Robyn Sharpe

Our Planet, the Earth is revolving at 900 miles an hour. At the same time, at 19 miles a second it is orbiting the sun. The Earth is just one of the 9 planets in orbit around the sun in our Solar system. The Solar System lies in the western spiral arm of our galaxy, the Milky Way. There are over 100 billion stars in our galaxy. The closest star to our sun is Proxima Centauri, one of the three stars in orbit about each other in the system Alpha Centauri. The constellation Centaurus where this system is found can be seen only in skies viewed from the Southern Hemisphere. From side to side the Milky Way measures 100 thousand light years. Our sun is 30 thousand light years from the centre of the galaxy, and it takes 200 million years to revolve around it. Our neighbouring galaxy is called Andromeda. It is a spiral galaxy, very similar to that of our own. It can be seen on a clear autumn night in the Northern Hemisphere,
and is the only galaxy that can be seen from Earth without the need for optical aid such as binoculars or a telescope. It’s not that spectacular to look at with the naked eye. It just looks like a small fuzzy patch. There are millions and billions of galaxies of all shapes and sizes in the universe. The size of the universe is absolutely immeasurable, and it still continues to expand outwards from the point where the Big Bang began. The Big Bang is the most popular of many theories about the origins of the universe.
The sky at night is a very beautiful thing to observe, whether you have something to view it with, or you’d rather just look up and see it through the naked eye. There are so many things to look out for.

© 1999 Freeway
Writers: English students
HTML by: Daniel Nilsson (nv01-16@park.se).
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