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Astronomy is a serious science. It’s a good hobby for younger people, too. There are a lot of resources for astronomy for kids who are interested in the planets, the solar system, the universe and everything else that’s part of this exciting science. For children, many parts of astronomy are magical and thus a huge draw[/pin]. These include the solar system, planets, comets, meteorites, asteroids, stars, the sun, galaxies and of course our closest neighbor in space, the moon.

Its path around the Earth takes just over twenty seven days to complete. Being so near, it has hosted the only human footsteps on a space object other than the Earth. Gravity between the moon and Earth causes the tides. It’s one of the first objects that can spark a kid’s interest in astronomy because it can be clearly seen with the human eye.

Then there’s our sun. The sun is a long way away from us. The distance varies between about 146 million kilometers and 152 million kilometers. It’s not an inaccurate measurement, it’s because the Earth orbits in an uneven ellipse. If there were no sun, we wouldn’t be alive. Important elements such as light and heat come from the sun. Most people don’t realize that the sun accounts for around 98% of all the mass in the solar system. What a hog.

Our own galaxy is the Milky Way. Like all other galaxies it’s a collection of gas, dust, stars and planets. Most of the area in a galaxy is filled with nothing, just empty space. That’s a lot of nothing because our galaxy is 100,000 light years across and 3,000 light years deep. Our sun is over 30,000 light years from the center of the galaxy. Even with all that space there are about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. In fact the galaxy takes its name from the appearance of the band of stars that shine from the main section of the galaxy. People thought it looked like a stream of milk, so called it the Milky Way. It’s a spiral galaxy, one of four major types of galaxies in the universe. The others are elliptical, lenticular and irregular.

There is a lot of information about astronomy for kids on the Internet. From dictionaries and encyclopedic references, to programs that show different planets, solar systems and objects right on the computer, there’s more information than a kid would ever read.