The first project in the history of mankind that allowed the human beings to orbit the earth was the project Gemini and Mercury whose main task was to take a spacecraft to the earth’s orbit, stay and come back safely with the spacecraft to the earth’s surface. The famous Apollo program was initiated in the year 1961 with a mission to land on the moon’s surface. It took several years for research and test flights when finally astronauts Neil Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins in the year 1969 landed on the surface of moon. The flight that landed on the moon successfully was Apollo 11.

After the successful landing of Apollo 11 several quest have been made to moon with spaceflight programs like Apollo-Soyaz, Space Shuttle and Skylab. These all missions were to land on moon but we have never landed on any other planet or object like the Asteroids. NASA has sent a number of unmanned spacecrafts in the solar system to collect information and on the planets too like mars. There is a long list of unmanned space vehicles like the Viking 1 and 2, Mariner, Pioneer 10 and 11, Explorer, Magellan, Venus 1 and 2, Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, Lunar Orbiter, Clementine and Surveyor.

As mankind learned more about the stars through Astronomy and its allied sciences, the use of imagination was merged with this newly gained knowledge through which we could also visualize shapes and characters in the various groups of stars. We named them in accordance with these characteristics and termed them to be scientifically as constellations. This was the perfect blend of the science and the arts and allowed us to become even more involved in this process of getting to know more about our celestial neighbors.

The science of Astronomy also allows us to gain enough knowledge about the stars through which we can differentiate between stars and celestial bodies which are not starts. Through this knowledge we can also identify other stars, even though visually they may look different. An example of this can be the Sun. though visually very different from a normal star, yet the Sun has been proved to be, beyond a doubt, a star… through the study of Astronomy.

Besides this, interest in the subject of Astronomy can also be created amongst kids with the help of colored books on the subject which are specially designed to prove to be attractive to kids. You can also start projects on Astronomy with your kids. Try explaining a process which concerns the subject to your child and then ask him or her to recreate the process on a sheet of paper. You can also use cut outs of the different planets and colored crayons to make the process more interesting to your child. There are also various online resources through which you can experience the process of learning more on the subject with your child.

One of Saturn’s moons is known as the Death Star. With its huge crater, it resembles the famous movie prop. Recent astronomy articles focused on Cassini’s mission to this moon, called Mimas. Some stunning images and a lot of new data resulted. It was a popular story. This information will help shed light on the number of impact objects that pass through Saturn’s orbit. We’ll learn a lot about how planets like Saturn clean debris from the solar system.

For years people have studied dark matter. It contributes to the expansion of the universe, but scientists don’t really know how. Dark matter was a popular headline in recent astronomy articles. There was a plan to study distant supernovae to learn about dark matter. It’s important because about 70% of the stuff in the universe is dark matter.

Before our sun was really a star it was a condensing mass of space matter called a protosun. Emissions of heat and light as well as solar winds from this proto-sun have long been a matter of contention. Recent astronomy articles answer this question with a resounding yes. Scientists have used new techniques to discover that the protosun did indeed emit ultraviolet and other particles in an early form of the solar wind. So the sun helped create life before it ever became a sun.