FREE SAMPLE Whizz Pop Bang science magazine for children | Issue 28: PLANETARY ADVENTURES!

Page 15

FOUL FACT

There’s no proof that aliens exist, but it’s quite likely. At least one-sixth of stars have planets like Earth.

In 2013 scientists spotted a black hole eating an exoplanet. Any aliens would have been torn to bits by the black hole’s gravity.

Observe a transit You will need:

What you do:

Cardboard tube

1. Roll a 5 mm

Plasticine or sticky tack

ball of Plasticine

Cocktail stick

2. Stick the ball on the cocktail stick. 3. Close one eye and look through the

You will find: You see the ball as a dark shape. It looks like a planet transiting a star.

tube at a brightly lit pale wall.

4. Move the cocktail stick and ball in front of the tube opening.

Try this mnemonic to remember the order of the planets, starting from the Sun!

Mercury - My

HAT MAKES A PLA ET SUITABLE FOR LIFE?

Earth - Exciting

Mars - Magazine Jupiter - Jazzes

Saturn - Science

The most suitable planets for life are in the Goldilocks zone – just the right distance from their star, so that they are neither too hot nor too cold and can have liquid water and oxygen gas.

Uranus - Up

Neptune - Nicely

1) Saturn has a giant hexagon on its north pole

TRUE TRUE

Venus - Very

UNTRUE

2) The dwarf planet Haumea is shaped like a banana TRUE

3) No planet orbits more than one star

TRUE

4) A year on dwarf planet Sedna lasts

UNTRUE

UNTRUE UNTRUE

11,400 Earth years

whizzpopbang.com 15 WPB028 P.12-16 planets.indd 4

22/10/2017 18:51


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