The New Childrens Encyclopedia

Eye spy space People have been staring at the heavens since prehistoric times. They measured the positions of the stars and watc ...

EYE SPY SPACE ■ Overall height 81 ft (24.6 m) ■ Total moving weight 300 tons (270 metric tons) ■ Total weight of glass 16 tons ( ...

APOLLO TIMELINE GETTING THERE The Apollo program In the early 1960s, Russia was ahead in the space race, so President Kennedy an ...

APOLLO SPACECRAFT For the three-day trip between Earth and the Moon, the Apollo crew spent most of their time in the cone-shaped ...

24 Exploring space The Space Age began in 1957, with the launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, by the Sovie ...

EXPLORING SPACE d VIRGIN GALACTIC is selling tickets for suborbital flights to an altitude of 42 miles (68 km). Space shuttle In ...

26 1960s 1970s TIMELINE OF MARS EXPLORATION 1964 Mariner 4 (US) the first success returned 21 images. 1960 Korabl 4 (USSR) did n ...

2727 1990s 1988-89 Phobos 1 and 2 (USSR) were both lost on route to Mars. 2003 Europe’s Mars Express orbiter began taking detail ...

EARTH The Earth formed from the gas and dust of a nebula 4.5 billion years ago. Earth’s inner core is as hot as the surface of t ...

Winds traveling around the Earth can be faster than 200 mph (320 k/ph). The highest tsunami on record was 1,720 feet (525 meters ...

30 EARLY EARTH FIRST LIFE EXPLOSION OF LIFE TIMELINE OF LIFE ON EARTH 3.5 billion years ago: first living cells. 4.5 billion yea ...

OUR UNIQUE WORLD 31 AGE OF THE DINOSAURS 225 million years ago: all land joined into one continent, Pangaea. PANGAEA 225 million ...

32 Dynamic planet Earth’s surface is constantly changing. The rocks it is made from have been recycled many times. Even though w ...

DYNAMIC PLANET 33 Divergent boundaries At the points where the mantle currents rise upward, the plates above them get pulled apa ...

34 EARTH VOLCANOES Volcanoes form when molten rock pushes up through the Earth’s crust. When molten rock is underground it is ca ...

VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES 35 EARTH Ash clouds blast fine particles high up into Earth’s atmosphere, where they can affect the wo ...

Making mountains Mountain ranges cover about a fifth of the Earth’s land surface. They have built up over millions of years, as ...

MAKING MOUNTAINS EARTH Going up The higher you climb, the air becomes thinner and the temperature gets colder. The tree line mar ...

38 EARTH Most sedimentary rocks are made of small particles of other rocks, transported by water, wind, or ice. The particles ma ...

39 EARTH Types of mineral The common minerals that make up Earth’s crust are called “rock- forming minerals.” They are mostly co ...