Armageddon and other famous movies showed the disasters that could occur when comets hit the Earth or came close to the planet. Those disasters ranged from end of the world situations to buildings catching on fire and oceans flooding. Astronomers often call comets dirty snowballs because they primarily consist of ice or snow mixed with debris. Comets can move through the … [Read more...]

The distance between the Earth and the sun is the perfect distance between those two objects. It sits in a region known as the 'Goldilocks zone', because it is just right. If the Earth were closer, the sun could cause life on the planet to burn up. If the Earth moved away from the sun, it could become too cold for humans to survive. People sometimes think that we're getting … [Read more...]

Earth is one of the most important planets in the solar system because it is the only one that can sustain human life. All the other planets in our universe either consist of gases that humans cannot breathe or temperatures that are too high. Our planet is home to more than seven billion people and billions of animals. It is more than four billion years old and sits roughly 92 … [Read more...]

The stars that you see in the sky are millions of miles away from the Earth. Though it can sometimes feel as if you can reach out and touch one on a clear night, those stars are farther away than you might expect. Cepheid variables refer to specific types of stars. They can appear brighter on some nights and dimmer on others. This allows NASA and astronomers to use the stars to … [Read more...]