Discovering the Night Sky

11 Discovering the Night Sky For one night each month, King's University shares its telescope with kids from all over the city. It's a chance for them to get an up-close look at the wonders of the night sky. Professor Jones, supervisor of the Telescopes for Kids program, says that when youngsters take their first look through a telescope, they're hooked for life. " The night sky is an awesome thing to discover, " says Professor Jones. “ Most kids look up and see only stars. But there is a whole lot more going on up there. " Professor Jones begins each star-viewing session by explaining that the earth's sun is just a star. “ If you were on a distant planet looking at our sun from a telescope, it would look just like any other star. The sun is the centre of our solar system, but it's just one of billions of stars in our galaxy -the Milky Way.

The professor often hears gasps of disbelief from the kids when he tells them that the Milky Way contains more than 200 billion stars! The kids are even more amazed to learn that our galaxy is travelling through space at a speed of about 250 kilometres per second. “ There are so many stars in the Milky Way that it's impossible to see individual stars. You see only a long band of white light. It looks like someone spilled a glass of milk across the sky, " says Professor Jones. “ That's why it's called the Milky Way. " Thirteen-year-old Anne Wilson has been visiting the sky observatory for a couple of years. “ I used to look up at the sky and see the stars and the moon, " says Anne. " But I didn't really know anything about them. Now that I have learned to identify some of the main constellations and the brightest stars in the heavens, I've begun to appreciate how vast the universe really is. " That's the way it is with the universe. It's so large that it's difficult to understand it. As Professor Jones explains, " Sometimes we all get caught up in ourselves. We think that we are the centre of the universe. Learning about the night sky helps us keep things in perspective. "