Our galaxy, the Milky Way
Medium
Our Sun is one of hundreds of billions of stars in a giant spinning galaxy called the Milky Way.
- In Hindi the Milky Way is called Akashganga, the river of the sky.
- Light takes about 100,000 years to cross it.
🌌 10 pages
Deep Space colouring pages
Galaxies, nebulas, comets and black holes.
A star nursery nebula
Medium
A nebula is a huge cloud of gas and dust. New stars are born inside some of them.
- Nebulas can be many light years across.
- Telescopes see them glowing in pink, blue and green.
A black hole
Medium
A black hole pulls so strongly that not even light can escape. Glowing gas swirls around it.
- There is a giant black hole in the middle of our galaxy.
- The swirling disc of gas can be hotter than the Sun.
A comet with a glowing tail
Easy
Comets are giant dirty snowballs. Near the Sun they warm up and grow long glowing tails.
- A comet’s tail always points away from the Sun.
- Some comets come back every 76 years, like Halley’s Comet.
The asteroid belt
Medium
Between Mars and Jupiter, millions of rocky asteroids travel around the Sun.
- The biggest one, Ceres, is a dwarf planet.
- Some asteroids have their own tiny moons.
Saptarishi, the seven sages
Easy
Saptarishi is seven bright stars shaped like a big ladle. It is also called the Big Dipper.
- Two of its stars point towards Dhruva Tara, the Pole Star.
- Each star is named after a sage in Indian tradition.
Orion the hunter
Easy
Orion is one of the easiest star pictures to find, with three stars in a row for his belt.
- In India it is often called Mriga, the deer.
- The red star Betelgeuse marks one of its shoulders.
Shooting stars
Easy
Shooting stars are tiny space pebbles burning up high in our air. They are called meteors.
- Most meteors are smaller than a grain of rice.
- On some nights you can see dozens every hour.
A star goes supernova
Easy
When a giant star runs out of fuel it can explode in a supernova, one of the brightest things in space.
- A supernova can outshine a whole galaxy for a few weeks.
- Many of the atoms in your body were made inside stars long ago.
Stargazing with a telescope
Medium
Telescopes collect lots of light, so we can see faint stars, planets and galaxies.
- India has big telescopes in Ladakh, where the sky is very dark.
- You can see Jupiter’s moons with a small telescope.