Astronomy Top Ten

Top Ten astronomy Articles

Here are the top ten articles for the Astronomy Site! These rankings are live and get reset at the beginning of each month, so check back often to see what your fellow visitors are most interested in!

1. Discovering Uranus - for Kids

You can see planets without a telescope. People have been seeing Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn for thousands of years. Even though Uranus was the first planet discovered by telescope, sometimes it can be seen without one.

2. Lepus the Hare – facts for kids

The constellation Lepus represents a hare, an animal related to rabbits. It's a very old constellation. Nearly 2000 years ago the astronomer Ptolemy included it in his list of 48 constellations.

3. Ceres - Facts for Kids

When Ceres was discovered in 1801, astronomers assumed it was a planet. But when many more of these bodies were found, they were all finally listed as asteroids. In 2006 Ceres became the only asteroid also to be listed as a dwarf planet.

4. Saturn Facts for Kids

Saturday is Saturn's day. Saturn, a god of ancient mythology, is the planet with the beautiful rings. For 13 years, the Cassini space mission studied Saturn, its rings and moons.

5. Astro Advent 2021 – Days 17-25

Christmas 2021 is past now, but you can still enjoy the daily astro advent images posted in the Bella Online Astronomy Forum. The final days of the countdown included images of a prize-winning aurora, a nebula that looks like a dolphin head and the Moon looking like an eyeball.

6. Absolute Beginners - See Mars and beyond

Three beautiful planets - Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - are all visible to the unaided eye. If you have binoculars or a telescope, you can also see some of the moons and other features. Here's a beginner's look at the planets which lie beyond Earth.

7. What Is a Nebula

Nebulae are titanic clouds of gas and dust - celestial gossamer in the spaces between the stars. They're stellar nurseries, stellar graveyards and dark constellations. Some of their mysteries have been penetrated by infrared telescopes, but the cloaking dust still keeps some secrets.

8. Taurus the Bull

Millennia before the rise of Greece, the bull's red eye glared at Orion. But Orion doesn't feature in the Greek myth where Taurus is Zeus's guise for the seduction of Europa. Today's Taurus is a constellation memorable for two beautiful star clusters and one of the sky's most dramatic objects.

9. Lammas to the September Equinox – Quiz

Lammas is a Christian harvest festival celebrated on 1 August, but its origins are pagan. In the Gaelic tradition, it was Lughnasa. Lying midway between the June solstice and the September equinox, it was one of the four 'cross quarter' days of the Gaelic year.

10. Life and Death of Massive Stars – Facts for Kids

Stars are all born in much the same way, but they live and die in different ways. How hot will a star be? How long will it shine? How will it die? That all depends on the star's mass.

Be sure to visit the Astronomy Archives for all the articles!

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