SPACE FILES

THE UNIVERSE & THE GALAXY  THE SUN & THE SOLAR SYSTEM  THE INNER PLANETS: MERCURY & VENUS  PLANET EARTH & THE MOON  THE MIDDLE PLANETS: MARS, JUPITER & SATURN  THE OUTER PLANETS: URANUS, NEPTUNE & PLUTO  A BRIEF HISTORY OF SPACE & ASTRONOMY  THE MAIN CONSTELLATIONS: Ursa Major, Cassiopeia & Orion

THE UNIVERSE

It is believed that the Universe came into existence somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 million years ago, but nobody knows exactly when or just how. All known energy and matter, in fact the whole of space and everything which exists is contained in it. Over the years there have been various theories put forward as to how the Universe began, of which three most common are the Big Bang theory; Steady-State theory; and the Oscillating Universe theory. The Big Bang theory leads the way with most astronomers, that is, they believe the Universe started in one big explosion. The Steady-State theorists believe that the Universe has always existed and always will and is forever expanding. The Oscillating Universe theory, where the Universe alternately expands and contracts back into a large cluster of matter and then explodes again, is also a possibility. What we do know is that all the millions of galaxies in the Universe are speeding farther and farther away from each other and the Universe appears to be expanding and expanding to a far out-reaching spread. The universe is getting bigger!

THE GALAXY

We call our Galaxy the Milky Way because of its luminous band type appearance in the night sky. Galaxies come in all shapes and sizes, our own being a spiral. If you could look directly down on top of our Galaxy it would resemble the shape of a Catherine-wheel firework that we see on Guy Fawkes night with huge spiral arms of stars leading from the centre and if viewed edgeways on it would look rather like two fried eggs stuck back to back. Our Galaxy is about 100,000 light years across and the Sun lies about 33,000 light years from the Galactic centre near the edge of an outer spiral arm. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, one light year being the distance travelled by a ray of light in one year, equivalent to about 5,880,000 million miles or 9,460,000 km., therefore light does not travel instantaneously! The Milky way contains over 200,000 million stars and our Sun is just one of them. The nearest galaxy to our own is the Large Magellanic Cloud which lies about 175,000 light years away and is smaller and believed to be part of our own Milky Way. Sadly we cannot see the Magellanic cloud from Britain, in fact it can only be seen from the Southern Hemisphere; but what we can see from Britain is the large Andromeda Galaxy (M31) which is the nearest spiral galaxy to ours. Although Andromeda is 2 million light years away it is so large that it can be clearly viewed through binoculars and on clear nights with the naked eye. It can be found near the constellation Cassiopeia the big W-shape in the sky.

THE SUN

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD ANYONE LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN. THE USE OF SMOKED GLASS AND SO-CALLED "SOLAR FILTERS" ARE NOT SAFE. ASTRODOME CAN ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY EVENTUALITY SHOULD YOU IGNORE THIS WARNING! The Sun is an ordinary star about a million miles across (865,463 Miles) which formed some 5,000 million years ago in an interstellar cloud composed mainly of Hydrogen and Helium gases. The Sun which is a ball of gas goes through a cycle of activity every eleven years or so. At its centre, at a temperature of 15 million degrees, nuclear reactions take place, which generate the energy it needs to shine. Very slowly over tens of millions of years this energy makes its way to the surface of the Sun to escape as sunlight. Once free it takes only eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles to Earth (149,597,870 km.). Although the core of the Sun is very hot its visible surface is only at a temperature of six thousand degrees. Our Sun is a middle-aged star and although its loss of mass amounts to approximately 4,000,000 tons every second, calculations show that there is enough Hydrogen fuel to keep it shining for at least 5,000 million years into the future.

THE SOLAR SYSTEM

There are nine known planets which travel around the Sun in which we call the Solar System. Outwards from the Sun they are MERCURY, VENUS, THE EARTH, MARS, JUPITER, SATURN, URANUS, NEPTUNE and PLUTO. Although at times Pluto's orbit brings it in closer to the Sun than Neptune as it was in 1993, where it is about as close in to the Sun as it can get. None of the planets give out light of their own, they all shine by acting like big mirrors in space, including the Earth. Jupiter however does give out more heat than it receives from the Sun. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have no know solid surfaces, they are all huge gas ball planets, although their satellites (moons) do have, and in the case of Jupiter and Saturn, among their ever changing gas clouds and belts, there is active thunder and lightening.

MERCURY

The closest of all the planets to the Sun (about 36 million miles or 58 million km.). It has no atmosphere and the surface temperature of about 400 degrees centigrade (752 degrees Fahrenheit). Mercury spins slowly on its axis rotating once every 58½ Earth days and its year is only 88 days (once round the Sun). Mercury is heavily cratered like the Moon and has valleys, cracks, hills and mountains, although none of them can be seen from Earth. At the equator the diameter is 3,100 miles (4,900 km.) and although the light from the Sun is blinding on the surface of Mercury, the daytime sky is black. Because there is no atmosphere to keep the heat in, the night time is freezing cold. We owe much of our knowledge of Mercury to the USA's Mariner 10 probe which flew past in March 1974. Mercury has no moons.

VENUS

Venus is named in honour of the goddess of love, but is far from being a loving and friendly world. It does have an appreciable atmosphere but is so dense and cloud laden that the surface always remains completely hidden from us. Due to the greenhouse effect Venus is actually hotter than Mercury, in fact it is the hottest planet. It has a surface temperature of 475 degrees Centigrade. Venus is the closest planet to the Earth and similar in size with a diameter of 7,523 miles (12,140 km.) and has often been named the 'Earth's sister planet'. Its distance from the Sun is 67.2 million miles (108 million km.) and it has no moons. A day on Venus which is equal to 243 Earth days, is actually longer than its year of 224.7 Earth days. The ground pressure on Venus is 90 times greater than that of the Earth and the daytime sky is bright orange. Mercury & Venus can only be seen early evening at sunset or early morning at sunrise and are consequently called morning and evening stars. As viewed from our Gillingham Observatory Venus appears to be a silvery colour and Mercury always seems to flash different colours, this is because Mercury can only be viewed when low down in the sky and the Earth's atmosphere interferes. Because they are both inner planets they go through similar phases as our Moon. We can never see them at full because they will be behind the Sun, 'Superior conjunction' or in front of the Sun, 'Inferior conjunction'.

The Earth is known as the 'blue planet' and lies 93 million miles (150 million km.) from the Sun, our nearest star. It is unique in as much as it contains life! The equatorial diameter is 7,926 miles (12,756 km.) and has a rotation period of 24 hours or to be precise 23 hrs. 56 mins. 4 seconds. It takes 365 days (1 year) to travel once around the Sun together with its only satellite the Moon, which has a diameter of 2,160 miles (3,476 km.). We receive all our life bearing light and heat from the Sun on which we depend to survive. Without it there would be no day, no plants, no oceans and no life! The Earth would become a lifeless frozen world. The Sun's light takes only 8½ minutes to travel the 93 million miles (150 million km.) to Earth. Although the Sun's rays were responsible for life on Earth, they can also be deadly and we could not survive without the layer of air that surrounds us called the atmosphere, it is this which shields us from the Sun's burning rays.

The Earth is slightly tilted over as it spins at approx. 1,000 m.p.h. on its imaginary line we call the Earth's axis, which passes through both North and South Poles. As the Earth spins we see the Sun, Moon and stars appear rising in the East and setting in the West, this is because the Earth is spinning from West to East which also gives us our night and day. It is the Earth's tilt which gives us our seasons and not how close the Earth's orbit takes us to and from the Sun. If you take a small ball about the size of an apple and draw a line right round half-way and then mark the top with an "N" and the bottom with an "S" hold the ball (the Earth) upright at the so called poles between your forefinger and thumb in your right hand. Now tilt the ball over to your left by about 1" or 25mm. and hold it up to the right hand side of any light bulb (the Sun) and you will see it is the "N" Northern Hemisphere that is facing the Sun therefore having its summertime, move the ball to the left of the light bulb (the Sun) and you see the Southern Hemisphere having their summertime (although your hand will shield some of the light).

The Moon takes 27 days 32 mins. to spin once around on its axis which is exactly the same time it takes to travel in its orbit once around the Earth, therefore the Moon always keeps the same side facing the Earth, but both sides do receive sunlight. Because the Moon has no atmosphere the day time sky is black. The reason the Earth's daytime sky is blue is not because of sunlight reflecting off the sea, but because the Earth's atmosphere contains tiny bits of dust and water in the air which scatters the blue part of the sun's light. At sunset however the Sun is lower in the sky and the Sun's rays have to pass through more layers of air and these extra layers filter out all the colours except red, producing a red sunset. It would take 81 Moons to balance the weight of the Earth which means the Lunar gravity is much weaker. The escape velocity of the Moon is a mere 1½ miles per second and the Earth's' is 7 miles per second (roughly 25,000 miles per hour).

MARS

Mars is smaller than the Earth with its diameter of only 4,200 miles (6,790 km.) we call it the Red Planet. It takes 687 days to orbit once around the Sun and rotates in 24 hours 37 minutes. The maximum surface temperature is minus 20 degrees centigrade and it lies 141.5 million miles (228 million km.) from the Sun. Mars was once thought to be the only planet that might hold life, but this now seems to be very remote indeed! The U.S. sent two spacecraft to Mars (Viking 1 & 2) in 1976 but neither found any signs of life. It was also suggested in January 1996 that Mars might have rings, but there has been no more evidence to date. In September 1988 Mars was at its closest position to the Earth as it can be and will not come that close again for the rest of this century. We observed Mars throughout this period and saw different markings on the surface along with the white polar ice caps. Occasionally Mars has vast raging dust storms that cover the entire planets surface from view. Mars has two Moons, Phobos and Deimos. On 4th July 1997 the unmanned U.S. Pathfinder craft successfully landed on Mars.

The Asteroid Belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The largest of them, Ceres, is only 623 miles in diameter, they are also called the Minor Planets.

JUPITER

Jupiter is by far the biggest of all the planets, it spins very fast and has a rotation period of just 9 ¾ hours. Jupiter takes 11¾ years to travel once around the Sun and has a diameter of 88,700 miles (142,800 km.). Jupiter's distance from the Sun is 483 million miles (778 million km.), and its surface temperature is minus 140 degrees centigrade.

Jupiter probably has at least fifty moons and a large red spot about the size of three Earth's which sometimes is just a grey spot hollow as we viewed it in January 1993, but it soon turned back red again. Jupiter has a ring system but it is not visible from any Earth based observatory. This is because the particles are made up of rock and ice that are darker than the blackest coal dust (matt black) and therefore not reflecting the Sun's light back to us. In our opinion, Jupiter is the most interesting of all the planets to view with its ever changing surface details and nightly positions of its four largest Moons. These four large Moons are known collectively as the Galilean Satellites; GANYMEDE, CALLISTO, IO and EUROPA. All except EUROPA are larger than the Earth's Moon and GANYMEDE is even larger than the planet Mercury! Jupiter is a huge gas-ball planet and is so large that you could place about 1,300 Earth's inside it. In July 1994 20-odd fragments of The Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter's cloud tops.

NASA's space-craft probes, Pioneers 10 & 11 (1973-74) and Voyagers 1 & 2 (1979) have flown past the planet and sent back superb close-up colour photographs. Jupiter has an atmosphere that is mainly made up of hydrogen and helium gases. On December 7th 1995 The Galileo Space Craft arrived at Jupiter and released an atmospheric probe into Jupiter's cloud tops.

SATURN

Saturn must be the most beautiful object in the entire sky when viewed through a telescope. Unfortunately, you do have to have a telescope to see the rings, binoculars will only show a mere roundish blob. Again we owe much credit to the Voyager 2 craft that flew past Saturn in 1981, beaming back spectacular pictures, all giving a tremendous wealth of previously unknown knowledge and information. In October 1997 the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was sent en route to Saturn, (arrival July 2004.) The small Huygens probe will detach itself from Cassini and hopefully land on Titan. Saturn's distance from the Sun if 886 million miles (1,430 million km.) to which it takes 29½ years to orbit. The diameter of Saturn is 75,100 miles (120,000 km.), and it rotates in just 10 hours 29 minutes, more than twice as fast as the Earth does. Saturn is a very cold world, with a mean surface temperature of minus 180 degrees centigrade and has very high wind speeds. Like Jupiter, Saturn's atmosphere is mainly made up of hydrogen and helium.

Even though Saturn is so large (the second largest planet) its overall density is less than water and if it could be dropped into an ocean it would float. Saturn has 30+ moons (satellites) of which Titan is the largest at 3,201 miles, the second largest Moon in our Solar System. Although probably too cold for life, Titan does have an atmosphere made up of mainly nitrogen, the main ingredient gas to start a life forming planet. Apart from our own Earth, there are only two other worlds known to contain nitrogen in their atmospheres. Jupiter's moon Io and Neptune's largest moon Triton.

URANUS

Uranus is just visible to the naked eye as a faint star. From our observatory in Gillingham, it shows up as a small round greenish/blue disk with no markings. Uranus is 1,783 million miles (2.9 million km.) from the Sun to which it takes 84 years to orbit. Its diameter is 29,600 miles (51,000 km.) and it rotates on its side in 17 hours 24 minutes. Since the Voyager 2 fly-past in January 1986, Uranus has over 21 satellites (moons) and the ring system has at least 13 rings which unfortunately are not visible to the human eye through a telescope.



NEPTUNE

The fourth and the smallest of the outer gas ball giants and because of its distance from the Sun, 2,793 million miles (4.5 million km.) Neptune is more difficult to view and therefore does not attract as much attention from the amateurs as say Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Neptune's diameter is 27,700 miles slightly smaller than that of Uranus and it takes 164¾ years to orbit the Sun whilst spinning in 15¾ hours. Once again an extremely cold world of which little was known until Voyager 2 flew past in 1989 and the pictures were shown on T.V. Neptune's atmosphere is mainly made up of blue methane clouds as well as other gases. Voyager 2 discovered a ring system and revealed six more moons (making eight? in total) and a Great Dark Spot similar to Jupiter's red spot, both believed to be vast storms!

PLUTO

Pluto is the furthest known planet from the Sun at a distance of 3,666 million miles (5.9 million km). Pluto is certainly not a planet for the amateurs. We have never seen it and even the world's largest telescopes still only show it as a small star like object. It has one satellite (moon) and a diameter of only 1,800 miles (2,200 km.). Pluto takes 247.7 years to travel once around the Sun and rotates in 6 days 9 hours 17 minutes. It has a surface temperature of minus 230 degrees Centigrade, which is probably made up of frozen methane ice. Discovered photographically in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997) using a device called a blink-microscope, not unsimilar to the way a child's flicker picture book works.


PLANET X

So the search goes on for planet ten, if it exists it will almost certainly be discovered by photographic means and probably by an amateur, so there is still scope for us all!!!

THE EARLY YEARS
Astronomy is the oldest science known to man, it certainly goes back to around 3000 B.C. as records show and probably ever since mans existence on this planet. The ancient Arabs, Babylonians, Chinese and Egyptians were all very good astronomers. They all had their own organised systems of recording astronomical events, but it wasn't until the ancient Greeks came along (700 B.C. to 200 A.D.) that astronomy was put into the order of science as we know it and still use today. However, they still believed that the Earth was at the centre of the Universe and all the planets including the Sun moved around the Earth!

In 1473, a Polish man by the name of NICOLAS COPERNICUS was born and it was he who first suggested that the Earth was not in the centre of the Universe but the Earth and all the planets went around our nearest Star the Sun. Copernicus, a Canon of Frauenburg Cathedral, soon found himself in serious trouble with the Church for his belief and therefore did not publish his theory De Revoutionibus Orbium Coelestium (Concerning The Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies) until 1543, ironically the same year in which he died. The Church banned the book right up until 1835 when the ban was finally lifted.

Then came along an eccentric Danish astronomer by the name of TYCHO BRAHE (1546-1601) who in 1576 built the world's most sophisticated observatory on the island of Hven. He did not believe in the Copernican theory, but his assistant pupil JOHANNES KEPLER (1571-1630) a brilliant German mathematician proved that Copernicus was right and Earth was not at the centre of the Universe but in fact the planets including the Earth all moved around the Sun.

The biggest breakthrough came when an Italian by the name of GALILEO GALILEI (1564-1642) who was professor of mathematics at Padua, Italy, first turned a telescope to the sky which he built himself after hearing about the invention by a Dutch spectacle maker named HANS LIPPERSHEY. (However there is also strong belief that the Telescope was invented in Britain some years earlier!). This was a toy compared to modern telescopes but showed Galileo Jupiter's four largest Moons, GANYMEDE, CALLISTO, IO, and EUROPA. All except Europa are larger than the Earth's Moon and Ganymede is even larger than the planet MERCURY. These four large satellites (Moons) are named after Galileo and are known collectively as the Galilean Satellites. In 1632 Galileo announced his "Copernican" views in a book 'Dialogue on the Two World Systems' that was also banned by the Church and in 1633 at the age of seventy he was put under house arrest. Again the ban was not lifted until 1835.

THE INVENTIVE YEARS
As time moved on there became an even greater need to make use of astronomy for navigation, as no accurate charts or catalogues were available. King Charles II appointed an English astronomer named JOHN FLAMSTEED (1646-1719) to carry out the tedious task and subsequently created the first Astronomer Royal. During his term of office he made thousands of observations on stars with greater precision than any other before him, while based at the newly founded Royal Greenwich Observatory (1675), where he both lived and worked. Greenwich was chosen mainly on the advice of Sir Christopher Wren, himself a keen astronomer and a first rate architect. Galileo died in 1642, the same year Sir ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727) was born, a great British scientist and mathematician. Newton distinguished himself for his Laws of Motion and Gravitation. His book PRINCIPIA, published in 1687, introduced a new modern era of astronomy. Newton was also noted for his discoveries in optics and in 1671 built the first reflecting telescope. This new type of telescope used a mirror instead of a lens to collect light. Today this type of telescope is still very much in use both in amateur and professional observatories and is called a NEWTONIAN REFLECTOR. At Astrodome's headquarters we have a small observatory housing a 22.5cm reflector which is regularly used for planetary observations.

Then in 1720 EDMOND HALLEY (1656-1743) at the age of 64 with many years of astronomical credits behind him, was appointed the second Astronomer Royal. Halley was responsible for persuading Newton to publish his book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica through the Royal Society and even paid for it to be published. Halley discovered that stars have motions of their own and was first to suggest that Nebulae were clouds of gas, but he is best known for being the first to make a scientific prediction! A comet observed by Halley in 1682, on calculating its path around the Sun of 76 years, soon deduced that it was the same comet seen in 1531 and 1607 and predicted the comet would return in 1759, which it did. Sadly Halley did not live to see the return, he died in 1743 just 16 years before. The comet was then named in his honour and as records now show, it has been recorded for more than 3000 years. The Chinese noted it in the winter of 1058 B.C. and it was also seen in 1066 at the Norman conquest of England and is depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. The last return was in 1985-86 and it will not return again until the year 2061.

The British weren't the only ones making headway in Astronomy; Frenchman CHARLES MESSIER (1730-1817) was putting together a catalogue of deep-sky objects. Messier was a successful comet hunter with at least 15 comets to his credit. So not to confuse fuzzy objects, which we now know to be Galaxies, Open-Clusters, Nebulae and Supernova with comets, he compiled a catalogue starting with M1 (Crab Nebula). All his objects start with the prefix 'M' for Messier, e.g. M31 Andromeda Galaxy, M42 The Orion Nebula, M45 The Pleiades! Although the Messier numbers are still very much in use today, everything is given an N. G. C. Number (New General Catalogue).

THE DISCOVERY YEARS
As optics improved, so did man's knowledge of the night sky. During this period discoveries were being made regularly but none so great as that of Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1738-1822) who, apart from being a pioneer of stellar astronomy, on 13th March 1781 using a 7ft. (214cm.) reflecting telescope discovered the planet URANUS. At first Herschel assumed it was a comet, but after following its movement against the stars, it soon proved to be the planet now known as Uranus. Herschel, a trained musician, was born in Hanover and came to England in 1757. His sister Caroline followed in 1772 and became his assistant both in music and astronomy. Herschel's son JOHN HERSCHEL (1782-1871) also a talented astronomer read mathematics at Cambridge and in 1838 went to the Cape of Good Hope where he made the first detailed star catalogue of the southern sky.

Soon after the discovery of Uranus, it wasn't long before astronomers observed some irregularities in the motion of the planet, possibly due to a type of gravitational pull on the planet. This led to mathematicians John Couch Adams in England and U. J. J. Le Verrier in France both working independently and on the assumption it must be an unseen planet, both predicted its location and both were right! At an observatory in Berlin on the 23rd September 1846 the planet NEPTUNE was discovered by German astronomer JOHANN CALLE with H. L. D'Arrest assisting. Neptune was the first planet to be discovered mathematically. These events lead the search for planet 'nine', but it was many years before the ninth planet was discovered, in fact 84 years. Based on calculations put forward by the American astronomer PERCIVAL LOWELL (1855-1916) who founded the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, PLUTO was actually discovered photographically by CLYDE TOMBAUGH (1907-1997) on 18th February 1930 while at the Lowell Observatory using photographic plates on the Blink Comparator-Microscope. The Blink-Microscope is an instrument for examining two photographs in rapid succession. If two photographs of the same star-field are taken at different times and the pictures are shown in rapid succession (three or four blinks per second) a moving object will seem to jump to and fro thus betraying its identity as a moving object and not as a fixed star.

Of all the great mathematicians and physicists of this period, one in particular, ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879-1955), the German born mathematical physicist has been hailed as the greatest, perhaps of all time. His 'General Theory of Relativity' altered conceptions of space and time and our understanding of the nature of the Universe. Educated in Switzerland, Einstein became a Swiss citizen, but returned to Germany in 1913 and took up professorship at the University of Berlin and in 1921 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. In 1932 the Nazi persecution set in and he was forced to flee to England where he stayed briefly before finally settling down in America taking up American citizenship. Einstein lived in America from 1933 until his death.

THE SPACE RACE
The space race began quite abruptly with the Russians launching Sputnik 1 on 4th October 1957, the world's first man-made satellite transmitting a 'beep signal' around the world for all to hear. This left America feeling humiliated at being beaten into space by the Soviets and matters were made worse when the Russians launched a second satellite, Sputnik 2, on 4th November 1957, weighing 509kg and carrying a dog named "Laika" in a pressurised cabin which proved that life could exist in space orbit.

The design of the Rocket is believed to originate from the Chinese, they certainly had gun powder fireworks around 850 A. D., and were known to possess solid-fuel arrow type rockets in 1232 A. D. The first to launch a liquid-propellant rocket was the American physicist and rocket pioneer ROBERT GODDARD (1882-1945) on the 16th March, 1926. However, the U. S. S. R. and Germany weren't far behind. The force behind the Germans was WERNHER VON BRAUN (1912-1977) a rocket engineer who helped build and design the deadly V-2 Missile Rocket during World War II. Braun surrendered to the U. S. 7th Army in 1945, and was sent to America where he led the team which built the first U. S. artificial satellite Explorer 1, which was launched on the 31st January 1958 by a Juno 1 Rocket. Braun then worked on the Apollo team.

The first man in space was Russian Cosmonaut Lt. YURI GAGARIN (1934-1968) in Vostok 1 on the 12th April 1961, where he completed one full orbit of the Earth lasting108 minutes. Sadly he was killed during a test flight of a jet aircraft in 1968. The first American in orbit was Lt. Col. JOHN H. GLENN (1921-) on 20th February 1962 in his Mercury 6 capsule Friendship 7. He completed three Earth orbits in a flight lasting nearly 5 hours. On the 16th June 1963 Russian VALENTINA V. TERESHKOVA became the first woman in space.

On 16th July 1969 NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) launched Apollo 11 on its way to the Moon, on the first manned lunar landing mission. On 20th July 1969 the world heard the words "The Eagle has landed" - NEIL ARMSTRONG and EDWIN ALDRIN landed the lunar module (Eagle) on the Sea of Tranquility. The third member of the Apollo 11 crew was MICHAEL COLLINS who piloted the Command Module around the Moon. The world watched and waited as Neil Armstrong made his descent down the small lunar module ladder and spoke the famous words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". Five more Moon landings were made, Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Apollo 13 was aborted due to an oxygen tank explosion.

Britain did not join the ranks until 18th May 1991, when our own HELEN SHARMAN became the first Briton in space, she blasted off on board a Soviet Soyuz rocket where she spent eight days aboard the Mir Space Station. Helen spent 18 months training along with Major TIM MACE, her rival and backup. Britain's absence in space has not been through lack of skill or technology, but more simply, a lack of monetary funds! Helen has now become one of this country's leading 'ambassadors for space science' and was awarded the OBE in 1992.

THE PRESENT DAY
At present we have four exploratory space craft leaving our Solar System, all in different directions. Pioneers 10 & 11 and Voyagers 1 & 2, all carrying messages of friendship and the whereabouts of our intelligent civilisation on gold disk records. They travel freely through space at approximately 30,000 miles per hour and will continue to do so unless their set course is interrupted either by some form of impact, such as a meteorite collision, or more hopefully intercepted by an alien life form! The craft's power, now virtually drained, is sending messages back through space to us at the speed of light, transmitting with power that would barely light a torch bulb dimly. We hope to keep in touch with the craft for the next twenty years or so, when even the very largest of our receiving dishes will no longer pick up their weak signal. However, their course is being monitored and should they stray from their set paths one possibility to be investigated is the gravity force of a new undiscovered planet, 'Planet 10'.

We have acquired more knowledge of the Universe in the last thirty years than had previously been accumulated since time began. We have sent and placed men as well as probes on the Moon, successfully landed craft on Mars (Viking 1 & 2) & Pathfinder in 1997 which have sent back colour pictures of the surface, sent Mariner Craft to photograph the planet Mercury, had the probe Magellan radar map Venus and sent probes to the Sun, we have even sent a probe to Halley's Comet (Giotto) which was nearly destroyed as it flew close to the comet's nucleus (centre) and whose dust detection shield was designed and built by our own University of Kent. In fact it has been possible to sit at home and watch live on television a man walking on the Moon or the Voyager 2 probe speeding past the Outer Giant Planet Neptune. This was shown on the B.B.C.'s, 'The Sky at Night' programme, which is hosted by the Astronomer Dr. Patrick Moore who incidentally holds the record for the longest running T. V. programme with the same presenter and is only surpassed from being the longest running programme by The News and Panorama. The Sky at Night has been shown once a month since 1958.

Astronomy is now part of the National Curriculum and therefore has become part of everyday school life. Many schools now have their own Telescopes and some even their own observatories. As telescopes become more accessible to the amateur astronomer they are also becoming more and more advanced, their optics have never been better and even the new computerised CCD (Charged Coupled Devices) are within the amateur price range. The pinnacle of achievement is the Hubble Space Telescope which despite problems with the main mirror, still out-performs any conventional Earth based telescopes.

"Man cannot discover the universe until he has courage to lose sight of the earth".

Peter J. Golding F.R.A.S.
Astrodome

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Astrodome would like to thank the following for their help and enthusiastic contribution to the Astrodome project: Amanda Easto BA (Hons). R. J. Golding BSc. Mike Phillips F.B.I.S. Mark Underwood F.R.A.S. Peter Bassett F.R.A.S. Steve Hathaway BSc. John Holmes F.R.A.S. Bob Kibble AAE. Susy Humphries Inter-Action. The Royal Astronomical Society. NASA & The Mid-Kent Astronomical Society.