Uranus, the second to last planet out from the Sun Uranus is between Saturn and Neptune, so it's the next to the last planet away from our Sun. It takes Uranus 84 years to go around the Sun because it is so far away. Like the other planets going around our Sun, Uranus (YER-ann-uss) formed about 4.5 billion years [...]
What are planets? The planet Venus from space Before there were planets For several hundred million years after the Big Bang, there were no planets, only stars. Planets couldn't form until the first stars ran out of fuel and exploded into supernovas, about 14 billion years ago. The supernovas spewed out thousands of tons of carbon, oxygen, iron and other elements into space. Planets [...]
Neptune from space Neptune is the farthest planet from our Sun. Neptune is the only planet that is so far away that you can't see it without a telescope. Neptune (NEPP-toon) is an icy planet, about the same size as Uranus. Neptune's probably a lot like Uranus in other ways, too. Neptune has a rocky core [...]
Gottfried Leibniz, a German mathematician - Enlightenment science What set off the Enlightenment? By 1650 AD, Europeans understood Islamic algebra and trigonometry better. Then they combined that with the exciting invention of the telescope and microscope (thanks to earlier Islamic work on glass). Together, these two new things led to a lot more new scientific discoveries. Medieval and modern glass Medieval [...]
Diagram of a uranium atom Uranium is a rare atom, not just on Earth but also in space and on other planets. There is not very much uranium anywhere. That's because, like lead or gold, uranium only forms inside exploding supernovas. Because uranium atoms have so many protons and neutrons in them, they don't [...]
