Space

First published 2021 © Twinkl Ltd of Wards Exchange,

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Copyright © Twinkl Ltd. 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means,
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Space
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents
are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Twinkl is a registered trademark of Twinkl Ltd.

Twinkl Educational Publishing

 Contents

Welcome, Explorers!  1
Galaxies  3
Stars  4
The Solar System  5
The Sun  7
Moons  9
Planets  11
Mercury  13
Venus  14
Earth  15
Mars  16
Jupiter 17
Saturn  18
Uranus  19
Neptune  20
Space Rocks 21
Space Exploration  23
When you see a bold word, you can Glossary  25
use the glossary to check its meaning. Index  27

4 5
 Welcome, Explorers!
Fact Stop:
• The universe is about 13 billion years old.
• The universe is getting bigger all the time.
• The universe contains everything – you,
your house, our planet, other planets,
stars and more!

Hop aboard our spaceship. Are we going to see

Let’s go on an adventure! the whole universe?
No, Mab. The universe
is too enormous for us
to see all of it.

1 2
 Galaxies Stars

y is made u
A galax p of
b i l l i o n s o f s ta rs.

Stars are massive balls of gas

that give off heat and light.

Fact Stop:
• We live in a galaxy that
some people call
‘The Milky Way’.
• It is shaped like a spiral.

It is called the Milky Way because it looks

like milk has been sprayed across the sky! One star that is very important
to us is called the Sun.
3 4
 The Solar System Sun
Earth
The Sun has a family of planets, moons and space rocks
that circle around it. This is called the solar system.

Mercury

Saturn

Mars
Venus

Uranus
Let’s use the telescope
Jupiter to take a closer look.

Neptune

5 6
 The Sun
The Sun is the closest
star to Earth. That is
why it looks much bigger
than the other stars we
can see.
All the planets in our
solar system move
around the Sun.
We have special goggles
but you should never look
directly at the Sun because it
can hurt your eyes.
7 8
g i ve s u s light and heat
un . I t .
In t t he S
he d ee
aytime, we can s
Fact Stop:
• The Sun is a ball shape.
• The surface of the Sun is
5600˚C – that’s hotter
than fire!
It gets dark at night
because the side
of the Earth that
you live on is facing
away from the Sun.
 Moons Earth has one moon that we can see clearly in the night sky.
We call it ‘the Moon’.
a ro u nd a b i g g e
rcl es r ob
c i j ec Fact Stop:
ce t,
t
pa • The Moon orbits the

hi
s

si
Earth every 27 days.
n
ti

sc
ec

12 humans have

a l le
•
ob j

walked on the Moon.

d an
Wh en a n

o rb i t .
We can still see their footprints
Neil Armstrong was because there is no wind or rain on
the first person to ever the Moon to blow them away.
walk on the Moon.
Planets orbit the Sun.

Moons orbit planets.

Moons are always smaller than the planets

they orbit. Not all planets have a moon and some Buzz Aldrin, the second
planets have more than one. person to walk on the Moon
9 10
 Planets

There are eight planets in our solar system. Humans live on Some planets have moons.
a planet called Earth. Planets are huge objects in space
that orbit a star. Planets can be made of rock, gas or ice. Some planets have rings made of gas, rock, ice and dust.

rock gas
Satu
rn ice
Mar
s

U ra
nu
M s Ne e
e rc u ry ptun
u
s

Ve n Earth
te

r
p i
Ju

11 12
 Mercury Venus

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and is the Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system and spins
smallest planet in our solar system. in the opposite direction to Earth.

•Fact Stop• •Fact Stop•

Type: rocky Type: rocky

Moons: 0 Moons: 0
Rings: no Rings: no

13 14
 Earth Mars

This is where you live! It is the only planet that we know of Mars looks red because it has something called iron oxide
where things can live. That’s because it has everything we on its surface. This is the same stuff that we see on Earth
need to survive, including plenty of water. when metal rusts! It also has lots of volcanoes.

•Fact Stop• •Fact Stop•

Type: rocky Type: rocky

Moons: 1 Moons: 2
Rings: no Rings: no

Mars

15 16
 Jupiter Saturn

Saturn spins so fast that a day only lasts about ten

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. It has a giant
hours! Saturn is the furthest planet away that we can see
storm that never ends. The storm is twice the size of Earth!
without using a telescope.

•Fact Stop• •Fact Stop•

Type: gas Type: gas

Moons: 53 Moons: 53

Rings: yes Rings: yes

(made of dust) (made of ice
and rock)

17 18
 Uranus Neptune

Uranus is the coldest planet in our solar system. Like Venus, Neptune is the furthest planet away from the Sun.
it also spins in the opposite direction to Earth. It has the strongest winds in our solar system.

•Fact Stop• •Fact Stop•

Type: ice Type: ice
Moons: 27 Moons: 14
Rings: yes Rings: yes
(made of (made of ice
mostly ice) and dust)

19 20
 Space Rocks Meteors
Meteors are small asteroids or comets that burn when
they come too close to Earth.
Asteroids
Asteroids are large
chunks of metal and
rock that float around
in space.

Asteroids can be odd shapes.

Comets
Comets are similar to
asteroids but they are also
made up of ice. They have You can sometimes see meteors shooting across the sky
beautiful tails of gas and dust. at night. That’s why some people call them shooting stars, even
though they’re not really stars at all!

21 22
 Space Exploration
The International Space Station orbits the Earth and is a
place for astronauts to live and work.
Astronauts are people who travel into space.
They use special vehicles, which are blasted
into the air using rockets.

Do you think you

would like to be an What a fun Thanks for
astronaut? time we’ve had coming along
exploring space! with us.

When in space, astronauts sometimes go for a

spacewalk outside of the spacecraft. For this, they
need special suits to help them to breathe and to stop
them from floating off into space.

23 24
 Glossary

daytime when it is light; the time between sunrise space rocks objects made from metal, rock or ice
and sunset that float around in space, e.g. a meteor

direction the way in which something is moving or spacewalk when an astronaut leaves the
facing spacecraft in space

gas something that is usually invisible and storm powerful weather, including strong winds
has no fixed shape
surface the outside part or top layer
night when it is dark; the time between sunset of something
and sunrise
telescope a tool used to see objects that
rockets the objects used to launch spacecraft are faraway

shooting star a meteor that can be seen from Earth The Milky Way the galaxy that contains our
solar system
space a huge area that contains galaxies,
stars, planets and moons volcanoes mountains that can explode with hot
lava and rocks
spacecraft a special vehicle used by humans to
travel into space

25 26
 Index

asteroid 21-22 planet 5, 7, 9, 11-20

astronaut 23-24 rings 12, 17-20
Buzz Aldrin 10 Saturn 5, 18
comet 21-22 shooting stars 22
day and night 8 solar system 5-6
Earth 6, 7, 10, 11, 15 spacecraft 23-24
galaxy 3 space rocks 21-22
International Space Station 24 spacewalk 23
Jupiter 5, 17 star 3-4, 7, 11, 22
Mars 6, 16 Sun 4, 6, 7-8, 13, 20
Mercury 6, 13 telescope 18
meteor 22 Uranus 5, 19
Milky Way 3 universe 1-2
moon 9-10 Venus 6, 14
Neptune 5, 20 volcanoes 16
orbit 9-10 water 15

27 28
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 What is a galaxy?
How many planets are there in our solar system?
How do humans travel into space?

Hello, explorers!
To answer these questions, hop aboard our
spaceship. We’re about to blast off into space
to learn about galaxies, stars, planets, moons
and much more!

Yoff Zid Mab

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