Space

**Space**
Look up at the sky at night. Especially here in Kulin where the night sky is not polluted by city lights, you can see thousands of stars. Are any of these stars orbited by a planet like ours? Are there any other solar systems? A planet with the perfect set of characteristics needed for life - the right distance from it's sun, enough gravity to hold an atmosphere, a magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind?

Or are we alone in this universe, a tiny speck of self awareness that blinked on for a second in the flow of time and space?

We call our local star the Sun. Orbiting the Sun are a number of wandering planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth (our home), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto used to be regarded as a planet but is now classified as a Dwarf Planet. Our solar system is visited by comets and sometimes asteroids and meteors come here to stay.

The Earth is tilted on it's axis which causes our seasons, and it is orbited by it's own moon. We also know there are moons on Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and many of them have been visited by space probes launched from Earth and sent to travel the solar system and beyond.

The Earth's layered interior tells us something about how it was created and the magnetic field it provides is useful for more than just navigation.

Join the science class on a journey through our amazing solar system!