Journey to the Planets [antikvár]

rhis is our Earth seen from outer space. You can make out the shape of Africa, and, above it, the Mediterranean Sea. The British Isles are partly hidden under clouds, but you can see the familiar outline if you look closely. Someone not familiar with our atlases and the shapes of our continents and oceans would find the brown, green, blue and white patches fascinating, and would be interested to know what they are made of, and why the white clouds are always changing shape and direction. If he looked carefully, he would see signs of habitation: the lights of the cities on the dark side of the Earth, the colourful squares of fields and towns, and the arrow-shaped waves ships make on the surface of the seas.We, too, have become space travellers anxious to find out about the other planets and moons of our sun's family, the solar system. For a long time we have gazed up into the night sky at our own moon. We have been able to measure its size, its distance from us, and how long it takes to orbit in a circle around us.The Earth's MoonDiameter Average distance from Earth kilometres kilometresTime taken to orbit Earth days: hours: minutesRockets have already carried astronauts to our moon, but we are going to set out on a much longer journey to the other eight planets which, like our earth, circle the star we call the sun.