Whizz Pop Bang Science Magazine for Kids! Issue 112: Cosmic Explorers by Whizz Pop Bang

ISSN 2399 -2840

THE AWESOME SCIENCE MAGAZINE FOR KIDS!

m i c s o C lorer p s x E

Calculate your weight on Venus

Craft a model solar system

Make nd moon sa

e h cr ver t n a et l p Recreate s of the the Martian sco

atmosphere

WHIZZPOPBANG.COM ISSUE 112

EXPERIMENTS PUZZLES AMAZING FACTS SCIENCE NEWS

WELCOME!

Ready your rockets, we’re heading into space!

5, 4, 3, 2, 1… BLAST OF F! In this edition of Whizz Po p Bang, we’re exploring the wonders of space! Recreate the Mar tian atmosphere in your own kitch en, calculate your weight on ot planets and get creative as you craft your very own solar her system model. You’ll also dive into th e fascinating life of astronome Nicolaus Copernicus and explo r re some weird and wonderful pla in our solar system and beyo nets nd. Get ready to embark on an ep ic journey through the cosmos!

WHIZZ POP BANG is made by:

Editor-in-Chief: Jenny Inglis Editor: Tammy Osborne Designer: Rachael Fisher Illustrator: Clive Goodyer Contributors: Nick Arnold, Tommy Donbavand, Joe Inglis, Zoë Öhman, Tara Pardo, Isabel Thomas and Joanna Tubbs

EXPERT SCIENCE ADVISERS

As well as our writers, we also have a team of science advisers who help to ensure that our content is accurate, up-to-date and relevant. Our advisers include: palaeontologist Steve Brusatte; molecular microbiologist Matt Hutchings; robotics engineer Abbie Hutty; mechanical engineer Aimee Morgans; GP Dr Cathy Scott; astronomer Mark Thompson; physicist Dr Jess Wade; child psychologist Dr Naira Wilson. To find out more, go to whizzpopbang.com/about

I’m off to make some moon sand! Where you see this symbol, use a QR code reader on a phone or tablet to visit a relevant web page.

Emmi

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Make rainforest friendly chocolate ice cream

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Gakk

Riley

WHIZZ POP BANG is only available by subscription. If you haven’t subscribed yet, simply go to whizzpopbang.com and sign up for as little as £4.59 per magazine, including UK delivery. Back issues are available to purchase at whizzpopbang.com/shop With the help of Whizz Pop Bang magazine, just imagine what your child might one day discover!

GROWN-UPS

EDUCATORS

Welcome to WHIZZ POP BANG – the magazine bursting with enticing articles, mind-boggling facts and hands-on experiments to get your child hooked on science! Whizz Pop Bang is a gender-neutral magazine with plenty of inspirational male and female scientists and content that appeals to all children.

The magazine is ideal for home educators and it’s linked to the National Curriculum too, for use in schools. Whizz Pop Bang will help with literacy development as well. Transform science teaching in your school with our hands-on science and reading resources. Our downloadable lesson packs link fun science experiments and reading with key curriculum topics for years 2-6. Subscribe at whizzpopbang.com/schools

All experiments have been tried and tested by our team. The activities should be done under close adult supervision and are done at your own risk. Launchpad Publishing Ltd cannot accept liability for damage done.

Indicates content linked to the National Curriculum

Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ © 2024 Launchpad Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents of WHIZZ POP BANG without written permission is prohibited. Illustrations: © 2024 Clive Goodyer

CONTENTS

AWESOME NEWS AND AMAZING FACTS

The weird and wonderful Ig Nobel Prizes, plus Everest’s growth spurt and a penguin in space!

PLAN A PLANET

Discover why planets are round, find out what you’d weigh on other planets and recreate the Martian atmosphere!

ANIMAL ANTICS

14 ©

Sh u

16 tte rst o

ck.c o

12 ST Sc I

Yeowch! Vet Joe Inglis seeks out our prickliest garden visitor, the seriously spiky hedgehog.

SILLY SCIENCE

Whizz around the solar system with some out-of-this-world puzzles.

A, CS A, S A, E

EMMI’S ECO CLUB

Upcycle a plastic milk bottle to make a bird sculpture.

PULLOUT

Make a solar system model and go crater crazy with your own amazing moon sand.

Atom

22 24

VENUS

Why is it so unbearably hot on Earth’s sister planet?

HOW STUFF WORKS

Discover how images find their way onto your TV screens.

TEN AWESOMELY AMAZING…

deadly places in our solar system – from searing heat to violent volcanoes and raging storms.

SENSATIONAL SCIENTISTS

Nicolaus Copernicus shocked the world with his bright idea – that the Earth orbits the Sun!

Y’S WONDER CLUB

Ask our robot, Y, your burning science questions and share all of your adventures in science with the club.

I’d love to see pictures of 32 your experiments! Send them to Y@whizzpopbang.com and ask an adult to tag us on social media 34 @whizzpopbangmag

QUIZ POP BANG AND COMPETITION

Test your knowledge with our super-duper science quiz and win an awesome mystery-solving puzzle book.

JOKES AND ANSWERS

Laugh out loud at some awesome jokes and find the answers to all of our quizzes, puzzles and riddles.

SPECTACULAR SCIENCE

Take a closer look at the sixth planet from the Sun, the gas giant Saturn with its awe-inspiring rings.

FIND THE SCIENCE EQUIPMENT Hidden on each double page is a piece of science equipment. Tick each one to find the complete kit!

s Awesome New cts and Amazing Fa T

G NOBEL PRIZ I 4 2 0 2 ES HE

Each year, science’s wackiest awards celebrate research that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. The silly ceremony includes intervals for throwing paper aeroplanes and a chanting eight-year-old whose job is to stop the scientists’ acceptance speeches from going on too long! Here are some of our favourites among this year’s winners…

The Anatomy Prize went to French researchers who studied whether hair on the heads of people in the northern hemisphere swirls in the same direction as hair on the heads of people in the southern hemisphere. © norikoJapan / Shutterstock.com

Commons

Not to be e confused with th e Nobel Prizes, th ds ar more serious aw king for groundbrea ! research

The Botany Prize was presented to an international team of scientists whose study showed that some plants can mimic the leaves of plastic plants placed next to them, raising the question of whether ‘plant vision’ exists.

They found that hair tends to swirl in a clockwise direction, but less so in the southern hemisphere. The Peace Prize was won by American scientists who, in the 1940s, investigated whether attaching live pigeons to missiles might help guide them to their targets. Luckily for the pigeons, this never happened.

Attaching pigeons to what now? © Drakuliren / Shutterstock.com

Another team of American scientists scooped the Physics Prize for their investigation into the swimming abilities of a dead trout.

The Japanese winners of the Physiology Prize showed that many mammals are capable of breathing through their bottoms! The researchers hope that their research might one day help people who are having difficulty breathing through their mouths. © Eric Isselee / Shutterstock.com

AUTUMN LEAVES

SPACE PENGUIN NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope took this awesome photo of two interacting galaxies nicknamed ‘The Penguin and the Egg’. The galaxies have been locked in a slo-mo cosmic dance with each other for more than 25 million years. Hundreds of millions of years from now they will merge into a single galaxy, but at the moment, they look really like a penguin with an egg!

Collect autumn leaves and make a fun mask!

Have you ever wondered why leaves change colour in the autumn? As well as water, trees need energy from sunlight to grow. Leaves capture the energy from sunlight using a pigment (coloured chemical) called chlorophyll, which is what makes them green. But they have other pigments too – yellow xanthophylls, orange carotenoids and red anthocyanins – which are hidden for most of the year by the green chlorophyll. When autumn arrives, the days get shorter and there’s less sunlight around, so the trees don’t need as much chlorophyll. They break it down and store the nutrients it’s made of in their trunks until springtime, leaving behind the yellow, orange and red pigments that you normally can’t see.

EVEREST’S HAVING A GROWTH SPURT!

Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, is getting even taller! According to new research, the mountain has grown by 15-50 metres over the last 89,000 years – and it’s still going. Everest is part of the Himalayas, a mountain range between Nepal and Tibet that was formed 50 million years ago when two tectonic plates crashed into each other, pushing the land up in the middle. In addition to this process, the scientists think that erosion from a nearby river gorge is allowing pressure from below the Earth’s crust to push the mountains upwards.

Make your own fold mountains by pushing two boxes into a pile of folded towels.

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Plan a Planet Read on – it’s out of this world!

We all live on a very special planet. But what makes other planets so different? And why aren’t any of them square?

WHAT IS A PLANET?

A planet is an object that circles the Sun (or another star). Its gravity is strong enough to pull it into a round shape and pull in any nearby rocks. Here’s how gravity makes a round planet...

Take a piece of kitchen foil. Crumple it into a loose ball then squeeze it in your fist. Your fist is like gravity pulling a planet into a ball. Now you see why none of them end up square!

What did Mars say to Saturn? Give me a ring sometime! 6 whizzpopbang.com

Earth and other planets orbit the Sun. They’re all roughly spherical (ball shaped).

Gravity is a force produced by matter. It pulls on other matter. The matter that makes up an object is called its mass.

Gravity pulls inwards in all directions.

The Moon orbits Earth, and most other planets have their own moons.

HOW DO PLANETS FORM? 1. Our solar system started as a spinning cloud of dust and gas.

CALCULATE YOUR WEIGHT ON ANOTHER PLANET Your weight is gravity

pulling on your body. Planets with more mass have stronger gravity, so you weigh more on bigger planets.

2. The cloud became

disk-shaped and gravity caused matter to clump together in the centre.

3. The matter in the centre formed the Sun. Other balls of matter formed and, as they grew, their

gravitational pull got stronger – this made them grow even bigger. They became planets.

4. The early planets smashed together to form bigger planets.

Yo u will need Scales Pencil Calculator

What you do 1. Weigh yourself and write your weight in kilograms. 2. Fill in the table below to find out how much you weigh on other planets...

My weight on Earth: ___ kg Planet

Leftover rocks became moons and asteroids.

Multiply Result weight by... (kg)

Mercury

0.3

Venus

0.9

Mars

0.3

Jupiter

2.3

Saturn

Uranus

0.8

Neptune

1.1

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WHY DO THE PLANETS ORBIT THE SUN?

The planets formed spinning around the Sun – and they carry on because of the balance between their momentum (which keeps them moving forwards and stops them crashing into the Sun) and the pull of the Sun’s gravity (which stops them flying off into space!).

Saturn has a giant hexagon on its north pole Answer on page 34

A day is the time needed for a planet to turn once on its axis.

A year is the time needed for it to orbit the Sun. More distant planets have longer years.

WHY ARE PLANETS DIFFERENT?

Planets vary for many reasons, starting with their distance from the star they orbit...

NEAR THEIR STAR Hot

Smaller planet = less gravity Made from rocks Fewer moons

FAR FROM THEIR STAR Cold

Bigger planet = more gravity More frozen gas/liquid More moons

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Bashes with other planets can alter a planet’s spin or tilt it over. Icy comets might also hit the planet and bring water to its surface to form seas.

WHAT ARE ALIEN PLANETS LIKE? In our galaxy alone, there are at least 100 billion planets orbiting other stars. Scientists have found more than 5,000 so far. They can detect them because a planet's gravity makes its star wobble slightly. Sometimes scientists see a planet transiting (passing in front of) a star. Lots of these faraway planets are similar to Earth, but some of them are HORRIBLE!

it rains molten iron.

Gravity on CoRoT-3b is so strong that your bones would break.

Super-hot

55 Cancri e is covered in killer steam.

We call planets beyond our solar system exoplanets.

Yo u will need

A cardboard tube (e.g. from a toilet roll) Plasticine or sticky tack A wooden cocktail stick or similar

What you do 1. Roll a 5 mm ball of Plasticine. 2. Stick the ball on the cocktail stick. 3. Close one eye and look through the tube at a brightly lit pale wall.

51 Pegasi b

OBSERVE A TRANSIT

4. Move the cocktail stick and ball in front of the tube opening.

You should find You see the ball as a dark shape. It looks like a planet transiting a star.

Imagine how aliens would survive on these planets. What would they look like?

I call one of them home!

Try this mnemonic to remember the order of the planets, starting from the Sun! Mercury - My Venus - Very Earth - Exciting Mars - Magazine Jupiter - Jazzes Saturn - Science Uranus - Up Neptune - Nicely whizzpopbang.com 9

EX-PLANET

A year on dwarf planet Sedna lasts 11,400 Earth years

When scientists discovered more objects like Pluto, they decided Pluto wasn’t a planet after all! We now call them dwarf planets.

Answer on page 34

The dwarf planet Haumea is shaped like a cube Answer on page 34

WHAT MAKES A PLANET SUITABLE FOR LIFE? The most suitable planets for life are in the Goldilocks zone – just the right distance from their star so that they are neither too hot nor too cold and can have liquid water and oxygen gas.

There’s no proof that aliens exist, but it’s possible that they do. At least one-sixth of the stars in our galaxy have planets like Earth orbiting them.

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FOUL FACT In 2013, scientists spotted a black hole eating an exoplanet.

How can you tell when the Moon's full? It doesn't want a second helping!

Follow Gakk through the maze to his home planet. Check your answer on page 34.

MAKE THE MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE!

Earth’s atmospher

e is a mix of nitr ogen and oxygen, with small amounts of other gases, but th e atmosphere on Mars and Venus is mainl y carbon dioxid e (or CO ), which is toxic for humans 2 to breathe at such hig h concentrations.

Yo u will need

Vinegar (any kind) Bicarbonate of soda A balloon A plastic bottle (up to 1 litre) A teaspoon A funnel

What you do 1. Pour 150 ml of vinegar into the bottle. 2. Using the funnel, pour 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda into the balloon. 3. Stretch the neck of the balloon over the top of the bottle, making sure that no bicarbonate of soda falls in. 4. Quickly lift the end of the balloon to pour the bicarbonate of soda into the bottle all at once. 5. Give the bottle a little shake!

You should find

No planet orbits more than one star

The vinegar and bicarbonate of soda mixture will quickly start to bubble and the balloon will inflate! This is because the chemical reaction between the alkaline bicarbonate of soda and the acidic vinegar produces lots of carbon dioxide gas, which pushes upwards and into the balloon, blowing it up.

Answer on page 34

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hedgehogs

AL ANIM S TIC

Armed with thick gloves, our vet Joe Inglis is heading into the hedgerows and undergrowth in search of some particularly prickly creatures…

Hedgehogs are spiny mammals found in Europe, Asia and Africa – there are no native hedgehogs in Australia or the Americas. There are 17 different species around the world and, despite their name, they are much more closely related to shrews than to pigs (or hogs, as they are known in America).

6 , 000 The number of spines a typical hedgehog has on its body.

prickly pigs Hedgehogs use their spines to protect themselves from predators. Each spine is a hollow hair that contains a protein called keratin, which makes them super-stiff and strong. It’s the same material that makes your toenails hard, and it’s also found in bird beaks and tortoise shells.

I live in a hedge, but I’m no hog!

pigging out Hedgehogs are omnivores, which means they eat animals and plants. Their favourite foods include insects, snails, frogs, toads, berries, mushrooms, eggs and even snakes!

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creatures of the night After sleeping under a bush or in a nest deep in the undergrowth, hedgehogs come out at dusk and spend the night feeding. This nocturnal behaviour helps to keep them safe from predators.

Having a ball As well as growing sharp spines, hedgehogs have another way of protecting themselves – they can roll up into a tight ball, tucking their head and limbs inside to become a ball of spikes that is very hard for predators to get into. This protection is very important for hedgehogs as they are on the menu for lots of other animals, including owls, badgers, foxes and ferrets.

bizarre balloons

Hedgehogs can suffer from a very strange condition called balloon syndrome, where gas trapped under the skin makes them blow up like a balloon, sometimes to twice their normal size. Thankfully, if they are found in time, vets can treat them by making a hole to let the gas out.

Under threat Britain’s hedgehogs are vulnerable to extinction. Up to three quarters of rural hedgehogs have died in the past 20 years because of the loss of hedgerows. But in urban areas, hedgehog populations are stabilising and might even be increasing, thanks to people making their gardens more hedgehog friendly. If you’ve got a garden, here’s what you can do to help the hedgehogs:

Hedgehogs can walk 2 km per night looking for food. Answer on page 34

ake a wilderness area in a quiet corner with wild plants, dead M leaves and logs. et together with neighbours to make a hedgehog highway by G making holes in your fences, allowing hedgehogs to roam freely. ut out meaty cat or dog food and water in a large plastic box P with a hole in the side (so hedgehogs can get in but foxes can’t). You could also buy or build a hedgehog house. nd remember, always check bonfires for nesting hedgehogs A before setting fire to them.

COSM IC CAPERS

ith these space-tastic Challenge yourself w ur answers puzzles then check yo on page 34!

Crater conundrum Connect the numbers on the Moon from 1 to 10 with one unbroken line.

2 6

10 5

6 3

Emmi and Riley have been zooming around the solar system! Starting from the rocket, can you find the flight path they took from Earth?

Rocket rendezvous

4 1

2 5

7 9

Cosmic cryptogram Can you crack the code and uncover the names of the planets below? We’ve revealed two on the right to get you started. Each time you have an answer, add the new letters to the key below, to help you find the rest.

C D E

F G H

2 O V D G Y

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _

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E A R T H

K L M N O P Q T

1 X V R O G R K

V T R M P

X T R Y M A R S

R S

T U V W X Y Z

M S

3 Z G U N M V R 4 Y T M G R D 5 G R T D G Y _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _

Missing planets Find the correct planets for the empty spaces on the grid. When you have finished, there should be only one of each planet in a row and a column. Write your answers in the box.

1 2

Earth

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn

4 5 6

7 8

4 5

Venus

7 8 Riddles 1) I am the beginning of eter nity and the end of time and spac e, I’m the beginning of the Earth and I surround every place. What am I? 2) This is somet hing you ca although it’s not n look through, a bubble. There is a large one out in space which has the n ame of Hubble. What is it? 3) I am something in the sky that seems to shine at night. However, I am not a star, I am Earth’s satellite. What am I?

I was up all night wondering where the Sun went... and then it dawned on me!

b... clu O C E

Emmi’s

Upcycle a plastic milk bottle by turning it into a feathered friend!

MILK BOTTLE BIRDS Yo u will need A plastic milk bottle A marker pen Scissors String

Wash and dry an empty plastic milk bottle (the kind with a handle).

Draw a shape like this on each side.

4 3

Ask an adult to help you cut along the lines.

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Bend down the wings and tail. Be careful – any pointy bits could be sharp!

Continued on page 21 ➜

Hang your bird up using string. You could hang it in a tree outside and use it as a bird feeder in the winter. You could hang it in a window indoors to stop real birds from flying into the glass. Or you could make a whole flock and thread a string of fairy lights through the necks of the bottles – a great alternative to buying plastic party decorations!

I’d love to see your milk bottle birds! Take a photo and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag and email it to Y@whizzpopbang.com

ECO

We can all help to save the planet. Lots of small actions can make a BIG difference!

ideas...

A million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute. Many end up in the sea, where they harm wildlife. You probably already use a refillable water bottle, but – unless you have a milkman who brings your milk in glass bottles – single-use plastic milk bottles are harder to avoid. Recycling or upcycling your milk bottles is the next best thing. Here are some other ways you can reduce your plastic waste:

Continued from page 16

Take your packed lunch to school in a reusable container instead of a single-use plastic food bag. Avoid glitter and helium balloons, which are made of plastic. Encourage your parents to use cloth shopping bags instead of plastic carrier bags.

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➜

What yo u do

1. Cut out the planets, the Sun and the connecting strips. 2. Attach one end of each connecting strip to the back of the correct planet with sticky tape or glue. 3. Attach the other end of the connecting strips to the back of the Sun, and you’re finished!

Why is Saturn so rich? Because it has lots of rings!

SUN Diameter 1,391,016 km

The Sun is so massive it contains 99.86% of the entire mass in the solar system!

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PULL OUT pages 17-20 and get making!

Find a printable version of the pullout here: bit.ly/4emkygk

SOLAR SYSTEM Mercury

Sun

Our solar system has eight known planets, which all orbit the Sun. You can make an awesome model, showing the planets in order of their distance from the Sun.

Venus

Yo u will need Scissors Sticky tape or glue

Jupiter

Mars

Earth

Saturn

Neptune

The model isn’t to scale because if you cut out a Sun measuring 10 cm across, the Earth at the same scale would measure less than one millimetre, and be placed 10.75 metres away!

Uranus

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MOON SAND Yo u will need

8 cups of flour 1 cup of baby oil or vegetable oil A large, deep tray

What yo u do

Put the flour on the tray and gradually add the oil. Mix well.

Your moon sand is easily moulded into different shapes. This is because the oil sticks the flour grains together by filling the air spaces between each grain.

Make craters in your moon sand with round objects, or use a shoe to make a footprint like the ones left by astronauts on the surface of the Moon. Footprints left on the Moon by the first astronauts to land there in 1969 are still there, because there is no wind or rain to blow or wash them away.

Mercury has ‘wrinkles’, called Lobate Scarps, up to a mile high

A day on Venus lasts longer than a year on Venus

The Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing, at about 17 milliseconds per 100 years

Mars has the largest known volcano in the solar system, called Olympus Mons

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a huge storm that has raged for at least 350 years

Saturn’s rings are made of lumps of ice and rock, some as small as a grain of sand, others as large as a house

Uranus’s axis tilts at almost 98 degrees, meaning it orbits the Sun lying on its side

A year on Neptune lasts 165 Earth years

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Yo u should find

4,495.1 million km from Sun, diameter 49,248 km

neptune

2,872.5 million km from Sun, diameter 50,724 km

uranus

1,433.5 million km from Sun, diameter 116,464 km

saturn

778.6 million km from Sun, diameter 139,822 km

A solar system is a star and all the objects that orbit around it. Our solar system, with the Sun at the centre, has eight planets, five known dwarf planets, nearly 300 known moons, more than a million asteroids, around 4,000 known comets, and countless meteoroids and smaller particles of debris, left over from when the solar system formed. Much of this debris can be found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune.

jupiter

227.9 million km from Sun, diameter 6,780 km

mars

149.6 million km from Sun, diameter 12,756 km

earth

108.2 million km from Sun, diameter 12,104 km

Venus

57.9 million km from Sun, diameter 4,780 km

Mercury

The distances between the Sun and the planets vary because of the planets’ elliptical (oval-shaped) orbits. We’ve used average distances on these strips.

Not to scale

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VENUS Let’s take a closer look at Earth’s sister planet.

LITTLE SISTER

Our next-door neighbour Venus is sometimes called the Earth’s sister planet because of how similar they are in size and mass. It is also the planet that travels closest to us: at its nearest distance it is 38 million kilometres away. That’s pretty close in space terms, but still quite a trip for a human!

Venus is nearly as big as the Earth and, even though the two planets look similar from a distance, Venus is a very different world. The surface on Venus is covered in mountains, craters and vast continents, much like the Earth. It also has a thick atmosphere with lots of clouds. But instead of water vapour, which our clouds are made of, Venus’s heavy clouds are made mostly of poisonous sulphuric acid!

PLANET OF LOVE

Like all planets in our solar system apart from Earth, Venus’s name comes from mythology. Venus was the Roman goddess of love and beauty. As well as being the only planet to have a female name, Venus has many mountains and craters that are also named after goddesses or famous women.

METALLIC SNOW

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Many of Venus’s mountains are capped with a bright layer of what looks like snow. Scientists think that this bright ‘snow’ is actually made up of metallic minerals. These shimmering minerals are vaporised by Venus’s boiling hot atmosphere, and they rise upwards like a mist to cooler heights where they settle on the peaks of mountains like a layer of metallic frost. Imagine building a metallic snowman!

TOO HOT TO HANDLE

Venus rotates the opposite way to Earth, so the Sun rises in the West and sets in the East!

Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system, with an average surface temperature of 462 °C. Better bring your sunscreen! The extreme heat is a result of the dense clouds and atmosphere. Just like on Earth, Venus’s atmosphere is full of carbon dioxide, which traps the Sun’s heat and stops it from bouncing off the planet. This is called the greenhouse effect. On Earth, it keeps our planet at the right temperature for life to exist. But on Venus, because the atmosphere holds much more carbon dioxide, the greenhouse effect works on overdrive. It heats the planet in the same way that heat from the Sun gets trapped inside a parked car on a hot day. If there ever was any water on Venus it has long since been scorched off its surface.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

On Venus, the days never seem to end! Venus rotates extremely slowly, so a Venus day (the time it takes the planet to rotate on its axis) takes about 243 Earth days, but a Venus year (the time it takes for Venus to orbit the Sun) is only 224.7 Earth days. So, if you were born on Venus, where every day is longer than a year, every day would be your birthday! Too bad that the extreme heat, dense atmosphere and lack of water make life on Venus impossible…

Venus is the third brightest object in the sky, after the Sun and the Moon. Try looking into the night sky and you might catch a glimpse of it! You could use a stargazing app on a smartphone to help you find it.

Word search Find all these words? They might be written forward, backwards, horizontally or vertically. Check your answers on page 34.

SULPHURIC ACID GODDESS SOLAR SYSTEM MYTHOLOGY PLANET MINERALS MOUNTAINS CARBON DIOXIDE GREENHOUSE ATMOSPHERE VENUS

O M D

M O

N E

G S

M I

O O

D L

M N

W S

HOW STUFF

WORKS

TELEVISION Ever wondered how your TV works? Here are the facts to put you in the picture…

Before a TV programme can be broadcast into your home, the pictures and sound are recorded using TV cameras and microphones. Cameras, which can move around on wheels, film the action from lots of angles so that nothing is missed.

1 TV shows are usually recorded onto a computer before they are broadcast, but some shows are transmitted live, which means you see the action as it happens.

Some TV programmes are filmed out of the studio in locations around the world, from city streets to remote jungles or the wildest oceans. Filming on location is very different to filming in the studio as there are usually only one or two cameras and the film crew have to cope with all sorts of challenges, from the weather to wild animals!

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A Scottish inventor called John Logie Baird developed the world’s first successful television system in the 1920s.

To get to your home, all the information about the picture and sound for every second of the TV programme is digitally coded and can then be transmitted by radio signal to your home in a variety of ways...

1 In over-the-air broadcasting, the TV signal is transmitted as radio waves. These signals are picked up by a TV aerial on your roof.

To transmit TV signals over longer distances, high-frequency radio waves can be sent all the way into space and back! The signal is received by a satellite orbiting Earth then retransmitted back to a satellite dish on your house, which sends it down a wire to your TV.

Once the signal arrives at your TV, all the information about the TV show is decoded by computer chips and turned back into

pictures and sound for you to enjoy.

ons

Instead of using satellite signals, many houses nowadays receive their TV signals through fibre optic cables that are buried underground and link your TV directly to the recording studio.

omm ia C ed m iki W

The pictures on televisions are made up of thousands of tiny dots called pixels which can be either red, green or blue, and they can change colour more than 20 times per second. The changes between each picture happen faster than the human eye can see, so we see the pictures joined together as smooth, moving images.

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g.. in z a m A ly e m o s e w A 0 1

O N I S E C A L P S U O L I R E P ? hts of our solar system Fancy seeing the sig ht meet a grisly end… Be warned – you mig

Pop a hard hat on before setting foot on Mercury. It’s the most pockmarked planet because there is no atmosphere to burn up meteorites, and no weather to erode impact craters!

2 3

If the smell of rotten eggs doesn’t put you off visiting Jupiter’s moon Io, the violent volcanic eruptions might. Io is the most volcanic place in the whole solar system.

The greenhouse effect is so strong on Venus, you’d be roasted by temperatures twice as hot as an oven before you had time to say, “Where’s the nearest ice cream sho…?”

Though it no longer rains on

Mars, not everything is rosy on the

red planet. Mars’s atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide, which would suffocate most living things.

Saturn’s sparkly rings would NOT make a good landing pad. They are made of billions of chunks of ice and rock, hurtling around the planet at thousands of kilometres per hour!

26 whizzpopbang.com

All Images © NASA

M E T S Y S R A N OU R S O L

7 8

Giant asteroid Vesta may bear the scars of a huge collision

Imagine if the air suddenly froze and fell to the ground as snow! This is exactly what happens to Pluto’s atmosphere as it moves further away from the Sun.

Landing on asteroids is the next big thing, but don’t stay too long. Collisions in the asteroid belt are frequent, with an average impact speed five times faster than a rifle bullet! No wonder these space rocks are gradually being ground down into dust.

Neptune is the windiest place in the solar system, with storm gusts of up to 2,400 kilometres per hour!

Don’t set up camp on a comet. Every time it passes close to the Sun, a bit more of the surface is boiled away until it completely disappears! © Shutterstock.com

If you visit Earth, watch out for the damage caused by humans. Pollution, deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels are changing the Earth’s climate. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events are making it a less hospitable planet than it once was. But luckily it’s not too late for humans to change their ways!

whizzpopbang.com 27

Sensational Scientists

NICOLAUS COPERNICUS

Have you noticed the Sun rise in the east and travel across the sky to set in the west? This sensational scientist realised that it’s actually Earth doing the moving!

Copernicus was studying to become a priest like his uncle when he fell in love with astronomy. In the late 1400s, it wasn’t a science at all. People studied the movements of stars and planets to try to predict the future.

eek Ancient Gprlotted astronomeerms ents of the mov he sky, and objects in hte conclusion came to te Sun, Moon that th oved around and stars m entric c o e g s i h T Earth. of the solar model ut Earth system p entre of at the c verse! the uni

N ICOL AUS C WA S BOR N OPER N ICUS IN POL A N D IN 1473

I worked for the church, but I read ancient books about astronomy in my spare time. I became an expert, and was even invited to help redesign the calendar!

e sense, k a m o t d e m It see s accepted by so it wa eryone for almost ev1,000 years. the next

Copernicus didn’t think it was very likely that thousands of stars were spinning around Earth every day. He gradually came up with a new theory...

I proposed that it’s the Sun, not Earth, at the centre of the universe! Earth travels around the Sun each year, and spins on its own axis once a day! 28

But Copernicus still had lots of questions to answer – like how can Earth be moving when it feels like it’s staying still? These worries might explain why he didn’t publish his theory for another 36 years! Some also believe he was worried about angering the powerful Catholic Church by saying that Earth was just one of many planets.

Copernicus’s model was called the heliocentric model – helios is Greek for sun.

Copernicus was the first to suggest that the Sun lay at the centre of the solar system. Answer on page 34

The old theories like a picture of are human with the a a legs and head in trms, wrong places. It he all the right bits, has it looks like a mo but My new theory onster! universe works becf the it puts all the plaause in the right ordenr.ets

The structure of our solar system wasn’t discovered in one go. Ideas developed slowly over time, as astronomers such as Ptolemy, Ibn al Haytham, Copernicus and Galileo built on earlier ideas and observations.

Copernicus’s book was published in the same year that he died. It didn’t sell many copies at first, but it gradually came to be seen as the most important book in the history of astronomy! Although Copernicus didn’t get everything right (the Sun is NOT at the centre of the whole universe), his ideas changed the way that astronomers studied the skies. Over the next 100 years, astronomers began to challenge the old ideas and to look closely at what was really happening.

The chemical element Copernicium (Cn) is named after Copernicus

whizzpopbang.com 29

Email me at Y@whizzpopbang.com

der Club!

Welcome to Y’s Won to share your This page is for you with our robot, adventures in science p Bang readers! Y, and other Whizz Po ce question Everyone whose scien is page gets answered on th ng wins a Whizz Pop Ba Science Joke Book, ome available in our awes at online science shop

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F oR

Hi Y, Why is there salt in the sea but not in lakes and rivers, and how did it get there?

CURIoUS K I DS

From Ben, aged 10

Rainwater is slightly acidic, so as it flows over rocks on land it dissolves some of the salts and minerals in them. This brings tiny amounts of salt into rivers and lakes (which don’t taste salty because the salt is so diluted). But once this water flows into the sea, the salt has nowhere else to go – pure water evaporates from the sea to make rainclouds, leaving the salt behind. Over many years of this cycle happening, the sea has got saltier and saltier! The sea also gets salt from hot water coming through deep sea vents, which dissolves salts and minerals from the rock as it flows through.

We loved seeing all the amazing Olympic medals you made (Issue 108)!

Lucy, aged 6

Toby, aged 8, and Poppy, aged 7 Ada, aged 6

Sophia, aged 7

Jackson, aged 8, drew this awesome picture after reading the Monster Machines edition (Issue 95)!

enamel badges Y’s Wonder Club Badges Collectable for you to earn! Help local wildlife to earn your Wildlife Watcher badge.

Investigate scientific questions to earn your Super Scientist badge.

Help save the planet to earn your Eco Hero badge.

Hello Y, I love volcanoes but I want to know why is lava red and why is it so hot?

Sophie Louise is science-mad and loves experimenting!

Sophia Louise, aged 8

Volcanoes are awesome, aren’t they? Lava is melted rock, and it’s red because it’s so hot! Its colour depends on its temperature. It starts out bright orange, and as it cools it becomes bright red, then dark red, then brownish red and eventually black (though black lava can still be very hot!). The reason it’s so hot is that it comes from deep inside the Earth, where high pressures and energy create temperatures of over 1,000 ˚C! This heat melts rocks, turning them into magma, which escapes as lava during a volcanic eruption.

Callie, aged 8, made this fantastic water cycle model from the Water Explorers edition (Issue 107).

lava depends The colour of rature on its tempe

Dear Y, Why don’t slugs, snails, ants and beetles have mud all over them? When I play in the dirt I’m all muddy, but they look clean and spend their whole lives in mud!

James, aged 6, Abigail, aged 8, loved making made the water bubble snakes from clock from the the Water Explorers Ancient Greece edition (Issue 107). edition (Issue 91).

Sebastian, aged 7

Siân, aged 7, really enjoyed the Olympic Games Science Special (Issue 108). She made the archery bow and the twirling gymnast!

Get problem solving to earn your Epic Engineer badge.

Write a report or a review to earn your Science Reporter badge.

Good question, Sebastian! You’re big enough to sink into the mud, whereas smaller lighter animals can crawl over the surface without getting covered in it! They also have lots of clever adaptations that help them to stay clean. Slugs and snails produce slime, which helps them to glide over the dirt and stops it sticking to their bodies. Insects have hard outer shells called exoskeletons. The smooth surface of a beetle’s exoskeleton acts like a shield, stopping bits of dirt from sticking to it. Ants spend lots of time cleaning themselves using tiny brush-like claws on their front legs. If you get muddy, you can still communicate and sense your surroundings, whereas ants with muddy antennae can’t, so keeping clean is a serious business for them! Send your experiments, ideas, photos, reviews and questions to Y@whizzpopbang.com or Y, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Don’t forget to include your name, age and address. We can’t return any post, sorry.

To find out how to earn your badges, go to whizzpopbang.com/wonder-club. Schools can get involved too! Find out how here: bit.ly/39xNQ Q qV

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Test your mum/ dad/milkm an to

see what they know !

1 3 5

How much can you remember from this issue? Test your knowledge with our super-duper quiz. Just tick the answers you think are correct, mark them using the answers on page 34 and then add up your score. If you need some help, check out the hints at the bottom of the page.

What is Jupiter’s ‘Great Red Spot’?

a) A red sea b) A giant volcano c) A storm

2 4

What does the atmosphere on Jupiter’s moon Io smell like? a) Rotten eggs oses b) R othing – there is no smell c) N

Which pigment makes plants green? a) Xanthophyll b) Chlorophyll c) Gakkophyll

6 8

How many known planets are there in our solar system? a) 8 b) 16 c) 2 4

A hedgehog’s varied diet means it is… a) A carnivore b) A herbivore n omnivore c) A

What do planets like to read? Comet books!

What did Nicolaus Copernicus think was at the centre of the universe? a) The Earth b) The Sun c) A black hole

What’s the region around a star where planets could support life called? a) The Goldilocks zone b) T he three bears zone c) T he big bad wolf zone

What would you weigh on Mercury compared to Earth?

I scored...

a) More ess b) L c) The same

Need a hint? Find the answers by reading these pages… 1) Page 20 2) Page 26 3) Page 5 4) Page 28 5) Page 17 6) Page 10 7) Page 12 8) Page 7

1-3: Blast off! 4-6: In orbit! 7-8: Intergalactic!

W ! IN

Cosmic Search Can you spot the words below in this out-of-this-world word search? The words are all vertical or horizontal (not diagonal), and may be written forwards or backwards. Once you have found them all, write down the letters that are left over to uncover the hidden phrase, and you could win one of three awesome mystery-solving puzzle books.

MERCURY

SATURN

METEOR

VENUS

URANUS

COMET

EARTH

AXIS NEPTUNE

MARS

MOON

GRAVITY

ORBIT PLANET JUPITER Write down the hidden phrase here:

Murdle Junior Murdle Junior: Curious Crimes for Curious Minds is a narrative puzzle

book with over forty perplexing mysteries for young detectives to solve. Decipher codes, navigate maps and use the power of logic to catch the dastardly culprits of fiendish crimes.

WINNER

Issue 110 competition winners Thank you to everyone who entered our Engineering competition. The answer was ‘TERMITE’. These two lucky winners will each receive a Craft and Code kit bundle from sniffandsnails.com. 1) Osian Parry-Grimstead, aged 9 2) Khadijah and Zahrah Bahadur, aged 10 and 8

Send your answer to win@whizzpopbang.com with ‘Planets competition’ as the subject of your email. Alternatively, post it to Planets competition, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Please don’t forget to include your name, age and address. Deadline: December 8th 2024. UK residents only. Full terms and conditions available at whizzpopbang.com.

whizzpopbang.com 33

S E K O J What do you do if you see a space man? Park in it, man!

How do you have a party in space? You planet!

Why is Venus so clever? Because it’s the in brightest planet ! the solar system

do if What should you n? alie you see a green ! Wait until it’s ripe How does the Moon cut its hair? E -clipse it!

Where do aliens go for a drink? A Mars bar!

Page 8 – True/Untrue

Page 13 – True/Untrue

TRUE: It’s 100 km deep and four times bigger than Earth. Scientists aren’t sure what caused it!

TRUE: Hedgehogs are very active, wandering around an area the size of up to 20 football pitches in search of a tasty meal.

Page 10 – True/Untrue TRUE: Sedna is so distant from the Sun that its orbit takes a long time. Imagine waiting 11,400 years for your birthday!

Page 14 – Crater conundrum 2

Page 10 – True/Untrue

UNTRUE: All planets are roughly spherical, but this one looks like a squashed egg!

2 6

Page 11 – Maze

5 8 10 5

2 4

3 6 3

7 4 1

10 7 6

6 7 9 1

The middle flight path leads to Earth. Page 14 – Cosmic cryptogram 1) MERCURY 2) VENUS 3) JUPITER 4) SATURN 5) URANUS

UNTRUE: Exoplanet Kepler 16 b orbits two stars (complicated!).

2 5 8

Page 23 – Venus word search O M D

M O

N E

G S

M I

O O

D L

M N

W S

Page 29 – True/Untrue

Page 15 – Missing planets 1) Jupiter 2) Earth 3) Saturn

1) The letter e 2) A telescope 3) The Moon

Page 14 – Rocket rendezvous

Page 11 – True/Untrue

Page 15 – Riddles

Answers

4) Venus 5) Venus 6) Mars

7) Mars 8) Earth 9) Saturn

UNTRUE: Similar heliocentric models had been put forward by a few astronomers, including Aristarchus of Samos (310 BC-230 BC), but Copernicus’s model was more detailed and the maths led to more accurate results. Page 32 – Quiz 1) c 2) a 3) b 4) b 5) a 6) a 7) c 8) b

Saturn and Titan This image of Saturn, its rings and its moon Titan was taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Saturn’s rings extend up to 282,000 km (175,000 miles) from the planet, but are typically only about 10 metres thick. In this side-on view, the rings are casting shadows across Saturn’s southern hemisphere. Titan is the largest of Saturn’s moons, with a diameter of 5,150 km (3,200 miles), making it larger than the planet Mercury. Titan has vortices of swirling gases in its atmosphere.

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