Are we alone?
KEY QUESTIONS:
What and where are we in the cosmos?
Could there be other planets like Earth out there?
3. Stars and star systems orbit 1. Moons
the centers of galaxies orbit planets
Jupiter Saturn
Mercury
Mars
Venus
Earth Neptune
Uranus
*The exact number depends on whether we call objects like Pluto “planets”.
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.
Earth
“Just Right!”
Mars
“Too Cold”
• A million Earths
would fit inside the
volume of the Sun.
The Sun is the ONLY star in the SOLAR SYSTEM.
1. “Milky Way” = our entire galaxy of 100 2. “Milky Way” = the band of light and
billion stars.* Our whole solar system dust that stretches across a dark night
orbits once around the galaxy’s center sky.* This is just a portion of one of the
every 225 million years or so. spiral arms that we can see from Earth.
* The image above is of another spiral galaxy that * The image above is a long exposure photograph,
may be a lot like our own Milky Way. It would not be showing much more contrast than we would see with
possible to make such an image of our own galaxy our naked eye. To the eye, the “Milky Way” looks
from within it. This galaxy is called NGC 4414. like a faint, whitish band with a few dark patches.
“Milky Stars” There’d be about a 100
billion crystals. That’s
Mirrored Room: how many stars in the
part of the whole Milky Way galaxy!
Alien Earths
exhibit
What if we filled
this whole room
with crystals of
salt?
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.
5. 5.
6. 6.
7. 7.
8. 8.
Largest 9. 9. Farthest
Game # 1:
D. THE MOON
F. HUBBLE TELESCOPE A. THE SUN