第一小集
星は生きている
Stars are born and die
星の海、銀河系
The Galaxy, the sea of stars
The Milky Way Galaxy is only one of countless galaxies. Nonetheless, it has one hundred billion stars and our solar system is only a very small part of it, situated on its outskirts.
Numerous stars are being born at various places in the spiral arms of the enormously vast sea.
Every one of them will have a drama of its own life.
星のたまご
Baby stars
On the right is a baby star swaddled in baby clothes of molecular cloud. He is emitting light of plasma upward and downward. Does he seem a crying baby ?
On the left are young adult stars.
Fancy you could really see baby stars in the galaxy !
少年期の星
Boy stars
A boy star comes out in blowing the clouds off with energy of nuclear fusion, from which he will gradually get heat and grow up to be a brilliant "adult star".
He is getting old enough to have his planets coming out and moving around him.
静かなる最後
Old stars
A declining old star keeps shining to the full mildly and quietly until he exhaust all his fuel at the final stage of his life.
The gas he radiates is recycled into clouds, which will be inherited by his descendant stars someday.
スーパーノヴァ
Supernova
When an old giant red star is exploding, it is called Supernova.
He shines 10 billion times as brightly as the sun. The holy light tells us he is going to close his life.
In the meantime, the supernova is turning back into numerous dusts floating in space.
明滅するパルサー
Blinking Pulsar
After Supernova has disappeared, only an extremely dense core is left.
The core revolves on its own axis and casts light around like that from a lighthouse.
He seems to show the honorable ending of a big star.
ブラックホール
Black hole
"Black hole" is an area in outer space into which everything near it, including light, is pulled.
The core of an ex-Supernova has such an enormous gravity as to pull even the light toward the center in spiral, so we cannot see it.
Black hole is the remains of Supernova, being different from Pulsar. He shows the other dramatic ending of a big star.
未知なる惑星
Unknown planets
Countless billions of stars are born and die in the endless universe.
Somewhere outside of the galaxy, there would be lots of spectacles only God might see.
When will we be able to see any of them ?
第一小集结束
第二小集
太陽系の旅
Traveling in the Solar System
地球の家族たち
Introduction of our Family
Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury ― the brother planets moving around the bright sun.
Asteroids ― small planets moving around the sun between Jupiter and Mars.
Moons ― objects moving around planets.
Comets―vagabonds in space.
All of them are the family of our Solar System.
環のある惑星、土星
Saturn, the planet with a ring
Saturn's ring looks like a disk with stripes on it.
The ring is several hundred thousand kilometers long, but is only one hundred meters thick.
Through telescope, children would be most excited to find the straw-hat planet.
魅力的な環の正体
Closer look at the ring
Don't you fancy we can walk on the ring of Saturn ?
The ring is composed of numerous particles of ice and small fragments of stars, which are moving around Saturn.
He looks as if saying, "No, you cannot walk on", smiling beyond the transparent ring.
赤く輝く、火星
Mars, the bright red star
Mars, the nearest to us, is a red planet with occasional violent sand-storms.
We would be able to immigrate onto the star early in the future.
The immigrants might have to turn their monthly calendar more frequently, because Phobos, the moon of Mars, is mooning around in a shorter cycle.
朝霧のマリネリス峡谷
Marineris canyon in morning mist
Violent sand-storm is over, and all is calm over the deep canyon on Mars.
Could you hear the sound of water that used to be on the bottom in old days ?
美しい旅人、彗星
Comets, beautiful travelers
Comets move around the sun in their own orbits and brighten up like light balls when they come near to the sun.
Mother and Daughter on their way from shopping are lucky enough to see a comet with beautiful long tail flying in the evening sky.
彗星の故郷を訪ねて
Home of comets
In the Kuiperbelt and the Oort cloud far beyond Pluto, there are numerous young comets, which are said to be made of ice or something.
They might be waiting for the chance to go near to the sun to brighten up beautifully in the vast space.
流星群は彗星の記憶
Memory of shooting stars
When meteoric particles, pieces of particles released from comets, fall toward the earth, they encounter the earth's atmosphere and burn brightly in the sky. They are called shooting stars or falling stars.
Don't miss the chance of seeing shower of falling stars, the memory of which would never miss you in return !