Why are these fairy tales interesting? During the course of the tale, the author poses many questions to the characters and readers that they have to solve. Thus, these fairy tales not only popularize science, but also make the child THINK!
We invite you to plunge into scientific and fabulous adventures!
Is it possible to talk about such a complex science as astronomy in a simple and engaging way? It always seemed to the famous teacher Efrem Pavlovich Levitan that it was not only possible, but also necessary. As proof, he wrote many books about the secrets of the stars and planets for young readers.
Levitan, Efrem Pavlovich. Fabulous adventures of a little astronomer/ E. P. Levitan; artist O. N. Estis. - M.: Meshcheryakov Publishing House, 2016. - 64 p. : color ill. - (Pythagorean pants). (6+)
The main character is a boy, Seryozhka, who once became friends... with the Sun.
The sun was shining so brightly that little Seryozhka, running out of the house, closed his eyes and sneezed loudly.
-Be healthy! - he heard an unfamiliar voice.
- Who is this? - the boy was surprised. -Whose voice did I hear?
- My! - answered a familiar, unfamiliar voice, but, as before, no one was near Seryozhka.
- A! “Someone is playing with me,” the boy guessed. - I'll find him now.
He said, but didn’t find it, although he looked everywhere. The boy was upset and even whined.
- No need to whine! - Seryozhka heard. - It’s me, the Sun, talking to you...
Seryozha wanted to look at the Sun. But the Sun was very bright, and it made the boy close his eyes.
“Don’t look at me,” said the Sun, “you’ll ruin your eyes.” You better listen to me. I think that you will like to be friends with me, because from me you will learn very, very many interesting things.
This is where the boy’s fascinating conversations with celestial bodies begin. Seryozhka turns out to be very inquisitive and observant. He describes what he notices in the sky and asks the right questions. Following the boy, readers of this book will get acquainted with the planets of the solar system, with the most famous constellations, learn a lot about the size of our Galaxy, about whether it is the only one in the Universe...
Where to find the book: subscription grade 2-4 department
Donner, K. Secrets of Anatomy/ K. Donner; edited by: I. Gelfand; lane from English I. Gurova; ill. author. - M.: Pink Giraffe, 2012. - 156 p. : color ill. (12+)
How does my own body work? Why doesn't the stomach eat itself? Why is the immune system needed?
Max and Molly, the heroes of the book "Secrets of Anatomy", like all children, ask these questions. Only unlike ordinary children from real world, reading encyclopedias, asking parents and teachers, an incredible story happened to Max and Molly.
One day in their grandmother's attic they found an old book about human anatomy, and as soon as they opened the book, the children were blinded by a sudden flash of bright light. And so, Max and Molly are no longer in the attic of their grandmother’s house, but are traveling inside a living human body.
This “anatomical” adventure is generously illustrated with magnificent, scientifically accurate color drawings of anatomical “landscapes” and individual objects: the esophagus, stomach, red blood cells, nerve cells...
Author of the book “Secrets of Anatomy” and drawings for them - Carol Donner, a doctor by training, she specializes in popularizing medical knowledge. That's why Secrets of Anatomy is not only a fascinating read, but also a trustworthy source of modern anatomical knowledge.
Where to find the book : subscription grade 5-7 department
Galfar, K. Prince 
from the land of clouds: novel / K. Galfar; lane from fr. M. S. Grinberg; artist V. Dutre. - M.: Pink Giraffe, 2011. - 344 p. : ill. (12+)
"Prince from the Land of Clouds"- this is interesting, accessible scientific information and rapidly unfolding action - only now we are not talking about the Universe, but about the Earth and its climate.
The heroes are 12 years old - princess Myrtille, smart Tom and dreamy loser Tristam, in love with Myrtille. Children study in the same class and live on a cloud. Yes, this is a fairy tale, but a fairy tale for big children, fantasy - so the town on a cloud is immediately, at the beginning, destroyed under the onslaught of scoundrels, and half of the heroes escape from the cruel tyrant and his guardsmen called “snowbreakers”, while the other languishes in captivity. Driving air motorcycles, Tom and Tristam, risking their lives, escape the pursuit... of thunderclouds and lightning, which the evil tyrant has turned into his weapon.
Something is happening all the time, and the reader is not allowed to relax even for a second: the excellent student Tom quickly explains all the scientific information to his ignorant friend in between battles. For example, that the temperature inside lightning reaches thirty thousand degrees, which is 5 times higher than the temperature of the solar surface. And why is the sky blue?
This book combines seemingly completely incompatible things: science fiction and fairy tales, modern theories in the field of physics and mythological subjects. Most importantly, this is a surprisingly fascinating read that encourages a teenager to think about his responsibility for the planet on which he lives.
“Science is so rich and beautiful and so far-reaching that it seemed natural to me to describe it through adventure.”
K. Galfar
Where to find the book : subscription grade 5-7 department
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“And Luna reassured Seryozha:
— Don’t worry, stars don’t fall from the sky to Earth. You know that they are the same as our Sun: very large and hot. Even if they wanted to, they could not fall to the Earth or to me...
“But I saw that they were falling,” Seryozhka began to argue.
“You saw something similar to stars falling, but you will find out what it was later, be patient.”
“First I will draw the Sun. Like this. And now his whole family.
- Stars? - asked Seryozha.
- No! There are no stars, except the Sun itself, in the solar system that I am going to draw. Large and small balls are circling around the Sun. There are nine of them in total, and they are called planets..."
“People have given different names to constellations that resemble more a saucepan or a ladle than a bear! In total, about a hundred names of these constellations are known. For example, the inhabitants of ancient Novgorod called the Big Dipper Elk, in Ukraine it was Voz, in Bulgaria - Cart. And the cattle breeders Central Asia at the site of the Big Dipper they saw a beautiful horse tied to a golden peg - the Polar Star.”
“And the Sun will die? - Seryozhka was horrified.
“In the end, yes,” Chronos sighed. - But, of course, not right away, because it will first turn into a tiny white star, which will be no larger than the Earth, and then this white dwarf will slowly cool down...
- A solar system? - Seryozhka was even more frightened. - And our Earth? What about people?
- They can take care of their very distant future! - answered old Chronos.
- Like this? - Seryozha didn’t understand.
- First of all, they should never fight each other. People must also protect their wonderful Earth. Believe me (and I know a lot), such planets are not often found in the Universe. And if people learn to live in peace and friendship, make the Earth even better than it is today, then they will be able to live long and beautifully on it. They will become strong and happy. All together, together they will cope with any difficulties and, perhaps, will even learn to live without the Sun or fly away to other stars... I don’t know exactly how they will do it, but if people want, they will never die.”
The hero of this fairy tale is incredibly lucky! The Sun and the Moon, comets and stars, a ray of light and the Lord of Time spoke to him. From them he learned about how our beautiful Universe works.
The young reader will also learn about this. And about many other things that haunt you when you look at the sky and stars.
Content:
AS WE SEE IT - THE UNIVERSE
How Seryozhka began to be friends with the Sun
Sun's Day Walks
First meetings with Lupa
Why is it difficult for Luna to sew a costume?
How Seryozhka discovered the second “Moon”
Sisters of our Sun
In the Star House
Is it possible to fly to Ursa Major?
Extraordinary in the sky
THIS IS WHAT IT IS, OUR UNIVERSE!
Our solar system is very small
Universe
Riding Comet
The Kingdom of the Stars is our larger Universe
What the guest from Andromeda said
Our vast expanding Universe
Journey along the River of Time
Pages: 64 (Offset)
Dimensions: 271x205x7 mm
My son is interested in astronomy, so it’s no wonder that he immediately liked this book: “It’s not only about space, but also about real adventures!” - he said excitedly :)
What turned out to be the case. The logic of the narrative is not particularly original; this technique is often used in educational literature: when there is a certain semantic plot, stuffed with all sorts of useful information. So it is here too a little boy Seryozhka, who has acquired the ability to communicate with celestial bodies and enjoys learning from them in the field of astronomy. He is the same little astronomer whose adventures are described in the book.
I would characterize the narrative style itself as “relaxed” :) The boy talks first with the Sun, then with the Moon, then with the Comet and gradually learns something new and interesting from them. It's very easy and quick to read, you won't stumble anywhere and you won't get caught in anything. Efrem Levitan masterfully adapts educational information for very young astronomy lovers, making it as understandable and accessible as possible, something that can be grasped on the fly, because it “flies” itself. But...
But at the same time, this ease of narration also turns into another side: a certain chaotic presentation of the basic facts. At least for me, an adult, there was a feeling of jumping from fifth to tenth. There was not enough development of this or that thought, bringing it to its logical conclusion. Well, maybe that’s just too much I want from a book that’s only intended for preschoolers...
Therefore, I concluded for myself that the book is not bad only for an initial, very superficial acquaintance with the subject, while the child has not yet acquired any knowledge of astronomy. It seems to me that she should cope with the role of “stirring up interest” perfectly well.
Now a little about the design. The font is medium, even closer to large, the line spacing is comfortable - it’s good and convenient to read. But the illustrations are oh-so distracting! Oleg Estis has a very unique artistic style: his drawings are bright, completely filled with color, and active. I'm tired of them, honestly. You never get tired of Tatyana Mavrina, although she also has incredibly picturesque illustrations, but here you get tired. I didn’t even want to look at them, as usual, but wanted to quickly turn the page so that my eyes could rest on the white background. And I also don’t really understand: why do you need a period at the end of the title?
I didn’t take photographs of the entire book, because the illustrations are quite the same type, there are a little more than half here (and there are only 64 pages with imprint).
Fabulous adventures of a little astronomer
CONTENTAS WE SEE IT - THE UNIVERSE
How Seryozhka began to be friends with the Sun 5
Daytime walks of the Sun -
First encounters with Luna 8
Why is it difficult for Luna to sew a costume? -
How Seryozhka discovered the second “Moon” 11
Sisters of our Sun 12
In Star House 16
Is it possible to fly to Ursa Major 19
Extraordinary in the sky 20
THIS IS WHAT IT IS, OUR UNIVERSE!
The solar system is our very small Universe 27
Riding Comet 30
The Kingdom of the Stars - our Universe is larger 36
What the guest from Andromeda 40 said
Our Vast Expanding Universe 47
Journey along the River of Time 49
The sun was shining so brightly that little Seryozhka, running out of the house, closed his eyes and sneezed loudly.
- Be healthy! - he heard an unfamiliar voice.
- Who is this? - the boy was surprised. -Whose voice did I hear?
- My! - answered a familiar, unfamiliar voice, but, as before, there was no one next to Seryozhka.
- A! “Someone is playing with me,” the boy guessed. - I'll find him now.
He said, but didn’t find it, although he looked everywhere. The boy was upset and even whined quietly.
- No need to whine! - Seryozhka heard. - It’s me, the Sun, talking to you...
Seryozha wanted to look at the Sun. But the Sun was very bright, and it made the boy close his eyes.
“Don’t look at me,” said the Sun, “you’ll ruin your eyes.” You better listen to me. I think that you will like to be friends with me, because from me you will learn very, very many interesting things.
Imagine that you, like Seryozhka, have made friends with the Sun. You would, of course, want to know a lot about such an extraordinary friend. What exactly? Well, for example, why the sun is not always visible in the sky, why it can shine brightly, why it can be very hot on a sunny summer day, and in winter, when the sun is bright, even the snow doesn’t melt...
And so the Sun began to tell Seryozha about all this. Of course, the boy looked forward to each new meeting with the Sun and was upset when he did not appear.
- Why, Sunny, were you gone all day yesterday? - he asked one day.
- How did this not happen? - Sunny was surprised. - I’m always there.
- How are you always there if I didn’t see you yesterday? - the boy was surprised.
“Yes,” repeated the Sun. - I’m always there, but sometimes clouds hide me. By the way, when there are clouds in the sky, you can’t see me during the day, and at night you can’t see either the Moon or the stars...
- What if you fly by plane? - asked Seryozha.
“Well, of course, you’ll see me from the plane,” answered Sunny.
- If I reach you?
“No, no one can fly to me by plane,” Sunny laughed, “but it’s not very difficult to fly above the clouds on a plane.”
Seryozha sighed: he, of course, wanted to fly on a plane right away, and in general become a pilot who, even in bad weather, can see the bright Sun.
One day, for Seryozha’s birthday, he was given a compass. The boy really enjoyed watching how the needle of this device quickly found the north. Soon Seryozha learned to determine not only north, but also south, east, and west using a compass. When he told Sunny about this, he was delighted and even offered to play the game “meet him and see him off.”
Seryozha had never heard of such a game. In the new game the compass came in handy. Yes, without him it would have been impossible to play at all, because Seryozha had to find out where the Sun appeared in the morning, where it was during the day and where it ended its daily walk.
And what happened? In both summer and winter, the Sun rises in the eastern side of the sky and sets in the western side. But in winter and summer his path is not the same. For example, in winter it appears between the east and south. This means it rises in the southeast. And it sets in the southwest. The sun does not walk across the sky for long in winter. The days in winter are therefore short.
The sun rises late and sets early. Even in the middle of a winter day, the Sun rises very low (at this time it is always visible in the south).
Another thing is summer! Only a few times did Seryozhka manage to wake up so early that he could see the rising Sun. But he nevertheless became convinced that in the summer the Sun appears early in the morning in the north.
ro-east, during the day it is highly visible in the south, and late in the evening it sets tiredly in the north-west.
This is Sunny’s walking routine. And Sunny strictly follows it all the time. People have long been accustomed to this routine and have adapted their life and work to it in summer and winter.
Seryozhka patiently and diligently followed the Sun’s movement across the sky. Seryozhka even got dark glasses, which he wore during his observations. With glasses and a compass, he imagined himself to be a real scientist. And then one day, before he had time to put on his glasses, he was surprised to find not only the Sun in the sky, but also the Moon!
“You’re surprised,” Seryozhka heard the Sun’s voice, “and I’ve long wanted to introduce you to the Moon.” And she will be glad to meet you. But remember: the Moon is in all its glory in the sky after I set, but now it is pale and completely uninteresting.
With these words, our daylight - the Sun - disappeared, leaving Seryozhka's new acquaintance in the sky - the Moon.
The darker it got, the more beautiful the Moon became. To observe the Moon, no dark glasses were needed, because it was perfectly visible even without dark glasses.
Like the Sun, it appeared in the eastern sky and disappeared in the western sky.
But she behaved very strangely, not at all like the Sun, - Seryozhka even got himself a special notebook and diligently sketched the Moon in it. And when I began to compare my drawings, I immediately noticed among them the Crescent Moon, the Semicircle Moon, and the Circle Moon.
The Moon has never been as bright as the Sun, and therefore you can always look at it without dark glasses. And the Moon also differed from the Sun in that sometimes for several evenings it did not appear in the sky at all, although no clouds interfered with it. This puzzled the boy so much that he decided to talk to Luna. He waited until the evening, when the Moon finally appeared, and politely addressed her:
- Tell me, please, what is happening to you?
- I'm sorry, what? - Luna asked worriedly. - Nothing ever happens to me.
“But I see,” Seryozhka flared up. - Either you are a sickle, then you are a circle, then you are not there at all...
“Ah,” said Luna mysteriously. - None of this concerns me. You just see me differently...
To be honest, Seryozhka did not understand anything and began to intently examine some dark spots on the Moon. On the round Moon they sometimes resembled a funny face. Seryozhka thought: someone was looking at him from the moon.
But his parents convinced him that there was no one on the Moon and no one was admiring him from the Moon. And that the Moon changes its appearance is the absolute truth. People have noticed this for a long time. The newly appeared crescent moon is called the new moon or waxing moon. From the crescent of the growing Moon it is very easy to make the letter “P”: you just need to draw a straight line through the tips of the crescent and continue it down a little. The letter “R” is obtained only from a young sickle, and if the Moon is old, then its sickle itself says so: it looks like the letter “C”. A round Moon is called full, and when such a Moon is in the sky, they say: “Today is the full moon.”
From full moon to full moon, approximately 30 days pass, that is, a month. Therefore, the Moon once helped people keep track of time: they even called the months lunar.
Watching the Moon, Seryozhka remembered a funny poem about a tailor. This tailor did not know that the Moon was always different, and therefore could not sew her a suitable suit!
When Seryozhka began to observe the moon, his parents decided to help him. But how? We thought and thought and bought good binoculars for our son. Seryozhka was happy. He grabbed his binoculars and rushed to look through them... at the Sun! But, fortunately, the weather was bad, the Sun was not visible in the sky. In addition, Seryozhka remembered that the Sun forbade him to look at him. Parents also confirmed that looking at the Sun is dangerous, and you can’t even use binoculars - you can even go blind!
But why not, for example, look at the Moon through binoculars?
And then came a cloudless moonlit evening. Seryozhka was waiting for him with great impatience, but he didn’t know how to observe the Moon through binoculars. He had to tinker a fair bit before he saw the Moon through binoculars, because it was difficult to hold the binoculars in his hands without support. Finally I adjusted myself on the balcony, where I managed to lean on a small table that stood there. And then Seryozhka gasped in amazement. Before him was a completely extraordinary Moon. The outlines of the funny face disappeared, and instead of them there appeared many circles that Seryozhka could not see without binoculars.
“Luna, Luna,” Seryozhka shouted, “what are those circles on you?”
- What circles? - Luna was surprised. - These are not circles at all, but my lunar mountains.
- Mountains? - Seryozha didn’t believe it. - They cannot exist on the Moon!
- Why so? - Luna exclaimed.
- Because you, Moon, are small, and the mountains are tall! - Seryozha quickly realized.
- Who told you that I’m small? - Luna was offended. -You just don’t know what I really am!
One cloudless evening, when Seryozhka had just said goodbye to the Sun, the boy wanted to take a closer look at the narrow crescent of the young Moon through binoculars. And so, when he aimed his binoculars, he noticed a completely different Moon to which he was already accustomed. The New Moon was also visible as a crescent, but only a very small one.
- What's happened? - thought Seryozhka. - Maybe the binoculars are broken?
He aimed his binoculars at the moon again. Now everything was in order: he saw the real Moon.
“I wonder,” Seryozhka drawled, “what did I see last time?”
He began to peer carefully into the sky and very soon noticed a bright star. Nothing in the sky except the Moon could compare with it. However, only these two luminaries were visible in the sky at that moment, because the Sun had already disappeared and the stars had not yet appeared. Seryozhka was so used to talking with heavenly bodies that he decided to ask:
- Star, star, who are you? What are you, little Luna?
And I heard in response:
- I’m not a star, I’m not the Moon. I am Venus!
- Venus? - Seryozhka drawled. - And what is it?
- I am the most beautiful of the planets. They called me that because of my beauty.
Seryozha heard the word “planet” many times. He even remembered that he lived on a planet called Earth, but he knew nothing about Venus.
- Venus, are you like our Earth? - asked Seryozhka.
“I am the sister of the Earth,” answered Venus.
Seryozhka did not have time to ask Venus his next question, because she soon disappeared into that side of the sky where the setting Sun had recently shone.
But the boy didn’t have to be sad for long, because it was getting darker and stars began to appear in the sky one after another.
- Maybe these are other planets? - thought Seryozhka. And he began to point his binoculars at the stars, but none of them looked like the small crescent of Venus. Seryozhka really wanted to know what these mysterious luminous points were. He decided that he would definitely ask Sunny about this.
- Sunny, Sunny! Now I know the Moon, and I have observed Venus, and I have seen the stars! - Seryozhka told the Sun.
“Stars, stars...” said the Sun dreamily. - There is nothing more beautiful than us...
-Who are you? - Seryozhka was wary.
- Us, stars! - answered the Sun.
- Sunny, are you a star too? - Seryozhka was surprised.
- Certainly! A real star. Remember this well!
But Seryozha couldn’t believe it. After all, just yesterday he was looking at the stars. There were a lot of them, but it was still dark. The sun is a completely different matter. During the day there is only one in the sky, but it shines so brightly that it is impossible to look at it without very dark glasses. Maybe Sunny was joking? But Venus says that she is not a star. Maybe the Moon is also a star?
“Sunny,” asked Seryozhka, “is the Moon also a star?”
“No, no,” the Sun hastily answered. - Do not confuse us stars with either the planets (for example, Venus or the Earth), or the satellites of the planets (the Moon is a satellite of the Earth).
Seryozhka didn’t quite understand why the Sun called the Moon a satellite of the Earth, but decided not to ask anything about it for now. And the Sun continued:
- We, the stars that you saw, are very big and hot. We ourselves glow and illuminate the cold planets. For example, I illuminate and warm the Earth, the Moon, and Venus.
- Why don’t other stars warm us and don’t illuminate us at all?
- My dear sisters live far from Earth and very far from me. They have their own worries there; there are probably their own planets that also need light and warmth. But be sure to try to get acquainted with at least the brightest and most noticeable ones. People have always loved stars, they came up with names that were the most to the bright stars, and the most noticeable stellar figures began to be called constellations. In our sky there are the constellations Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Leo, Pisces and many others.
- Why didn’t I see any bears, lions or fish in the sky yesterday? - exclaimed Seryozhka.
- They are not there. There is no bear living in Ursa Major, there is no bear cub in Ursa Minor, and fish do not swim in Pisces. Neither swans nor eagles fly there, although there are constellations of the Cygnus and the Eagle. These are just the names of different constellations. Moreover, the constellations have not only animal-fish-bird names. There are constellations in the sky that remind people of the heroes of various fairy tales...
“Tell me, tell me some fairy tales,” asked Seryozhka.
“You know,” said the Sun, “it’s best to listen to starry tales under the starry sky.”
- But starry sky happens at night, but at night you are not there...
“That’s true,” the Sun agreed, paused, and then asked: “Have you been to the planetarium?”
- In the planetarium? No, I never, never did.
- So be sure to go there with one of the adults. There they will show you a very beautiful starry sky, teach you how to find constellations on it and tell you interesting starry tales. And whenever you meet real stars, say hello from me to my distant sisters.
Seryozhka did not even suspect that there was a house in which one could see such beauty. First they told him about a smart device, which is called a planetarium, and then they showed him everything that this two-headed robot can do. The Sun appeared in the sky of the planetarium. It, of course, was not real, but it made its way across the sky the same way the real Sun did, only it moved too quickly. It appeared in the eastern side of the sky, then quickly gained altitude, found itself above the point of the south, and then began to descend, preparing to set in the western side of the sky.
But then the sun set. Venus appeared in the western sky, and when it began to get dark, the stars became visible one after another. In complete darkness, many stars sparkled above Seryozhka’s head. Seryozha had never seen such a sky from his balcony. He held his breath, trying not to miss a single word from the lecturer.
The Greek word for "star" is "astron" and the word for "law" is "nomos". From these two words comes the name of one of the most fascinating sciences - astronomy, and the profession of people - astronomers who study stars and other celestial bodies. Astronomy is one of the most ancient sciences. People were engaged in astronomical observations several thousand years ago... But astronomy is still very young today. She has a huge path ahead of her to learn the secrets of space. These secrets will be revealed by astronomers working on Earth, and by people who will fly to the Moon, to other planets, and someday to the stars... It is quite possible that today’s youngest listeners will someday fly to the Earth’s satellite - the Moon - or to one of the most interesting planets- Mars...
Everything immediately became clear to Seryozhka: he, of course, will be an astronomer, he, of course, will fly to the Moon, and to Mars, and to distant stars!
And then a miracle happened: the starry sky came to life, images of people, animals, fish, birds appeared on it... Before Seryozhka had time to gasp the first time, he had to gasp a second time, because the entire fairy-tale firmament began to rotate. One after another, the constellations appeared in the east and, having completed their path, disappeared in the west. It seemed to Seryozha that he had already become an astronaut and was rushing through the endless expanses of stars. And the lecturer said that the starry sky in the planetarium rotates much faster than the real one.
But then the parade of fabulous constellations ended. The starry sky froze, and the lecturer began to talk about some constellations. It was then that Seryozhka first saw the star bears - Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. It was very easy to see them in the planetarium, because there they were painted in the sky. The North Star nestles at the tip of the Ursa Minor's tail. The lecturer said that this is a compass star: find it in the sky - and in front of you there will be north, on your right there is east, on your left - west, behind - south.
But how did these bears end up in the sky? This is what one fairy tale tells. The Big Dipper was not a bear at all before. An evil sorceress turned the beautiful Callisto, the daughter of the king of the ancient country of Arcadia, into a bear. The unfortunate Callisto was almost killed by her own son, Arkad, while hunting. But Callisto’s life was saved by the all-powerful wizard who was guarding her. And in order to no longer expose Callisto to dangerous encounters with hunters, the wizard placed her in the sky. At the same time, he sent Arkad there in the form of a bear cub: let mother and son become beautiful constellations that people will always admire.
People called the constellations differently, which resemble more a saucepan or a ladle than a bear! In total, about a hundred names of these constellations are known. For example, the inhabitants of ancient Novgorod called the Big Dipper Elk, in Ukraine it was Voz, in Bulgaria it was Cart. And the cattle breeders of Central Asia, at the site of the Big Dipper, saw a beautiful horse tied to a golden peg - the North Star. Why tied? To explain this, the lecturer again began to show the rotation of the sky, and Seryozhka saw that the Big Dipper's bucket was circling around the motionless Polar Star. The Big Dipper seems to touch the earth's surface once a day, as if it wants to quench its thirst in the ocean. And the bear cub relentlessly and forever follows its mother.
Seryozhka liked the story about the celestial bears so much that he wanted to fly to them. And as soon as the lecturer said: “If you want to ask questions, please come to me,” Seryozha ran up first.
- How long is the flight to Ursa Major? - he asked immediately.
“And you’ll never reach it at all,” he heard in response.
- Like this? - Seryozhka exclaimed in surprise.
“You see, boy,” the lecturer began to explain. - In fact, there is no Ursa Major...
“I know, I know,” Seryozhka couldn’t resist. - There are no animals, no people in the sky, but there are big and small buckets...
“That’s just the point,” the lecturer smiled. - And there are no buckets! All the stars are very far from us, but they are located on different distances. Some are closer, others are further, others are even further... And among the stars of the Ursa Major bucket there are also near and far. People may someday try to fly to each of these stars, but when approaching one of them, the astronauts will be convinced that no “star pan” exists. The stars will simply gradually part before their ship, like trees before a man approaching the forest...
- Why do we need all these constellations then? - Seryozhka was disappointed.
- Oh, we really need constellations! - the lecturer encouraged him. - Each constellation (and there are only 88 of them!) is a section of the sky that we see from Earth. People agreed to divide the sky into sections so that
it was easier to study the starry sky and the phenomena that occur on it.
- What could be happening there? - asked Seryozhka.
- Well, you will find out about this in due time. And now I’ll just say that, for example, even the Moon you know well is visible in one or another part of the sky. It seems to move from one constellation to another. If you know the starry sky well, you will learn to notice some other changes in it.
- What other changes? - asked Seryozhka.
“Different,” answered the lecturer. - Maybe a planet will appear, or maybe you’ll see a comet or something else. If all this interests you, start by studying the starry sky. Learn to find constellations on it, remember the names of the brightest stars from childhood. This is very interesting and will definitely be useful to you.
In the beautiful starry sky, sometimes you can see something completely unusual. But this happens very rarely: some people do not have time to notice anything interesting in the sky in their entire lives... Seryozhka also would not have seen anything if he had not been the hero of our fairy tale and had not been friends with the heavenly bodies.
One day Seryozhka looked at the Moon through binoculars and, as always, asked her all sorts of questions. But Luna was always in a hurry to get somewhere, and when Seryozhka asked her about this, he heard in response:
- I’m rushing to Leo’s birthday...
- To what other Leo? - asked Seryozhka.
- Don’t you know? - Luna was surprised. - I thought that every astronomer knows Leo.
“I’m not an astronomer,” Seryozhka grumbled. - I only know little skinny Levka from our yard...
- What are you saying, boy? - Luna said sternly. - The lion does not live in your yard, but in the sky. Haven't you heard anything about the spring constellation Leo? This is the Leo I was going to for my birthday! By the way, I can invite you too...
Seryozhka, of course, happily agreed and asked what was the best gift for Leo’s birthday. The Moon replied that there was no need to give anything to the constellation Leo: guests simply come to this constellation to congratulate it.
“I’m inviting you just to introduce you to amazing guests,” said Luna. - However, tomorrow evening you will see everything for yourself: the constellation Leo will be clearly visible from your balcony, and I will tell you about the guests who will come to congratulate Leo. You will see a wonderful performance!
Now listen to how this performance took place. First of all, it seemed to Seryozha that the constellation Leo appeared in the sky in a particularly elegant form. Some red star shone brightly in it, which was not there before.
- Now the planet Mars has come to the constellation Leo, very similar to a red star, for example, the star Aldebaran from the constellation Taurus. Planets, like me, generally love to walk through the constellations, moving from one constellation to another. Today Mars came to the constellation Leo. I don’t understand why other planets didn’t come here, for example Venus, Jupiter, Saturn...
“I thought that Mars was a completely new star,” Seryozhka was disappointed.
- The planets are also very important, because they are the sisters of the Earth. But sometimes guest stars appear in one or another constellation. They are called novae or even supernovae...
Luna probably wanted to say something else, but Seryozhka could not listen to anything else, because stars... began to fall from the sky. It was a real shower of stars! Seryozhka was even afraid that soon there would be no stars left in the sky at all. But the shower of stars stopped, and every single star in the sky remained in place. And Luna reassured Seryozha:
- Don’t worry, stars don’t fall from the sky to Earth. You know that they are the same as our Sun: very large and hot. Even if they wanted to, they could not fall to the Earth or to me...
“But I saw that they were falling,” Seryozhka began to argue.
- You saw something similar to stars falling, but you will find out what it was later, be patient.
While Seryozhka was patient, a huge tailed star approached the constellation Leo. She was very beautiful, but perhaps a little scary (it’s still better when the stars are not so tailed and shaggy).
“And here the Comet has arrived,” Luna announced solemnly. - Look how bushy her tail is!
- Was it really raining stars already? - asked Comet.
“It just ended,” Luna said.
“Strange, strange,” Comet said thoughtfully. - Usually there are star showers after me. Everything got mixed up because of Leo's birthday...
“Listen, dear Comet,” Luna addressed her. - Today, not only people came to Leo’s birthday celestial bodies, but also a young astronomer from planet Earth. Don't you want to meet him?
“I can, I can,” Comet answered importantly. - The fact is that I was recently visiting the Sun, whom I had not seen for a long time, about thirty million years. Yes, so the Sun told me that it made friends with some boy who loves astronomy more than anything in the world. Isn't it him?
- He, he! - Seryozhka shouted. - I always dreamed of making friends with Comet and playing with her.
- Play? - Comet was surprised. - My young friend probably takes me for a little girl, but I’m an old woman...
- What an old lady you are! - exclaimed Seryozhka. - You are so young and beautiful, like the growing Moon.
Comet really liked these words. But she liked his next question much less. He probably didn’t seem very tactful to her, but Seryozhka simply asked:
- How old are you, Comet?
“You see,” the Comet began reluctantly, “although I’m a little older than the Earth and the Moon, I’m still a little younger than the Sun.”
This was a rather mysterious answer, because Seryozhka had no idea how old the Earth, Moon and Sun are... But by the way, is this really so important? What’s more important is that the Comet is still very beautiful, more beautiful than all the stars!
And the Comet continued:
- Perhaps, I will not only agree to be friends with you, but also take you around the solar system...
- Well, you're lucky! - Luna said with obvious envy. - Thank you, thank you, dear Comet.
- Thank you, thank you very much, dear Comet! - Seryozhka quickly said words of gratitude. - But I don’t understand where I’ll fly with you?
- I told you clearly: on a trip to the Solar Sea-
system,” Comet answered calmly. - Or don’t you know what the solar system is?
- No! This is the first time I’ve heard it... - Seryozhka admitted honestly.
- This is bad! - said Comet. - The next time we meet, I will tell you something about our solar system. Even the youngest astronomer must know this.
VsvzhtAya.
The comet really told Seryozhka about the solar system.
- First I will draw the Sun. Like this. And now his whole family.
- Stars? - asked Seryozhka.
- No! There are no stars, except the Sun itself, in the solar system that I am going to draw. Large and small balls are circling around the Sun. There are nine of them in total, and they are called planets. The planet closest to the Sun is Mercury, followed by Venus, and the third is your Earth, your globe.
With these words, the Comet drew not only Mercury, Venus and Earth, but also the paths along which these planets rush around
Sun. Astronomers call such circular paths plane orbits.
No.
- This is the solar system? - asked Seryozhka.
- Well, what are you talking about! - exclaimed Comet. - I told you that there are only nine planets. I'll draw now small Mars, the huge planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and then the tiny and farthest from the Sun Pluto...
And the Comet continued:
- Your Earth has only one Moon. It revolves around the Earth all the time, and therefore is called its satellite. Pluto also has one satellite. Mercury and Venus have none, which means there is nothing to draw. Mars has two tiny moons. Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus have especially many satellites (I don’t even know exactly, maybe at least fifteen). Well, I’ll also draw two satellites of Neptune here. That's it... Wow, I'm even tired of wagging my tail...
“Please rest, dear Comet,” Seryozhka asked, “after all, you have already drawn everything.”
- What you! What you! - Comet spoke hastily. - What about asteroids? What about comets? How can I forget about them?! After all, I am still a comet myself...
With these words, she quickly drew many tiny (...) planets between Mars and Jupiter. She called them asteroids (or simply small planets).
“Dear Comet,” Seryozhka addressed his unusual teacher. - You drew so many things that for comets and
Saturn... And although the planets considered themselves sisters, they turned out to be very different. For example, as Comet explained, on the huge Jupiter there is not a single piece of solid ground - only clouds, and even that from the air, which is completely different from the earth and which is impossible to breathe... And the round mountains, which Seryozhka saw on the Moon, are clearly visible and on Mercury, and on Mars, and on the satellites of the planets.
- Look, look! - Seryozhka shouted. - There's some kind of hat flying there!
-What other hat? - asked Comet. - This is not a hat at all, but one of the big planets - Saturn. It looks like a hat to you because it has rings of many thousands of tiny companions.
But even major planets seemed small compared to the enormous Sun around which they moved. And the Sun here looked different from how it did from Earth: it did not make any walks across the sky, which Seryozhka was used to, but solemnly controlled the planetary round dance.
- Like? - Comet asked every now and then.
- Yes Yes! - Seryozhka never tired of repeating.
- Well, then ask questions! - said Comet.
“Dear Comet,” Seryozhka addressed her, “I still can’t understand why the Sun behaves differently on Earth?”
- What are you talking about, boy? - the important Comet was indignant. - How can the Sun behave on your Earth? Look how big the Sun is and how small the Earth is!
“Ace of the Earth, Sunshine, is also small,” objected Seryozhka. - I have seen many times how it rises in the morning and goes to sleep somewhere in the evening...
- It doesn’t go anywhere! - Comet grumbled. - The sun never sleeps, it works without rest, illuminating and warming planets, asteroids, and comets.
“But I saw it,” Seryozhka became stubborn. - I saw the Sun walking across the sky...
“Oh, baby,” said Comet. - Everything you saw was just your imagination...
- Like this? - Seryozhka screamed.
“Very simple,” answered Comet. - It seemed to you that the Sun was moving around you, but in fact it was the globe, rotating like a top, turning to the Sun first on one side and then on the other. That is why day and night occur on Earth.
“But you said,” Seryozhka became worried, “that the Earth revolves around the Sun?” How so?
“Very simple,” Comet explained. - The Earth moves around the Sun, making each revolution in one year. But at the same time, every 24 hours she still manages to turn like a top. The Earth rotates very smoothly and imperceptibly, and what happens because of this rotation, you see from the Earth, you see how not only the Sun rises and sets, but also the planets and stars. And the big Sun also only seems small to you, because the Sun is far from the Earth.
- How many meters? - Seryozhka quickly asked.
“Not meters, but 150 million kilometers - that’s the distance from the Sun to the Earth,” Comet explained. - Well, of course, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are even further from the Sun. Therefore, from these planets the Sun appears very small, but from Pluto it looks like bright Star...
Seryozhka wanted to visit distant Pluto, but Comet said that this was only allowed for space marines - brave cosmonauts, which perhaps Seryozhka will become when he grows up. Seryozhka sighed and again began to look at different planets. I looked and looked and then asked:
- Do the same people live on Mars as on Earth?
“Oh, no,” answered Comet. - People live only on Earth.
- Why so? - Seryozhka was surprised. - After all, the Sun has many different planets and comets...
- There are many, many, but there are none suitable for life except the Earth...
- How is this suitable? - Seryozha didn’t understand.
“You see,” explained Comet, “you people are very fragile and spoiled. You definitely need good air to breathe, you need water, you cannot live when it is too cold or too hot...
- Well, let these capricious people live for themselves. different planets- said Seryozhka.
“They can’t live on different planets,” Comet explained patiently. - On Mercury, for example, the heat is unbearable; there is no water or air there. It is hot and stuffy on Venus, cold and there is little air on Mars... In a word, only on Earth can people live. That's where they live... So take care of your wonderful planet.
- And there’s no one else anywhere, anywhere? - asked Seryozhka.
- Not in the solar system. But the Solar System is just our small Universe. And there are very big universe, in which there are many stars. But you already know that the stars are the sisters of the Sun.
Some stars also have their own planets, perhaps completely different from ours. There are also planets where, perhaps, someone lives.
- Other people? - asked Seryozhka.
“I don’t know,” answered Comet. - Perhaps those residents and
people are not similar, but also smart and reasonable...
- Dear Comet, thank you very much for everything! -
said Seryozhka. - But could you fly with me there, to those
smart and reasonable non-human people?
- No, boy! - Comet answered. - This would be a journey to other stars. And the Sun will not allow me to fly to them.
No one today will agree to fly to the stars even on the fastest space rocket, because it will take 100 thousand years to fly to the closest star! But people will definitely come up with something to reach the stars! Seryozhka also spent a long, long time thinking about it, but, to be honest, he didn’t come up with anything. And when I was tired of thinking, I decided to play with myself in guessing the bright stars. A game
simple, but if you don’t know the starry sky, it’s better not to play, because you’ll never guess the name of this or that star.
Seryozhka remembered some stars well. Therefore, I found in the sky and correctly named the North Star from Ursa Minor, Betelgeuse from the constellation Orion and the bright, winking Sirius from Canis Major. But I forgot the name of the reddish star in the constellation Taurus, with which the hunter Orion fights.
“Well, remember, remember,” this bright star encouraged him. - I have such a long and difficult name...
“It starts with the letter “A,” some children’s voices told Seryozhka.
“Don’t give me any hints, girls,” the reddish star said sternly. - Let him remember!
“The second letter is “L,” the children continued to prompt from somewhere.
“Pleiades, I asked you to be silent,” the reddish star said even more sternly.
“Al, Al,” Seryozhka began to remember.
“Not “Al”, “Al”, but “Al”, “Al”, - the tipsters squeaked.
- Who is telling me this? - Seryozhka became interested.
- Yes, these are our neighbor girls. Some call them Pleiades, others Stozhars, others - Duck's Nest... Do you see them?
- Of course of course! - Seryozhka shouted. - They are like the smallest bear.
“That’s right,” said the reddish star. - From Earth they are visible as a tiny bucket in the constellation Taurus.
- How long do you see us? - asked the Pleiades.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...” Seryozhka began to count.
“Well done, well done,” echoed the Pleiades. - So you have very good eyesight.
“Look at them through binoculars,” advised the reddish star.
- Oh, I even forgot about the binoculars. “Thank you, Aldebaran,” said Seryozhka, not noticing how he remembered the name of the reddish star.
Through binoculars, Seryozhka saw so many Pleiades that he could not even count them.
- Well, how? - asked the Pleiades. - Are there many of us?
“A hundred of them,” Seryozhka said admiringly.
“You should admire us through a telescope,” advised the brightest of the Pleiades, whose name was Alcyone. - Ask your earthly astronomers to allow you to look at us through large pipes, then you will see that there are thousands of us here...
“Girls,” Aldebaran interrupted them, “he doesn’t have a telescope yet, you should talk to him about something else.” I think that he, for example, knows nothing about our Galaxy.
- How does he know nothing about the Galaxy? How does he know nothing about the Galaxy? - the Pleiades chattered. - What world does he live in?
“I don’t live in the world, but in a huge solar system,” Seryozhka proudly declared.
- Oh, hee-hee, hee-hee! Oh, I'm completely tired of it! - the Pleiades laughed. - He boasts about his baby - the solar system.
- Baby? - the young astronomer was surprised. - Yes, you should only look at her!
“And we won’t look, because we won’t even see your little Sun without a telescope,” Alcyone answered.
These offensive words even took Seryozhka’s breath away. He didn’t know what to answer to the naughty stars.
- You should look at yourself! - he shouted, coming to his senses. - You are tiny! Someday you will fall into our pond during a shower of stars.
- What is he saying? - Alcyone asked Aldebarap.
“Don’t be angry, girl,” Aldebaran reassured her. - You are still young, you just haven’t lived long in the world (only a million years), and therefore you are surprised by encounters with creatures who consider themselves intelligent, but know very little. Explain to the boy that you, the Pleiades, are giant stars, and their Sun is just a dwarf star.
After this, the Pleiades, interrupting each other, began to say that all of them together were not a constellation at all, to which it was never possible to fly, but a star cluster, a rather large star house. It turns out that a ray that travels from the Sun to the Earth in 8 minutes and from the Sun to Pluto in 6 hours rushes for 20 years from one edge of their star cluster to the other. Seryozhka didn’t believe it, because it seemed to him that the Pleiades could be hidden in a suitcase.
- Understand, baby, we are distant stars! - the Pleiades began to explain patiently. - Our rays have been running from us to you for almost 500 years. Now, if you flew to us along with your solar system, you would probably simply get lost among us along with your beloved Sun.
“Do you remember, sisters,” Alcyone turned to the other Pleiades, “how he made us laugh when he said that we could fall into some kind of puddle with him?”
Seryozha felt a little ashamed: it was stupid to think that a star larger than the Sun would end up in a pond. But what exactly falls from the sky? And he decided to ask Aldebarap about it. The old star, of course, knew everything. Therefore, he heard in response:
- Of course, we stars don’t fall anywhere. And if you see a falling star, then know that it is not a star...
- What is this? - Seryozhka asked impatiently.
- Just a small pebble, almost a speck of dust...
- A speck of dust? How did she become a star?
- She didn’t turn into a star! Everything was different. Oma flew quickly. It collided with your Earth, but did not fall on it, but crashed into the earth’s air, warmed up while flying in it and flared up, glowing...
“And my friend Comet,” said Seryozhka importantly, “was surprised that the star shower happened before her, and not after.”
“I was rightly surprised,” Aldebaran confirmed. - Star showers rarely happen: for this it is necessary that the Earth collides not with one speck of dust, but with thousands that remain from comets...
Probably Aldebaran wanted to add something else, but the Pleiades chirped again:
- Enough, stop telling him about some unfortunate specks of dust that burn over the Earth in seconds. After all, he doesn’t know the most important thing, he hasn’t even heard about the Galaxy.
“I didn’t hear,” Seryozhka agreed sadly. - And what is it?
“The Galaxy is our beautiful star city,” Alcyone began solemnly. - There are more stars in it than comets in the solar system. There are also star clusters here like us, the Pleiades, and even many times larger. There are huge clouds in the Galaxy, completely different from those that exist in the sky of the Earth. Everything, everything that you see, all the stars in your sky live in the Galaxy, and you live in it!
- Oh, so, besides the Galaxy, there is nothing else anywhere? - Seryozhka asked carefully.
“Alas,” Alcyone sighed. - There are as many galaxies as ours... However, Andromeda knows this better than us.
“What will I tell the guys about our Galaxy? After all, they will definitely pester me: draw, draw our Galaxy. How will I draw it? But I don’t know anything at all about other galaxies...” Seryozha was upset.
He grumbled and grumbled, and suddenly someone nearby complained in a squeaky voice:
- Wow, I'm tired! Oh, I’m tired... It’s good that I managed to land before the bad weather... Oh, I’m somehow tired...
- Who is it here that is so tired? - Seryozhka asked sympathetically, looking around in search of the tired one.
“This is how it always happens,” whined a squeaky voice. - You fly, you fly, you want to do something pleasant with your arrival, but they don’t even notice you... I’m a ray. Just Ray...
- Ray? - Seryozha didn’t believe it. - Why are you so tired then?
- “Why, why”! - the tired Ray whined. - Do you know when I started flying?
“No,” admitted Seryozhka. - Was it really yesterday?
- Well, baby, you even cheered me up a little. Yesterday, however, I was still far from the solar system, and I started when neither you, nor your parents, nor your grandmothers and great-great-great-grandmothers were yet in the world...
- Listen, Ray, if you can, please tell the truth, and don’t make it up!
“I’m not making this up,” Luchik was offended. - If you hadn’t interrupted me, I would have told you even more truth.
“Sorry, Luchik,” Seryozhka was embarrassed. - I won't interrupt anymore.
“Well, that’s good,” Luchik calmed down. - So, when I set off on my space flight, there were not yet any of your most distant relatives in the world. And in general there were really no people...
- Well, then people were not real, but toys? - Seryozhka could not stand it.
“No, not toys, of course,” said Luchik, pretending that he did not notice how Seryozhka broke his word. - There were no houses, there were no cities, people didn’t sew costumes for themselves then... At that time people were just learning to walk on their feet, and not on all fours, they hunted wild animals, dressed in their skins, lived in caves and were little alike on those that I saw on Earth today...
- How long did you fly? - Seryozhka was horrified. - Probably a thousand years?
- Oh, you made me laugh again! - Luchik giggled. - A thousand years ago I was already racing in your Galaxy!
- Are you really from a completely different galaxy? - Seryozhka was amazed.
“Of course, of course,” said Ray importantly. - And although I am flying from the galaxy closest to you, I had to fly for more than two million years!
- Two million? - Seryozhka was horrified again, who, of course, could not even imagine how long poor Ray had been rushing across the Universe. -Where does your galaxy live?
“In the constellation Andromeda,” Luchik answered modestly.
- Ray, Ray, please tell me about her! - Seryozhka began to ask, forgetting that Ray was so tired after his journey.
“With pleasure,” agreed Luchik. - After all, I actually came here so that the inhabitants of the Earth could at least admire my galaxy, because they don’t even see their own...
- How come we don’t see ours? - Seryozhka was instantly indignant.
- Well, have you ever seen your Galaxy? - asked Luchik. And he answered for Seryozha: “Of course not.” You can see thousands of nearby stars in the sky on a clear night. You can see Milky Way- a strip of stars passing through the entire sky and containing millions and billions of distant stars, but not a single person has ever seen the entire Galaxy in its entirety and in all its glory!
- But the Pleiades saw our Galaxy! - Seryozhka tried to object.
- Pleiades? Pleiades... - Ray began to remember. - I know them, although they were born, it seems, later than I left the galaxy in Andromeda... No, no, baby, the Pleiades also live in your Galaxy and have never flown beyond its borders, which means they have not seen it.. .
- Ray, who still admires our Galaxy? - asked Seryozhka.
- Like who? - Ray was surprised. - Residents of other galaxies!
- Is it clearly visible from Andromeda? - asked Seryozhka.
“Honestly, not very much...” answered Luchik. -Have you ever seen my galaxy yourself?
“No,” admitted Seryozhka.
- In summer or autumn, be sure to find the constellation Andromeda in your sky. It is easy to find: it is located below the constellation Cassiopeia. My beautiful galaxy is visible in it.
Seryozhka knew how to quickly find Cassiopeia in the sky. He knew that this constellation (the inverted letter “M”) appears in the sky in summer, winter, spring, and autumn. Why didn't he notice any beautiful galaxy nearby?
Luchik explained:
- Although my galaxy is very close, you know how long it took me to fly from it. We are neighbors, but we live very far from each other. That's why we can barely see your Galaxy, but you have our galaxy
barely noticeable in the sky, almost none of the people even pay attention to the bright spot that is visible in the constellation Andromeda... And only real astronomers in their large telescopes see our Andromeda Nebula in all its glory - a huge stellar house, in comparison with which the star The Pleiades cluster is just tiny! By the way, the Andromeda Nebula asked me to say hello to you.
- To me? - exclaimed Seryozhka. - How does the Andromeda Nebula know me?
“Honestly, she doesn’t know you personally,” said Luchik. - She knows that when I fly to Earth, I will definitely meet little astronomers who will diligently observe, photograph, study her all their lives... That’s why I decided to give you greetings from Andromeda and even photos to remember...
- Thank you, thank you, Luchik! - Seryozhka thanked. - Please tell me about the Andromeda Nebula. And I want to see her photos...
“With pleasure,” agreed Luchik. “That’s exactly why I came.” And we will look at the photographs very carefully, and then you will understand what your Galaxy looks like...
- Why mine? After all, you brought photographs from the Andromeda Nebula? - asked Seryozhka.
“That’s how it is,” answered Luchik. - But the fact is that these two galaxies, two huge star cities - your Milky Way and my Andromeda Nebula - accidentally turned out to be very similar to each other. That's how lucky we are! Let's see what it is like, the Andromeda Nebula.
“Beautiful,” said Seryozhka. - Some kind of twisted, like a snail!
“Yes, she’s beautiful,” agreed Luchik. - It is even larger than ours, there are more stars in it, and the youngest of them live in these very curls that reminded you of a snail.
- And we have curls? - asked Seryozhka.
“Of course,” answered Luchik. - I told you, look at the Andromeda Nebula and think that you are looking at your own Galaxy.
- And what. Are there other galaxies that are not similar? - asked Seryozhka.
“Of course, of course,” Luchik spoke. - Galaxies are very
many, and very different. Of these, of these stellar islands and entire cities of galaxies, the Universe consists, which earthly astronomers
Now they are observing, armed with telescopes. And you will have to do this when you become an adult. And your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren will have enough work...
- Hello Sunshine! - Seryozhka greeted. - And now I know your secret...
- My secret? - the Sun was surprised. - It’s interesting to know - which one?
“I know that you don’t revolve around the Earth at all, but the Earth itself revolves around you and around itself...” Seryozhka boasted of his knowledge.
“Yes, yes,” the Sun approved. - Maybe you learned something else?
- Of course of course! - Seryozhka chattered. - I know that you never sleep and always stand still, but...
“Wait, wait,” interrupted the Sun. - How am I standing still? I'm flying faster than your space rockets or even your Earth!
- I don’t understand, where else are you flying so fast? - Seryozhka was amazed.
“I’ll be happy to explain,” said the wise Sun. - First of all, say, for example, “twenty-one.”
“You’re welcome,” Seryozhka agreed. - Twenty one.
- Fine! - said the Sun. - While you were saying these words, one second passed. Understood?
- Understood! So what? - said Seryozhka, not understanding why he needed one second.
- And while you were saying “twenty-one”, you flew almost 30 kilometers on your planet! - Seryozhka heard.
-Where did I go? - asked the little astronomer.
- Nowhere! - said the Sun. - After all, the Earth has been rushing around me all its life and doesn’t fly away anywhere... But I don’t stand still either! I have my own path in our Galaxy: I fly faster than the Earth, flying 250 kilometers in one second!
“Sunny,” Seryozhka became worried. - What if you fly away from us completely?
- This will never happen! - the Sun reassured him. - All the planets and all the comets are rushing along with me in the Galaxy - the entire Solar System...
-Where are we going? - asked Seryozhka.
“I repeat,” said the Sun. - Just like the Earth in the Solar System, I have my own path in the Galaxy, my own orbit, but only a very large one.
“Well, the Earth is big,” Seryozhka objected.
- Well, what are you comparing! - the Sun answered with irritation. - The Earth covers its entire path in just one year. And I, although I am in a hurry, make one revolution in the Galaxy in 200 million years... But of course, I am not the only one rushing in the Universe. After all, everything in the Universe celestial bodies moving. The moon is around the Earth, the Earth is around me, I'm flying in the Galaxy...
“It’s good that at least our Galaxy isn’t flying anywhere,” Seryozhka sighed.
- Who told you this? - asked the Sun. - Not a single galaxy stands still. And ours is rushing...
- Nightmare! - Seryozhka exclaimed, remembering the word that his mother usually said when entering his room. - Where are the galaxies going?
“You see,” the Sun answered thoughtfully, “galaxies have their own worries.” In their kingdom there is no such strict order as in the solar system, where everything is clear and understandable, each celestial body moves all the time in its orbit...
- Don’t galaxies even have orbits? - Seryozhka felt sorry for the huge star islands.
“Perhaps not...” said the Sun. - They're just running away from each other. I’ll tell you a secret: we live in an expanding Universe in which nothing is ever at rest.
Seryozhka did not answer anything and did not ask anything else, because he was unable to imagine himself in the kingdom of flying galaxies.
“Poor Sun, poor planets, stars and galaxies,” Seryozhka felt sorry for all the celestial bodies at once. He lay in a stack of fresh, fragrant hay. - Everyone is flying and flying somewhere, rushing and rushing... How can they not get tired of it?! It's good to fly a little, but flying and flying all the time is probably very boring...
“And it’s not boring at all,” someone said in a raspy voice and coughed.
Seryozhka quickly jumped to his feet in surprise and ran behind the stack to see who was hiding there. And standing there was a very old old man with a scythe in his hands.
“I said that it’s not boring at all,” the old man cleared his throat again. - My name is Grandfather Chronos, and in the Universe I command time. I'm in charge of this matter, you know?
- I don’t understand anything. You scared me, grandpa! - said Seryozhka, who had already ceased to be afraid of the old man.
“Nothing,” said grandfather Chronos. - I will try to explain everything to you, and you listen carefully. There are many big rivers on your planet. These are the Volga and Yenisei, Mississippi and Amazon, Congo and Nile and many others. You can find a place on Earth where any of these rivers begins. You can find out which seas or oceans they carry their waters to. You can find out from which city you will sail to which one on this or that river. But there is, though not on Earth, but in the Universe, a completely special river in which there is no water, which does not begin anywhere and does not end anywhere. This is the mysterious great river of Time, in which the whole universe as if floating from the Past to the Present and further to the Future.
- Do all the people swim in it? - asked Seryozhka.
“I asked you to listen very carefully,” muttered Grandfather Chronos. - Not only people float along the River of Time, but also the Earth itself, the Sun, and all other celestial bodies, even entire galaxies.
- How do they fit there in the river? After all, galaxies are so huge! - Seryozha didn’t understand. -What do they float on? Can't they drown?
“You ask strange questions, baby,” Chronos said displeasedly. - After all, you, for example, are not drowning in my river?
- I? I? - exclaimed Seryozhka. - Yes, I’ve never seen her in my life!
- You’re wrong, oh how wrong you are! - said grandfather Chronos. - You have already lived in the world for several years, you are living now, you will live tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and for years to come. This is what I call sailing on the River of Time. Previously, you were a tiny child, now you are a small boy, then an adult, then you will grow old - all this is your journey along the river of Time from the Past to the Present and the Future. All the people who once lived on Earth swam along this river, all the people who were not yet born are swimming...
- But, you see, only people swim on the River of Time! - said Seryozhka.
“No, no, I just gave an example,” Kronos objected. - But aren’t animals or trees, for example, born, matured and aged? This means that they too are sailing along the River of Time. There, in the distance, stands a large young birch tree. But this is how she is now, and she was once tiny. Over time, she will grow even more, and then grow old...
- But Sunny will never grow old! - Seryozhka said with conviction. - It always shines, warms and rushes somewhere.
- Not always, but for a very long time! - Chronos corrected. - I remember the time when there was no sun of yours. Not so long ago it was, perhaps only five billion years ago...
- Five billion! - Seryozhka shouted. - And this is called “not so long ago”?
“Of course, not very long ago,” Chronos continued calmly. - The Earth and planets are a little younger, and your Galaxy was born even earlier, it seems, 10 billion years ago!
- Ten billion years! - Seryozhka shouted again, who couldn’t wait until he just turned ten.
“And that’s not much yet,” Grandfather Chronos coughed. - I remember very well what was going on in the Universe before the birth of yours and other galaxies... True, it was really a long time ago, fifteen or twenty billion years ago... Oh, if only you could swim against the current on the river of Time, swim in The past, I would have seen all this with my own eyes...
- I really, really want to swim along the River of Time! - Seryozhka whined.
- Don't whine! - Chronos said angrily. - People haven't yet
invented a time machine that would take them into the Past. So scientists have to work hard to find out exactly what happened on Earth and in the Universe a long time ago, without any fabulous time machine.
- And you can’t swim to the Future? - Seryozha continued to whine.
“Unfortunately, people don’t know how to travel to the Future either...” sighed old Chronos. - It’s a pity that none of them will see what will happen, for example, to your Sun...
- Tell me, please tell me, Grandpa Chronos! - asked Seryozhka. - I am very friends with Sunny, and I need to find out what will happen to him soon.
- Calm down, calm down! - Chronos consoled. - The sun will be the way it is today for a very long time.
- Until I grow up? - asked Seryozhka.
“Not only you,” Chronos grinned. - Your grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even those people who will be born in several billion years will have time to grow up. Because only then will the Sun begin to age...
- How does it feel to grow old? - Seryozha didn’t understand.
“How can I explain this to you...” Chronos thought. - Now the Sun is a hot yellow dwarf star, but in billions of years it will become colder and turn into a huge red star...
- And will it remain like this forever? - asked Seryozhka.
- No, nothing in the Universe remains unchanged! - said Chronos. - Time passes and everything changes. The River of Time will pick up the red giant into which the Sun will turn and carry it further into the more distant future...
- And the Sun will die? - Seryozhka was horrified.
“In the end, yes,” Kronos sighed. - But of course, not right away, because it will first turn into a tiny white star, which will be no larger than the Earth, and then this white dwarf will slowly cool down...
- What about the solar system? - Seryozhka was even more frightened. - And our Earth? What about people?
“It’s hard to say,” said Chronos. - I think that a lot will depend on the people themselves...
- Will they be able to make the old Sun young again? - asked Seryozhka.
“Hardly,” replied Chronos. - But they can do something else...
- What can they do? - Seryozhka could not stand it and interrupted Chronos.
- They can take care of their very distant future! - answered old Chronos.
- Like this? - Seryozha didn’t understand.
- First of all, they should never fight each other. People must also protect their wonderful Earth. Believe me (and I know a lot), such planets are not often found in the Universe. And if people learn to live in peace and friendship, make the Earth even better than it is today, then they will be able to live long and beautifully on it. They will become strong and happy. All together, together they will cope with any difficulties and, maybe, they will even learn to live without the Sun or fly away to other stars... I don’t know exactly how they will do it, but if people want, they will never die.
Chronos disappeared as imperceptibly as he appeared, and Seryozhka forever remembered his wise words.
Try to remember them too, reader!
Vyacheslav Klimentov, Yulia Sigorskaya
Artist A.G. Shlyadinsky
Publishing house "Rech", 2016
The authors talk in detail about the origin and development space science starting with Ancient China, and remembering scientists from Archimedes to Korolev and Tsiolkovsky. From the book you can learn about who invented the first rocket, what the first aircraft looked like, what a rocket engine is made of, how satellites are located in Earth's orbit and what is on the far side of the Moon, as well as a huge number of other “space” facts. On each page, under the heading “Did you know?” are given interesting stories from the lives of scientists and legends associated with space exploration and man’s dreams of flight. A separate detailed chapter is devoted to animals in space; here you can also see photographs of all the animals that have been in orbit.
The illustrations in the book are very informative: there are portraits, device diagrams, and photographs. The book is suitable for family reading with children over eight years old; independent reading may be difficult due to small print and clean text.
Katherine Barr, Steve Williams
Illustrations by Aimee Husband
Translation from English by Vadim Tsilinsky
Publishing house "Samokat", 2018
The book "History of Space" has a subtitle - "My first book about the Universe." And this immediately raises the reader to a new level - it encourages him to feel like a Man of the Universe.
This is a picture book, although it cannot be said that there is little text in it. But the text does not outweigh the pictures.
“An objective statement of facts” here coexists with the emotional. Funny characters in cosmonaut spacesuits are responsible for the emotional component - a children's team that observes all the described events and processes “from Space.” Not only observes, but also partly participates in them. Characters communicate how they feel at one time or another: their remarks are conveyed using “bubbles”, like in comics. Therefore, the book as a whole is not only understandable (although it is probably impossible to present complex material in a completely simple way), but also not without humor.
Perhaps this book can be considered one of the most successful and meaningful books about Space that have appeared on the book market in the last five years.
With a child before school age it can be considered together and “read” in places. And from the age of eight, a child who reads well can master it on his own.
Efrem Levitan
Artist Oleg Estis
Meshcheryakov Publishing House, 2016
The main character of this fairy tale, the boy Seryozha, once made friends with the Sun, and then with the Moon, stars and comets, who told him a lot of interesting things about themselves: why is the sun not always visible in the sky? Why is it hot on a summer day, but in winter the snow doesn’t melt even in the bright sun? Why do we see the Moon as either round or crescent-shaped? How do planets move through the constellations? How old are comets?
Perhaps, after reading this book, the child will want to go to the planetarium, which is described in the book in a bright and exciting way.
The book is suitable for reading with children aged six years and older.
Lucy and Stephen Hawking
Artist Harry Parsons
Translation from English by E. Kanishcheva
Publishing house "Pink Giraffe", 2019
The famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, together with his daughter Lucy, created an astronomical trilogy for children in 2007. Her main character- the boy George, who, together with the girl Annie and with the help of a supercomputer named Cosmos, sets off on a journey through the Universe, intending to learn its secrets. The most modern information about the structure of space is woven into the plot outline about the adventures of children on the stars and planets. The book contains black and white story illustrations and color photographs taken by space telescopes, Mars rovers and other cutting-edge technology. The book is recommended for children of middle school age, but will also be interesting younger schoolchildren fascinated by the space theme.