet have the technology to explore very far into space. Scientists believe that there almost certainly are other Earth-like planets, but not in our galaxy.
 

Here are some other facts that we discovered at the Space Centre:

• The ozone layer protects the Earth from harmful radiation from the Sun.
• It takes 24 hours for the Earth to spin once on its axis and 365 days for the Earth to orbit the Sun.
• Pluto was named by Venetia Burney in 1930 when she was only 11 years old!
• The Earth and everything on it originated inside a star. You are made of stardust!