Download My Planets

My Planets
Show for young children at RMSC Strasenburgh Planetarium
Rev. 11/24/2015
After children and adults take their seats, your live presenter introduces himself or
herself, points out theater exits for safety, and introduces the recorded voice of Steve,
who will show us some things about the Planetarium and planets for the first part of the
program:
Hello, everyone! Welcome to the Planetarium! I hope you like your
chair. That chair is yours to sit in while we find out about the
Planetarium and the stars, and the planets.
First, let’s find out about the Planetarium. Look around at the big
room we are sitting in. Here at the Planetarium we call this big
room the Star Theater. Go ahead, take a look around the Star
Theater.
The Star Theater has a shape you don’t see just anywhere. If you
know the words for shapes, what shape is the Star Theater? Right!
It’s round, or shaped like a circle.
House lights illuminate the dome
Now look up, up, up at the ceiling. You don’t see a ceiling like that
just anywhere. That ceiling has a special shape too. Say, do you
ever eat cereal for breakfast? Raise your hand if you ever eat cereal
for breakfast. OK, now what do you eat cereal out of? A bowl. You
know, once, after I ate all my cereal, I did something silly. I turned
the cereal bowl upside down and put it on top of my head. That
was not really a very good idea. It made a big mess that somebody
else had to clean up. But when the cereal bowl was on top of my
head I felt like I was in a very small planetarium Star Theater -- a
very small, very wet Planetarium Star Theater. Well, please don’t
dump your cereal bowl at home. It makes a big mess. But here in
the Star Theater we have a ceiling shaped like a giant bowl upside
down – without any mess! That kind of ceiling is called a dome.
We are sitting under a dome here in the Planetarium Star Theater.
Spotlights on the star projector
But I’m sure you want to hear about that big blue machine in the
center of the Star Theater. Some people think it looks like a robot.
Some people think it looks like a spaceship. But it is…a star
projector. Our star projector has a name, and its name is Carl.
Everybody wave and say “Hi” to Carl: “Hi, Carl!”
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Did you know that Carl has his very own elevator? He lives on it.
Carl, please show us how your elevator can go down to the
basement.
The star projector elevator goes down to the basement, then comes back
up on cue
There goes Carl. He’s going to the basement. That’s where he goes
when he’s resting. Only Carl gets to ride on his elevator, not
anybody else. Carl’s elevator is made just for Carl.
All right, Carl, break time is over. We have people here in the
Planetarium Star Theater who want to see the stars and find out
about the planets. Boys and girls, everybody say, “Come back,
Carl!”
Here he comes. Now Carl has many light bulbs, large and small,
that make dots of light on the dome. You can’t see them yet, but
you will in a few minutes. When we turn down all the other lights
in the Star Theater and turn Carl’s lights on, the dots of light on the
dome look just like stars on a beautiful clear night.
Now, boys and girls, today you are here for a show called My
Planets. Raise your hand if you like planets. Good. And if you
don’t like planets, maybe you will like them after you find out a
little bit more about them.
If you like planets, maybe you have looked at a book with pictures
of planets. Well, we have pictures of planets here in the Star
Theater too. Carl, could you please duck out of the way for a few
minutes so we can see some planet pictures?
Thanks, buddy.
Planet pictures appear one by one
Now let’s turn the lights down a little bit…and watch for some
pictures of planets.
There’s one…
There’s another one…
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There’s another one…
There are some more…
Wait, wait, hold on. This is silly. Let’s take the planets one at a
time.
First, did you know you are on a planet right now? Look around,
and you can see a planet.
Panorama of peaceful rural scene
We all live on planet Earth. Maybe you knew that. Our planet
Earth is much bigger than any of us, so we can only see a little bit
of it. But astronauts have gone high up into the sky, into outer
space. A long time ago some astronauts went all the way to the
moon. When the astronauts were going to the moon, they turned
around and looked back at the Earth. It looked like this.
Earth as seen from space, followed by other planets as mentioned
Our Earth is round, like a ball. Maybe you knew that. When you
look at the Earth, what colors do you see? Can you see blue? Can
you see white? Can you see brown? Look very carefully and you
might see some green.
The blue parts of Earth are the oceans and lakes. Maybe you have
visited a lake, or the ocean, here on Earth. Lots of times the water
looks blue.
On Planet Earth, when you see white, you might be looking at
clouds. Back home, when we look at clouds, we look up in the sky.
But if we go up high in an airplane or spaceship, we look down to
see clouds. So we can see white clouds in this picture of Earth. But
some of the white places on Earth are not clouds. Is there anything
else we sometimes see lots and lots of on Earth that is white?
Something you might see that is white and all around us on a cold
winter day? Right – snow. Another thing that looks white from out
in space is ice.
Another color on Earth is brown. Brown is the color of dirt And I
don’t mean the kind dirt you have to clean up indoors, but the kind
of dirt that trees and flowers and grass need to grow in. Some of
the brown colors on Earth are light brown. Light brown places on
Earth might be deserts, where there is lots of sand.
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Finally, look for green. Green is the color of what? Trees? Grass?
Right. Grass, and leaves on trees, are green in the springtime and
summertime.
That’s Planet Earth, our home in space. Now, before we see other
planets, I want to show you something else. What’s this?
…right, it’s the moon. We don’t call the moon a planet, but I want
you to see something special on the moon. Look at the moon. Can
you see round holes? Those round holes are called craters. The
moon has a lot of them. We might see more craters later.
Let’s look at some more planets. Ready?
That’s the planet Mercury. What colors do you see? No blue. Just
brown and gray. Mercury is a big round rock. And look at Mercury
– you might see some round holes like the ones we saw on the
moon. Do you remember what those round holes are called?
Right—craters. Mercury has lots of craters.
Next planet: this one, boys and girls, is Venus. That’s it – all white.
Just clouds.
Next: the planet Mars. When you look at Mars, what color do you
see? Sometimes people call Mars “the red planet.” But Mars is not
really red like an apple or a fire engine. It’s a kind of yellowishbrown color. On Mars, do you see any places that are white? Mars
has some white clouds, but not very many. Mars also has some
white ice.
Here’s a big planet: Jupiter. Look at the colorful stripes on Jupiter.
Those colorful stripes are clouds. On Earth, all the clouds are
white. But on Jupiter, some clouds are white, some are light brown,
some are dark brown. And look for the Great Red Spot. Only
Jupiter has a Great Red Spot. Jupiter is called a giant planet
because it is much bigger than Earth. You could fit two or three
Earths inside Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. But you wouldn’t want to.
Maybe you know this next planet already. Look at the beautiful
rings. It’s the planet Saturn. And look at the clouds of Saturn. On
Saturn, the clouds are mostly yellow or light brown. Saturn is
almost as big as Jupiter. Saturn is much bigger than Earth.
Okay, next! This, boys and girls, is the planet Uranus. Uranus is
mostly blue. But the blue parts are not oceans. Uranus does not
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have any oceans. It’s just a blue planet. You can also see some
white clouds. And, you can see a few rings. The rings of Uranus
are not as big and bright as the rings of Saturn.
And here’s another blue planet. It’s Neptune. Neptune does not
have oceans either. But it does have rings.
All right, boys and girls, how many planets have we seen so far?
We have seen
Mercury…Venus…Earth…Mars…Jupiter…Saturn…Uranus…Ne
ptune… that’s…
One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight planets so far.
Is there something after Neptune that you’ve heard of? Something
with a kind of funny-sounding name? Plato? Pinto? Just kidding.
Sure, it’s Pluto.
A long time ago, when your mom and dad and aunts and uncles
and grandmothers and grandfathers were children just like you, we
thought Pluto was all alone out there. We called Pluto Planet
Number Nine, or the Ninth Planet. But then astronomers made a
discovery.
Astronomers are people who like to find out new things about
planets, and stars, and other things in space. Maybe some of you
would like to be astronomers someday. Anyway, astronomers
made a discovery about Pluto. A discovery is a time when you find
out something you didn’t know before. Astronomers found out that
Pluto is not all alone in space. There are some other things out in
space that are sort of like Pluto. Now some astronomers call these
other things – are you ready for this name, boys and girls? Plutoids.
That’s right, Plutoids.
Grownups, we’re not kidding. According to the International
Astronomical Union, a Plutoid is a type of “dwarf planet.”
Boys and girls, Pluto is a Plutoid, but so are some other worlds out
in space. Another Plutoid is called Eris. Another Plutoid is called
Haumea. And another Plutoid is called Makemake. How many
Plutoids is that? Eris…Pluto…Haumea…Makemake…that’s
one…two…three…four Plutoids. And astronomers are looking to
see if there are more Plutoids out there. Maybe they will discover
more Plutoids soon. So, boys and girls, some astronomers call
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Pluto a Plutoid. But some astronomers still call Pluto a planet. The
grownups have not yet made up their minds what to call Pluto.
Well, we’ve been looking at pictures, like the pictures in a picture
book. Let’s look at the sky. Time to ask Carl for help. Carl, can
you please come up on your elevator and help us?
Hi, Carl. Boys and girls, go ahead and wave and say hi to Carl.
“Hi, Carl.” Carl, will you please show us what the sky looks like in
the daytime?
Panorama of peaceful rural scene with sun in the sky
Thanks, Carl. Boys and girls, here we are, outside in the daytime. I
can see some trees…and a lake with blue water. Look up into the
daytime sky. What color is that? It’s blue. On a clear day, the
daytime sky is blue. Now, boys and girls, look around and see if
you can find the sun. When you find the sun, please point to it.
That will help everyone find the sun. It’s a bright round thing in the
sky. Maybe you think it looks like the moon, but that is Carl’s way
of showing us what the sun looks like in the daytime.
But wait, there’s more. Sometimes we see white fluffy things in the
daytime sky. What are the white fluffy things we sometimes see in
the daytime sky?
Clouds
Right, clouds. If the sky were completely full of clouds, it would be
gray, not blue. Sometimes we have cloudy days with a gray sky.
But if the sky is not completely filled up with clouds, you can see
the blue sky between the clouds.
If the sun is in the sky, is it daytime or nighttime? Right, daytime.
When the sun is in the sky, it’s daytime. But is the sun ALWAYS
in the sky? No, it’s not. If we wait outside all day, then later on the
sun will NOT be in the sky anymore. If it’s daytime when the sun
is in the sky, what time is it when the sun is NOT in the sky
anymore? Right, nighttime.
Now, boys and girls, here’s one of the things we do best at the
Planetarium. We’re going to see nighttime, and we won’t have to
wait all day to see it! Carl, please show us how daytime changes to
nighttime.
The sun moves into the western sky and sets. Stars appear.
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Look – the sun is setting. That means it is going down in our sky.
When the sun sets, sometimes we see new colors in the sky, like
orange or maybe even red. Then, when we can’t see the sun
anymore, the sky will slowly get dark, and we’ll have nighttime.
Let’s watch quietly.
It’s nighttime. You’re not asleep are you? At home, you might be,
but here in the Planetarium we can stay awake and find out what’s
in the night sky.
First, do you see all those little lights in the night sky? Maybe you
already know what those are. Of course, they are stars. Boys and
girls, look at that really bright pretty star over there…but wait, you
can’t see where I’m pointing, can you. To help everyone find
things in the nighttime sky at the Planetarium, here’s something
you will see ONLY at the Planetarium. And it is: the green arrow.
Can you see the green arrow? Now, green arrow, how about
pointing at that really bright pretty star for us.
Thanks, buddy. Bright stars are stars that send us lots of light, so
they are easy to see. The green arrow is pointing to a bright star
right now.
But if a star does NOT send us much light, it is hard to see. We say
it is a faint star. Green arrow, could you point to a faint star for us?
Very nice.
Now, boys and girls, do you see any stars twinkling? When a star
twinkles, it seems to get brighter and fainter very fast, almost as if
it were winking at us. Green arrow, could you find a twinkling star
for us?
That’s a good one. Boys and girls, maybe you have heard of a song
about twinkling stars…not Twinkie, Twinkie, not Winky, Winky,
it’s…that’s it, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Would you like to
sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?” All right, then. Now a good
friend of ours named Phyllis sings very well and plays the guitar. If
you don’t know this song you can learn it right now. Sing along
with Phyllis, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
[song]
Nice job. Let’s give ourselves a round of applause.
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Now, boys and girls, sometimes, when we look all around the night
sky, we see some bright stars that are not twinkling. If you ever see
a bright star that is not twinkling, it might be a planet.
To find out if something in the sky is really a planet, we have to
look through the telescope. That’s right, we have to look through
the telescope. A telescope is a big thing that makes things in the
sky look closer. Maybe you knew that already.
Video effect of looking into a telescope eyepiece
Look – there’s the telescope. Come on. Let’s go look through the
telescope at some planets.
To look through the telescope, you have to look in a little hole
called the eyepiece. It’s the piece you look into with your eye.
Come on up and we’ll look through the eyepiece. Let’s look for
some planets.
I can see some stars. Star, star, star, star, star…but wait…that’s no
star! That’s a planet! It’s the one with the bright rings! For those
who know the letters of the alphabet, the name of this planet starts
with S! It’s…Saturn! That’s what Saturn looks like when we look
through a telescope. We’re getting a really good view tonight, boys
and girls. And look – there is a dot that looks like a little star next
to Saturn. That is one of the moons going around Saturn. That’s
right – Saturn has moons of its own. Of course our Earth has its
own moon. We just call our moon THE moon. But Saturn has
many moons. We can see only one of Saturn’s moons right now.
That moon is called Titan. That’s right, Titan, a moon going
around Saturn.
Let’s move the telescope and look for some other planets. Here’s a
big one. There are stripes that are white, and light brown, and dark
brown, and a great red spot…it’s…starts with J…Jupiter! That’s
what Jupiter looks like when you look at it through a telescope.
And look – we can see some moons of Jupiter. How many? Let’s
count them: one…two…three…four. Jupiter has four big moons,
and they are always lined up next to Jupiter somewhere. Jupiter has
many, many other moons, but just four big ones.
What else can we see through the telescope? Here’s a planet that
looks almost red, but it’s really a kind of yellowish-brown color.
It’s Mars! Can you see the white ice on Mars? Astronomers call
that an ice cap, because it looks like a white hat on somebody’s
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head! Mars has two moons, but they are so small that we cannot
see them with this telescope. We would need a much bigger
telescope to see the moons of Mars.
Now…This looks HUGE…it’s really BRIGHT..all I can see are
craters…we are looking at our own moon, the moon that goes
around our Earth in space. Our moon is so close to us in space that
when we look at it through a telescope it fills up the whole
eyepiece!
Let’s see, what else…here’s Venus. Do you think it looks like a
moon? That’s because it has that curved shape. We call that curved
shape a crescent. In the bright part, it’s daytime on Venus. In the
dark part, it’s nighttime on Venus. The other planets have day and
night just as we do on Earth.
Whoa…the sky is getting bright in the telescope…we’re pointing
the telescope kind of close to the sun, so we have to be very
careful. But, look…there’s another planet. It’s the one that looks a
little bit like our moon, with lots of craters. It’s Mercury.
We haven’t seen all the planets yet. Let’s try to find Uranus. There
it is! Uranus is so far away in space that our telescope cannot make
it look very big. Uranus is light blue. Can you see the rings? Our
telescope might not be big enough to help us see the rings. Usually,
you need a really big telescope to see the rings of Uranus.
What about Neptune? It’s around here somewhere…okay, there it
is! It looks tiny because it’s so very far away in space. But Neptune
is really bigger than the Earth.
Now, I can guess what you might be thinking. Are we going to see
Pluto through the telescope? Give me just a second to point the
telescope at Pluto.
There it is. Yup, that’s it. The one in the middle. Pluto. Does it look
like a really faint star, just like all the other faint stars? Yes, it does.
Pluto is smaller than Earth, even smaller than our Moon, and it’s
very far away, so even when we look through a telescope, that’s all
you can see. You wanted to see Pluto? Well, there it is. You asked
for it, you got it. Pluto. Did you forget which one? Let’s turn on the
special telescope arrow. Yup, that one. That’s Pluto. Yes, indeed,
that is what Pluto really looks like through a telescope.
Let’s try to find something more interesting to look at.
Wait..what’s this…it doesn’t look like a star…it doesn’t look like a
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planet…it looks like some kind of long beautiful cloud. It’s the tail
of a comet! And there is the head of the comet! Comets are not
planets, and they are not moons. They are not even Plutoids. They
are just comets. Comets are pieces of ice mixed with dirt, traveling
through space. Sometimes, when a comet gets close to the sun, it
gets warm, and some of the ice turns into a gas and makes a comet
tail. A comet lots of people have heard of is Halley’s comet, but
there are many, many other comets in space. I don’t know which
one this is. There are lots of them out there.
Here’s something we haven’t seen yet. It looks like a rock. It has
some craters. It’s not round, so it’s not a planet. And it doesn’t
have a tail, so it’s not a comet. This is an asteroid. Asteroids are
much smaller than planets. There are many, many asteroids in
space.
Did you know that all the planets go around the sun? Maybe you
knew that already. Let’s look away from the telescope for a
moment at a special picture.
Moving model of solar system, with planets in their orbits around the Sun
Boys and girls, we call this the solar system. Solar means having to
do with the sun. Green arrow, could you help us out here? Thanks,
buddy. The sun is right in the middle of our solar system. Now, the
sun is a big ball of fiery gases. The planet closest to the sun is
Mercury. Mercury is really hot because it is close to the sun.
The next planet is Venus. It is farther from the sun than Mercury,
but it’s still really hot.
Next, our home, Earth. Earth is not too hot for us, not too cold, but
just right.
Then comes Mars. Mars is colder than Earth.
Next, Jupiter…and, way out, Saturn. The clouds on Jupiter and
Saturn are really cold.
So, what about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto? They are so far out,
they don’t fit in this picture. I think saw Pluto out in the
Planetarium lobby waiting to buy a ticket for the next show. Okay,
maybe not.
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Can you see how the planets are going around the sun? Every time
Earth goes around the sun, you get one year older. One year is the
time Earth takes to go around the sun.
Look how fast Mercury goes! If you are three years old on Earth,
you are 12 Mercury years old. If you are four years old on Earth,
you are 16 Mercury years old. If you are five years old on Earth,
you are 20 Mercury years old. If you are six years old on Earth,
you are 24 Mercury years old! And if you are TWO years old on
Earth, you probably don’t really know what I’m talking about.
Anyway, multiply your age by 4 to get Mercury years.
Now look at Saturn. It’s really moving slowly! Saturn takes about
29 years to go around the Sun. To be one Saturn year old, you have
to be 29 years old on Earth. That’s right, 29. Twenty-nine Earth
years is one Saturn year.
All right, all right, I know you’re wondering – how many Earth
years in a Pluto year? About 248 Earth years make one Pluto year.
Pluto takes 248 years to go around the sun. Nobody here is one
Pluto year old.
What would it be like to visit another planet?
Video of Space Shuttle launch, leading to rotating model Earth in space
with stars in the background
First, we have to get in a spaceship and blast off into space.
When we are far away from Earth, we look back and see that Earth
is really a ball in space. Earth turns slowly. That makes day and
night for the people back on Earth.
It takes a long time, but one day we reach another planet:
Panorama of Mars, Eagle Crater, landing site of rover Opportunity
It’s…Mars…the red planet! Well, Mars is actually yellowish
brown. This is where a robot Mars rover from Earth landed. The
rover drove away a long time ago, but you can see the rover’s
tracks. There’s dust everywhere here on Mars, even up in the air.
So the sky here on Mars looks yellowish-brown too. I don’t see
anything white, so I don’t think we are close to the ice cap on
Mars.
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Okay, Mars was great. Where else could we go? What if we travel
for years and years…then we might get to…
All-sky view of Saturn clouds and rings as seen from the night side of
Saturn
…where do you think this is? There are clouds all around us. Up in
the sky, that is NOT a rainbow. Those are rings. We are floating
through the clouds of Saturn, looking up at Saturn’s rings.
Grownups, that round dark shape is the shadow of the globe of
Saturn on the rings. The rings of Saturn are made of many, many
pieces of ice and dirt. But they are so far away, and there are so
many pieces of ice and dirt, that the rings look like one big wheel
in the sky. This is what astronauts might see someday if they go to
Saturn.
It’s time to go back home to Earth. We’ll see what the stars look
like in our sky back home, and we’ll find out if there are any
planets we can see tonight.
Transition effects signal a return to Earth and the sky as seen from western
New York.
The live presenter conducts a tour of the current sky, pointing out key constellations and
planets visible from western New York in the current month. Soon, a glow appears in the
eastern sky, indicating that sunrise is coming.
Boys and girls, I think nighttime is coming to an end. The stars are
fading away. I can see more and more light over in the east. Our
Earth is turning us. Soon we will see something big and bright
rising into the sky to start a new day. What will it be? That’s right,
the sun. We’ve been up all night, and I don’t feel sleepy at all!
Let’s watch as nighttime ends and a new day begins.
The Planetarium sun rises and the room lights gently fade on
Boys and girls, today we saw some pictures of planets, we saw
what planets look like when we look through a telescope, and we
even saw what it might be like to travel to Mars and Saturn. Carl,
our star projector, was very helpful today. Let’s all say, “Thank
you, Carl!” [“Thank you, Carl!”] I hope you will discover more
about the planets when you get home, and we hope you will visit
the Planetarium again. Thank you!
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