An Astronaut's Journey into Space

‘Twinkle twinkle little star’ is the rhyme what most of the children learnt first.  I think a kid’s love for space started here. My little one is also not an exception.  She loved to watch the sky for different shapes of clouds, number of colors she could identify from the evening sky, different shapes of moon & changes in its location and watching the bright Venus in the evening sky and its location.

I still remembered the moment she opened her eyes wider and asked, “Isn't it a bright star? Is it a planet?” Then, she called her dad and said, “See, that’s not a bright star. That is the brightest planet.”

The planet song  and the solar system song are our favorite videos.

So, I thought of introducing her some fun facts of our solar system via a simple story ‘An astronaut’s journey into space’. This is how the story goes.

Once an astronaut wanted to find a planet better than our earth to live.  He traveled around the solar system. He found that the last four planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are full of gas.  No one can land there.  In Neptune, there is heavy wind blowing.  He found a strong Hurricane there. Uranus is Icy cold.

Then, he went to Saturn.  It has so many thick rings.  Saturn is like a balloon.  It is the lightest planet.

He went to Jupiter, the biggest planet.  We can put 1300 earth into it. There is also a strong hurricane like wind.

In mars there is no oxygen and found a dusty storm. (“Yes ma.  We have to put oxygen mask. I saw this in a movie ‘mars needs moms’”.)

Venus is very hot like he would be melting.  Mercury - the smallest planet is very close to sun.

The astronaut is fed up and said, “Our earth is the best to live”

We also used a small stone to represent the meteorite.

I read this article about the visible planets of  2014  and we watched the evening sky for Jupiter. We found it in the north east around half an hour after sunset (on 25.01.2014). It was so bright all through the night.