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Astronomy Year / Week 11 / Monday
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Week 11 · Dark Skies

Monday

Our home galaxy
// The Milky Way and light pollution
⏱ about 15 min

Monday: Our home galaxy

Nova projects a giant swirl of stars.

"Wow! What is that?" Rocket asks.

Raven looks closely. "What do you notice? There are so many stars!"

Nova blinks. "Hint: you live inside it right now."

The Milky Way

A galaxy is a giant group of stars.

Our galaxy is called the Milky Way.

Our Sun is one of its stars.

Earth and the other planets are in it too.

The Milky Way has about 100 billion stars!

GALAXY CHECK
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
What is the name of our galaxy?
Is our Sun part of the Milky Way?
About how many stars are in the Milky Way?
Galaxy factTrue or false?
A galaxy is a giant group of stars.?
Earth is outside the Milky Way.?
The Milky Way is our home galaxy.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEEvery star you see at night is in our galaxy.
Draw a giant swirl of dots. Put a star sticker or dot for our Sun.

Inside the Milky Way

The Sun and all its planets are in the Milky Way.

Earth is one of those planets.

So we live inside our galaxy.

That is why we call it our home galaxy.

WHERE DO WE LIVE?
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
What is a galaxy?
Where is Earth?
Is the Big Dipper a galaxy?
Could you count every star in the Milky Way?
SMALL TO BIG
  • Start with the smallest.
  • Tap a card, then tap its spot.
1Smallest
2Middle
3Biggest
Try it
Count to 100 with a grown-up.
That took a little while!
The Milky Way has about 100 billion stars.
That is far too many to count!

Welcome home to the Milky Way! Tomorrow we find out what it looks like from Earth.