The Pinwheel Galaxy is a spiral-shaped galaxy about 21 million light years away from Earth. Scientists call this swirling galaxy M101. You can find it in the constellation Ursa Major, or the “Big Dipper”, in the Northern Hemisphere. With a nice, dark sky, you can see it with binoculars or a small telescope. For those of us who can’t see it in the night sky, we can have the next best thing: a Pinwheel Galaxy pinwheel. (See below activity.)

The Hubble took the picture of the Pinwheel Galaxy on your pinwheel in the same visible light , the same waves we can see with our eyes. The Spitzer Space Telescope takes in infrared, which we normally can’t see with your own eyes. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory takes pictures using X-rays, much like a doctor uses. Discuss their differences.

OUR EYES ON THE GALAXIES

Hubble Telescope: This space telescope was launched in 1990 and is roughly the size of a bus. It detects visible light. The Hubble took some of the first pictures of the pinwheel galaxy.

Spitzer Space Telescope: This is an infrared space telescope launched in 2003 and retired January 2020

Chandra X-ray Observatory: Flagship class space telescope, launched from Space Shuttle Columbia—July 23, 1999. It utilizes x-ray vision to gather information about distant galaxies.

Here living on Earth, it's easy to believe that we are standing still. After all, we don't feel any movement in our surroundings. Yet when you look at the sky, you can see evidence that we are moving. One such example is something called parallax (the apparent change in the position of the stars with respect to each other). For a simple example of parallax, hold up your index finger in front of your face at arm's length. Look at it with your left eye only, closing your right eye. Then close your right eye, and look at the same finger in the same position with your left eye. Your finger's apparent position changes. That's because your eyes are looking at your finger with slightly different angles. The same thing happens on Earth when we look at the stars. If we look at a star in the summer, and then look at that same star again in the winter, it's apparent position in the sky will have changed because we are at a different position in our orbit.

We see different views of the Universe depending on where we live as the Earth makes its yearly trip (orbit) around the solar system. That is why you will find a different Star Finder for each month below. As the Earth orbit's the sun, different constellations come into view. With that in mind as Earth rotates on its axis toward the east throughout the hours of the night, the whole sky will appear to shift toward the west. This is part of what makes the moon always appear in a different position in the nighttime sky. Not only are we constantly seeing a different view as the Earth rotates on its axis (1, 037 miles per hour at the equator) and orbits the sun (at 66, 627 miles per hour), but the moon is also orbiting the Earth (at a speed of 2,288 miles per hour).

What are constellations anyway? A constellation is a group of stars like a dot-to –dot puzzle. If you join the dots– stars, that is – and use lots of imagination, the picture would look like an object, animal, or person. For example, Orion is a group of stars that the Greeks thought looked like a giant hunter with a sword attached to his belt.

We see it everyday in the sky. The sun has had multiple names throughout history. Some of these names have included the French word "soleil," the Latin term "sol" from the ancient Romans and "helios" from the ancient Greeks. However, after Germany coined the term "sonne," the word translated into English became "sun," according to NASA.

Our sun is a burning ball of super heated gas. Just like most other stars we've studied, it is made up mostly of hydrogen (72%), followed by helium (26%). The other 2% of its mass is made up of tiny amounts of oxygen, carbon, neon, nitrogen, magnesium, iron and silicon. Even through it is 93 million miles away, we can feel its heat and light on Earth. With its plasma energy traveling at the speed of light, solar radiation from the sun takes approximately 8 minutes to reach the Earth.

Our sun is 4,500,000,000 years old. Comparing it to the age of the whole solar system it can be estimated that it all came together at about the same time. But, how do we really know how old the sun and solar system are? Scientists have looked at the oldest things they can find - Moon rocks. When they were brought back by astronauts scientists were able to study them and find out how old they were. The next big question: How much longer will the sun shine? Stars like the Sun will burn for 9-10 billion years , this means the sun is about halfway through its life. In the next 5 billion years the Sun will then become a Red giant where it will get bigger, cooler and shine 2,000 times brighter than it does now!