No matter how advanced you are as an astronomer and novice, there is always one important moment we all return to. It was the first time we went out when you could clearly see the sky and took the sky at night. For urban dwellers, this is a profound revelation as if we have found aliens living among us. Many of us are unaware of the massive panorama of lights shining in the clear night sky when there are no city lights. Surely we all love the improved feeling of reading the sky using telescopes of various sizes and televisions. But I bet you can remember as a child that for the first time you see a fully formed night sky with amazing constellations, meters and a comet that moves and reveals dots of light far beyond many you can count. The best way to capture the miracle of that moment is to leave the world with your child or who has never had this experience and be present at that moment when he looked up and said that only the strongest word can summarize the feelings they have when they look at that beautiful sky. That word says - "Wow". Perhaps the most amazing truth about what a child looks at is also the fact that it is very difficult to grasp the magnitude of what is above it and what it represents. The very fact that almost every dot in the sky is another star or the largest celestial body on Earth itself, not two or ten times but in the elements of hundreds and thousands, would be a breath of fresh air in it. children. Children have enough trouble imagining the size of the earth itself, not to mention something as unique as the outer space. But when it comes to the stars, we do well to fall into the deep and deep levels of fear that we see in the night sky. Some amazing facts about what children are looking at can add to the bumps they already have as they look at the sky. Facts like ... * Our sun is just one of many galaxies called the Milky Way, with its 100 billion or more stars. Show them that 100 billion is 100,000,000,000 and you will see the jaw. * The Milky Way galaxy was just one of billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars. In fact, the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies. * If you wanted to drive across the Milky Way, it would take you 100,000 years. But you can't get there if you drive the speed limit. You have to drive five trillion, eight hundred million miles a year to cross that speed. * Scientists estimate that the Milky Way is 14 billion years old. These exciting little facts should have a profound effect on the origin of the universe and the possibility of space travel or the existence of other planets. Would you challenge your children to calculate if all the stars in the Milky Way had the support of nine planets and that if one of them were still the earth, how much more difficult would the life of another be? I think you will see real joy when they try to use those numbers. Such a conversation can be fun, exciting, and full of questions. Don’t be quick to close their minds as this is the birth of a lifelong love of the stars they face. And if you were there for the first time when they saw that night sky, you would also feel your great moment as a child. And it may also start a new interest in astronomy and you.
You must be logged in to post a comment.