A Trip to the Planets with Nova, a kid astronaut, and Bolt, a robot dog. How far is space, really? Let's find out!
👆 Tap things in the pictures. Tap 📖 Read to me to hear the story. Then press Next ▶. Bonus: fly the rocket yourself in Space Clean-Up! 🎮
Our home, Earth, is one of 8 planets that go around and around the Sun. Together they're called the Solar System.
👆 Tap each planet to meet it! 0 / 10
Space is SUPER big. Even the Moon, our closest neighbor, is about 384,000 km away.
How far is that? Let's line things up between Earth and the Moon!
To travel, we need a ride! Our two choices:
The rocket is about 65 times faster than the jet. Whoosh!
👆 Tap the jet and the rocket to start their engines.
First stop: the Moon! If you could fly straight there without stopping...
✈️ A jet plane would take about 18 days. 🚀 Our super rocket: only about 7 hours!
🧑🚀 The real Apollo astronauts took about 3 days. They went slower so they could stop safely at the Moon.
Now let's go farther! Pick a planet and a ride, and the spaceship computer will tell you how long the trip takes.
A long trip means you get hungry. Astronauts must pack all their food before they leave. There are no shops in space!
Some trips are so long that you'd get bored... and you'd need mountains of food. What if you could sleep the whole way, like a bear in winter?
🔬 True or pretend? Pretend, for now! People can't be frozen and woken up yet. Scientists study how bears hibernate to make "space sleep" possible one day.
Here's the tricky part. While you travel, time keeps going on Earth. Your family keeps getting older, even if you were asleep in the pod.
How old are you?
Space is amazing, but it's really, really far. That's why scientists keep building faster spaceships, and why we send brave robots to explore for us.
And Earth? It's the only planet we know where we can breathe the air, splash in the sea, and eat pizza with our family. 💛
🧠 Quick Quiz!
