Make a constell ation torch!
ISSN 2399 -2840
THE AWESOME SCIENCE MAGAZINE FOR KIDS!
OK Y O P S E T A E CR LIGHT-UOPNS DECORATI
Gaze into outer space bril liant b ad g e rs! Cut out a star map Peek inside a telescope
WHIZZPOPBANG.COM ISSUE 87
EXPERIMENTS PUZZLES AMAZING FACTS SCIENCE NEWS
WELCOME!
Welcome to a super celestial issue of Whizz Pop Bang! Riley
WHIZZ POP BANG is made by:
Look up at the sky on a clear night and you’ll be wowed by the vastness of our unive rse. how enormous it is – and how It’s hard to imagine just tiny Inside this issue you’ll discov we are in comparison! er learn about how stars form an far-away galaxies, d telescopes. Make model cons find out what’s inside tellations, map to take on a stargazing cut out a star adventure and bake some constellation cookies!
Editor-in-Chief: Jenny Inglis Editor: Tammy Osborne Assistant Editor: Tara Pardo Designers: Rachael Fisher and Simon Oliver Illustrator: Clive Goodyer Staff writer: Joanna Tubbs Contributors: Esther Barron, Sarah Bearchell, Anna Claybourne, Claire Cock-Starkey, Joe Inglis, Owen Inglis and Kirsty Williams
EXPERT SCIENCE ADVISERS
I’ve made twinkling stars and a constellation torch! Where you see this symbol, use a QR code reader on a phone or tablet to visit a relevant web page.
Emmi
facebook.com/whizzpopbangmag twitter.com/whizzpopbangmag pinterest.com/whizzpopbangmag instagram.com/whizzpopbangmag
SUBSCRIBE!
Mix your own TO prehistoric THE LLOAWES OME SCIENCE MAGA SAY HE DON! paints ZINE FOR KIDS! ILO
SAVE O PLANETU!R
SM
hello@whizzpopbang.com whizzpopbang.com
! R KIDS ZINE FO
GA CE MA
E SCIEN
ESOM THE AW
Put on a shadow puppet show
ISSN 239 9-28 40
GET IN TOUCH
ISSN 2399-2840
Gakk
an Craftome awes e model ax
Test the greenhouse effect... with chocolate!
MAKE A FLYING PUFFIN
time for back in ce Journeyprehistoric scien some
HOW TO H
ELP FIX TH
E 76 OM ISSU PBANG.C WHIZZPO
EX PE RIM
ZZL ES EN TS PU
Make a Find out Stone Age about wonderful wind power poo!
E CLIMATE
AM AZ IN
MEET SOME BUSY BEAVERS
S G FA CT
SCI EN CE
CRISIS
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 Amiee 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
NE WS
WHIZZPOPBANG.CO
M ISSUE 74 EXPER IMENT S PUZZL ES AMAZ ING FACTS SCIEN CE NEWS
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 £3.99 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 Printed in the UK by The Magazine Printing Company using only paper from FSC/PEFC suppliers www.magprint.co.uk
© 2022 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: © 2022 Clive Goodyer
CONTENTS
AWESOME NEWS AND AMAZING FACTS
4
Fighting plastic pollution with bubbles, new deep-sea species, poo pills to cure infections and more!
THE NIGHT SKY
6
Find out why stars twinkle, why stargazing is a glance into the past, and make constellation cupcakes.
ANIMAL ANTICS
12
Meet brilliant badgers, badgers the nocturnal diggers who navigate the night with ease.
SILLY SCIENCE
14
Solve some intergalactic space puzzles!
EMMI’S ECO CLUB
ut
te rs to ck. com
PULLOUT
17
Atom
16
Sh
Recycle materials to create light-up decorations, perfect for Halloween! decorations
©
©S hutt erstock.com
Cut out a star map to help you navigate the autumn sky and make a constellation torch!
INTERVIEW WITH A SCIENCE HERO
22
Katie Bouman helped capture the first ever image of a black hole!
HOW STUFF WORKS
24
Peek inside a telescope to discover how they help us to see distant objects in detail.
TEN AWESOMELY AMAZING…
Out-of-this-world wonders! Check out some incredible images of outer space that have been captured by telescopes.
28 /Un ech © NASA/JPL-Calt
riz fA iv.o
30
SENSATIONAL SCIENTISTS
Meet Edwin Hubble, the groundbreaking astronomer with a famous telescope named after him.
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 your experiments! Send them to 32 Y@whizzpopbang.com and ask an adult to tag us on social media 34 @whizzpopbangmag
35
26
QUIZ POP BANG AND COMPETITION
Test your knowledge with our super-duper science quiz and win two fantastic space books.
JOKES AND ANSWERS
Laugh out loud at some awesome jokes and find the answers to all of our quizzes, puzzles and riddles.
SPECTACULAR SCIENCE
Marvel at a mind-blowing image from the new James Webb Space Telescope.
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 A clever technology has been developed in The Netherlands to stop plastic pollution in rivers from reaching the oceans. Air is pumped through a tube with holes that lies on the bottom of the river. This makes an upward current of bubbles – a ‘bubble curtain’ – that carries plastic rubbish to the surface. If the bubble curtain is placed diagonally across the river, the river’s current will then help to push the floating plastic to the side, where it can be collected in a catchment system. Tests have shown that the bubble barrier captures around 80% of floating plastic.
DO YOU GET ‘HANGRY’? Lots of people find they get angry more quickly when they’re hungry, but now scientists have shown that our emotions really are affected by our appetites. The new research found a link between people’s hunger levels and feelings of anger and irritability reported in a short survey completed five times a day for three weeks. The researchers think this is because being hungry makes your blood sugar levels lower, and this causes stress hormones to be released, making you feel oversensitive and irritable.
FEED ME!
© Shutterstock.com
© The Great Bubble Barrier ®
BUBBLE BARRIER plastic is collected
POO PILLS
Patients with rare infections that are difficult to treat will soon be offered poo transplants to make them better. Though it might sound disgusting, this is actually a really clever idea. Your gut is teeming with trillions of bacteria – you couldn’t digest food without them, and scientists now think that they do a lot of other things to keep you healthy too. Sometimes, people get infected by dangerous bacteria called Clostridium difficile that can’t be treated using antibiotics. Introducing good bacteria from the guts of healthy people into these patients’ own guts can make them better. This can be done by swallowing a pill containing bacteria taken from healthy people’s poo.
Clostridium difficile bacteria
© Shutterstock.com
© NASA/JPL-Caltech
OXYGEN ON MARS!
© NA SA/JPL-Caltec
Perseverance rover
EXPEDITION FINDS NEW SPECIES Feeding lips
h/MSSS
NASA’s Perseverance rover has generated enough oxygen to allow an astronaut to breathe for 100 minutes. Unlike our air, which is 21% oxygen, Martian air contains just 0.13% oxygen. Perseverance’s MOXIE unit pulls oxygen atoms off carbon dioxide molecules, which make up 96% of the planet’s atmosphere, turning them into breathable oxygen gas. This experiment shows that, in the future, astronauts exploring Mars could make their own oxygen from the Martian atmosphere using this technology, rather than having to transport it from Earth. Oxygen is also needed to make the rocket fuel that the astronauts would need to return home.
The MOXIE unit being lowered into the Perseverance rover before it left Earth
Scientists exploring the deep abyssal plains of the central Pacific have discovered some weird and wonderful creatures at the bottom of the ocean – and many have never been seen by humans!
This 60-cm-long ‘gummy squirrel’ is a type of sea cucumber . It uses its red lips to feed on sed iment on the seabed 5 km deep.
the ocean ber walks along This sea cucum s feet. The animal floor using its 92 by a ed and collected were photograph . V) O (R ed vehicle remotely operat
Aye-aye, captain!
The skeleton of this tulip-shaped glass ca, sponge is made of sili ed the same material us ss. to make gla © NOAA Ocean Exploration
In a separate expedition, a ROV snapped this picture of the real-life doppelgangers of cartoon characters ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ and ‘Patrick Star’. Although, unlike the cartoon friends, this pink sea star is probably on its way to eat the yellow sponge! © Stephen Hillenburg / Wikimedia Commons
whizzpopbang.com 5
By A
NIGHT SKY
When you look up at the night sky, you’re seeing stars and planets that are millions, billions or even TRILLIONS of kilometres away!
a nn
Clayb rne ou
THE
LOOK UP!
Long ago, our ancestors looked up at the sky and saw the same stars and planets we can see now. Back then, they didn’t know as much as we do about what the stars really were.
It’s those little shiny things again!
STORIES OF THE STARS
What are they?
Ancient people came up with lots of stories and legends to explain the stars. •
In some Persian and Nigerian legends, the stars were the children of the Sun and Moon.
•
The ancient Egyptians thought the stars were kings who had died and gone to live in the sky.
•
In many other myths, the sky was a huge, solid dome.
•
Some stories said the stars were little holes in the dome that let light through.
•
Others said they were nails holding the dome up, or little lamps hanging on strings!
WHAT ARE STARS?
Check out the comic on the back of the magazine to find out where stars come from!
What game do stars like to play? Astronauts and crosses!
So, what are stars really? Well, they’re ginormous balls of incredibly hot, exploding gases, which give out huge amounts of light and heat. They’re just like our Sun, which is also a star. But they’re much, much further away, so they look smaller. A typical star looks like a tiny, twinkling dot of light…
But if you were closer, it would look more like this!
e urn
ar… Tw in k l e , tw in k l e , little st Stars seem to sparkle or twinkle – but why? To see what’s happening, try this experiment.
You will need: • Torch • Postcard-sized piece of foil or cardboard
• Pointy scissors or skewer • Clear glass bowl • Hot and cold tap water
CONSTELLATIONS
When seen from Earth, some stars form patterns or shapes, which we call constellations. Here’s one, known as Orion (say o-RYE-en). It looks like a person with a belt and a bow or shield.
Bow or shield
What you do: 1. Ask an adult to help you make some small holes in your foil or card with the scissors or skewer. 2. Fill the bowl ¾ full of cold water. 3. Put the card or foil behind the bowl. Shine the torch through the holes into the water.
Top view
4. Look at the ‘stars’ through the water. Gently pour in some hot tap water and you should see the stars twinkle!
Orion’s belt
You should find: The water acts like the air around the Earth, which is always moving around and changing temperature. As light from the stars shines through it, it refracts (bends) it, so it shines in different directions and looks twinkly!
From the Southern Hemisphere, the constellations look upside down!
Different cultures see different things in the constellations. For example, Orion has been seen as a hunter, a shepherd, a giant, a dancer, a soldier, a bison or even a hand! Side view
I’ve never used a telescope before – I think I might look into it!
whizzpopbang.com 7
HOW BIG IS SPACE? Space is big. Very, very, VERY big! So big that it’s hard to imagine it – but let’s give it a try! To measure distances on Earth, we use kilometres or miles. For example, Tokyo in Japan is about 13,460 km (8,364 miles) from Lagos in Nigeria – and that seems like a long way! But the distances between stars are SO big that we need a different way to measure them. Instead of kilometres or miles, we use light years.
WHAT’S A LIGHT YEAR?
A light year sounds like a measurement of time, but it’s actually a measurement of distance. One light year is the distance light travels in one year.
Light zooms extremely fast through space, at a speed of 1,079,252,849 (just over a trillion) kilometres per hour – or 670,616,629 miles per hour. Light travels in the form of super-fast energy waves
faster
0 times made! st 2 , 0 0 o er lm a at’s kets ev
Th t roc e fastes than th
Slowcoach! And over 1 MIL LION times faster than a ju mbo jet!
In a WHOLE YEAR, light travels a mindboggling….
9,460,730,472,581 km (5,878,625,373,184 miles) – and that’s a light year!
8 whizzpopbang.com
A light year is the distance light travels in one year.
OUR NEAREST STAR
MAKE A CONSTELLATION
To give you an idea of space distances, our NEAREST star (apart from our own Sun), Proxima Centauri, is 4.25 light years away.
The stars in a constellation look like a group, but they can actually be very far apart. This constellation model shows how it works…
You will need: • Table • Sticky tack or modelling clay • Dry spaghetti
• Mini marshmallows or balls of sticky tack (to use as stars) • Ruler
What you do: Choose a simple constellation, with just a few stars (see the star map on pages 18-19). We’re using Cassiopeia.
Caph
Cassiopeia
Gamma Cassiopeiae
Schedar
Ruchbah Segin
1. Look up your chosen constellation on the internet to find the names of the stars and their distances from Earth in light years.
That means that the light from Proxima Centauri zooms through space for 4.25 years before it reaches us.
PEERING INTO THE PAST
If you think about it, that means that we don’t see Proxima Centauri as it is now. We see it as it was 4 years and 3 months ago – when the light we are seeing first left the star. So when we look at the stars, we’re actually looking years back in time! WEIRD! Some stars are much further away. Rigel, the brightest star in the constellation Orion, is 860 light years away. Betelgeuse
Orion’s belt
Rigel
STAR NAME
LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH
Segin
410
Ruchbah
99
Gamma Cassiopeiae
550
Schedar
47
Caph
55
2. Use the ruler to measure the distances from one end of the table, using 1 mm for each light year. (For example, Segin will be 410 mm, or 41 cm, from the edge.) Put a blob of sticky tack or modelling clay on the table at the right distance for each star. 3. To make each star, stick a marshmallow or ball of sticky tack onto the end of a piece of spaghetti. 4. Print or draw a picture of your constellation and use it to help you arrange the stars. Break off the spaghetti at different lengths to make each star the right height, and move the stars sideways until they form the right pattern. You’ll have to view them from the end of the table to check it works!
You should find: So when you look at Rigel, you’re looking 860 years back in time!
Even though the stars are not close together, they form a constellation when you look at them from the end of the table!
Here’s a handy guide!
So where are we in space?
YOU ARE
HERE!
Our local neighbourhood in space is the solar system – the Sun and the planets, moons and other stuff that orbit around it. The solar system is part of the Milky Way galaxy, a vast group of stars. It’s over 100,000 light years wide!
Jupiter Mercury Saturn
HERE!
Venus Mars
Neptune
YOU ARE
Sun
YOU ARE
HERE!
Uranus
Earth
SOLAR SYSTEM
Even here, distances are pretty big!
And beyond the Milky Way, far out in space, there are millions more galaxies. The closest, the Andromeda galaxy, is 2.5 million light years away!
We live in a galaxy, or group of stars, called the Milky Way.
GO STARGAZING!
Why not go stargazing yourself and see what you can spot? You need an adult with you, and a dark, clear night with no clouds or rain. Head to a safe, outdoor place away from bright lights, such as a local park or hill. Campsites are great for stargazing too, or even a large garden if you have access to one. Wear warm clothes and take a picnic blanket so you can lie down and look up at the stars. You might not see much at first but the longer you look, the more you’ll see. That’s because it takes a while for our eyes to get used to the darkness.
10 whizzpopbang.com
RED TORCH
If you need to use a torch while you’re out stargazing, one with a red light is best as it won’t affect your night vision. You could use a red bicycle light or make your own. Take a red, see-through sweet wrapper or piece of food packaging coloured in with a red marker pen and stick it over the end of a small torch with sticky tape.
Allow at least 30 minutes for your night vision to be at its best!
© Shutterstock.com
For example, the Sun is 150 million km (93 million miles) from Earth.
CONSTELLATION SPOTTING
From the Northern Hemisphere, you should be able to see some of the constellations in the star map on pages 18-19. As the Earth spins around each day, we see different parts of the sky, so which ones you can see will depend on what time it is.
Join the stars to see what’s hiding in space! Check your answer on page 34.
WHAT ELSE CAN YOU SEE? Besides stars, look out for…
Meteors (shooting stars) – bits of space rock that burn up as they fall towards the Earth
The Moon Can you see the patches and shapes on its surface?
Planets – they look like stars,
HAND YaGnEyAthRing else
but they are not glowing, just reflecting light from the Sun
© Shutterstock.com
need ings You don’t t these th u b , e z a g to star andy! come in h ld u o c Mars looks reddish Venus is one of the age ap from p m r a t s e h brightest things in • T ook a guideb the night sky 18-19 or hone app or smartp ere s you wh that show If a bright object seems to be moving steadily r stars, particula d n fi o t lanets. across the sky, it’s probably a satellite. It could ns and p io t a ll e t s con be the International Space Station! small ulars or a c o in B • you have scope, if le e t w one. Find out when you can spot the T can borro ur r n o to e pa n ge o 3 3 fo ISS here: more stargazing tips r pencil, so https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/ from • A notepad aitneddown or Professor Raman P r you can w rinja. ee. hat you s sketch w
CONSTELLATION CUPCAKES
You could take a stargazing snack out with you – like these constellation cupcakes! Ask an adult to help you make some cupcakes using your favourite recipe, then ice them with dark-coloured or chocolate icing. Use little edible star decorations or silver balls to decorate them with constellation patterns. You could make constellation cookies too!
Yum!
Take a photo of your cakes or cookies and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag and email it to Y@whizzpopbang.com
AL ANIM S TIC
AN
Badgers
Who’s that furtive figure rustling in the undergrowth in the dead of night? Is it a burglar? Or a spy? No, it’s just our vet Joe Inglis clambering through the bushes on the trail of some nocturnal wanderers.
Found across Europe, North America, Asia and Africa, badgers are a group of mammals related to otters, mink, weasels and ferrets. There are 15 species, ranging in size from the Asian ferret badger, which weighs around 8 kg, up to the largest European badgers, which can be twice as big.
Black and white and fierce all over European badgers are famous for their distinctive black-and-white-striped faces. It’s thought that this dramatic colouring evolved to warn other animals, such as wolves, not to mess with them!
Going underground © Shutterstock.com
With powerful legs and strong claws, badgers are awesome diggers. They excavate deep underground tunnels called setts to live in. Some live on their own, but most live in groups of up to 15, called cetes.
12 whizzpopbang.com
Worms for dinner? Badgers are omnivores, which means they eat a wide range of plants and animals. In Europe, badgers mainly eat earthworms, insects, eggs, roots and fruit. But they can tackle larger prey, including hedgehogs, chickens and even rabbits.
Smelli-vision Badgers are nocturnal, preferring to be out and about under the cover of darkness. Their eyesight is poor but they have an excellent sense of smell, thought to be around 800 times more sensitive than our own. They use this to track down their food, recognise each other and avoid dangerous encounters with predators (and people).
Every time these badgers dig a hole, they find a juicy earthworm to eat! Which badger has eaten the most worms? Check your answer on page 34.
Answer
Don't badger me!
Night-time stroll If they’re in a hurry, badgers can run at up to 20 mph for short distances. But usually they walk or trot slowly around as they sniff out their dinner. They can also climb, clambering up trees to get to ripe fruit or over garden gates and fences.
19 year s, 6 months Some badgers climb trees to collect honey from bees’ nests.
The age of the oldest badger on record, a female who lived in captivity. Most wild badgers live much shorter lives – rarely making it past 7 or 8 years old – due to lack of food, being hit by cars or being killed by humans to try and prevent the spread of diseases like tuberculosis to cattle.
whizzpopbang.com 13
SPACE ! N O I S S I M
This starry scene is packed with out-of-this-world puzzles! Solve as many as you can and then check your answers on page 34.
MISSING PIECES Can you find where these three triangles fit into the starry scene?
a
STAR SEARCH H I Y T W H U F N X R
Y W Q A P U R A E A W
14 whizzpopbang.com
P R U B X D I S T S H
E A A F A G Q S Z U I
R Z S T D J N S A P T
N T A E E O A V S E E
O I R Z R N O L T R D
c
PULSAR – a star no bigger than a
Find and circle these names in the grid. They could be written forwards, backwards, horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
H R A S L U P Q B T J
b
V L P T A I G Y Z N W
A B U G Z P T A N O A
Y E G O A Z Q W M V R
N H B L A Z A R Z A F
large city, which emits strong radio waves at regular intervals.
QUASAR – an active supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy. BLAZAR – a quasar whose jets are pointed directly at Earth. SUPERNOVA – a bright and powerful explosion of a star. HYPERNOVA – a really, really bright, powerful supernova!
NEUTRON STAR – a very small, dense star left behind after a supernova explosion (when the exploding star wasn’t massive enough to make a black hole). MAGNETAR – a neutron star with an extra-powerful magnetic field.
BLITZAR – a neutron star that spins so fast it collapses into a black hole. RED GIANT – a dying star that has
slowly swollen up to many times its original size.
WHITE DWARF – a hot, dense
remnant of a dead star that has used up its fuel.
S
STELLAR MAZE! Find a way to the centre of the star!
START
FINISH
How do you get clean in space? ! Take a meteor shower
MATCHING PAIR Find two identical spiral galaxies!
ODD ONE OUT! One of these is not the name of a real thing found in space. Circle the one you think is fake!
CIGAR
NUMBER STAR Finish writing in the numbers 1-9 so that every straight line of 3 numbers adds up to 15
MAKEMAKE PEGASUS PETIT-PRINCE PHOENIX
1 6
PIG 3
8
HOCKEY STICK
SCULPTOR SUNFLOWER TADPOLE TOMHANKS WHIRLPOOL
b... clu O C E
Emmi's
MAKE HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS Light up Halloween night with these recycled decorations!
Milk bottle ghosts
2
1
ck Use the bla to n marker pe ky face draw a spoo le. tt onto the bo
You will need: • • • • •
Clean plastic milk bottle Black marker pen A few stones Sharp knife Battery tea light or a small string of fairy lights
Ask an adult to cut a hole a little larger than your light, about 5 cm above the bottom of the bottle at the back.
3
Put a few stones int o the bottom of the bottle to weigh it down, then pop your light inside.
16 whizzpopbang.com
Make a few spooky lanterns and display them on your doorstep on Halloween night!
Continued on page 21 ➜
PULLOUT
PULL OUT PAGES 17-20 AND GET MAKING!
NIGHT SKY
CONSTELLATIONS TORCH
You will need: The five constellation discs from page 20
●
●
Five toilet roll tubes
A large embroidery needle (or you could use a cocktail stick or an opened-out paperclip) ●
Sticky tape (or a hot glue gun and an adult to help) ●
●
A torch with a single bulb
What you do: 1. Cut out the constellation discs on page 19. 2. Push the needle (or cocktail stick or paperclip) through the dots on each disc. 3. With the yellow border facing out, stick each disc onto the end of a toilet roll tube with sticky tape, or ask an adult to help stick them on using a hot glue gun. 4. Slide one of your tubes over the end of a torch. In a room with the light off and the curtains closed, shine the torchlight onto a blank wall.
You should find: You can see a constellation of stars! Light travels in straight lines so the light from your torch shines through the holes and projects the star pattern onto your wall. You could make some more constellations of your own!
whizzpopbang.com 17
STARGAZING MAP
Wrap up warm, head outside and use your star map to spot the constellations! The star map on the right shows the constellations you can see in the autumn sky. (Depending on the date and time, you won’t be able to see all of them at once.) To use the map, lie on your back and hold it above you so that north, south, west and east are in the right places. Then see how many constellations you can spot! (Use the stargazing tips on page 10.) View a star map for the place where you live here: bit.ly/3BGitdY
your answers Riddles Checkon page 34.
1. How does every star end? 2. A black dog is lying in the middle of a black road. There are no streetlights and the Moon isn’t out. A car with broken headlights drives towards the dog but stops just in time. How did the driver see the dog? 3. What’s light during the day but heavy during the night? 18 whizzpopbang.com
Below Orion’s belt is what looks like a fuzzy star. This is a stellar nebula, where young stars and planets are forming.
Canis Major contains the brightest star in the night sky, called Sirius.
Lots of people recognise ‘The Plough’ but it isn’t a constellation on its own; it is a part of Ursa Major. Being able to spot the constellations can be useful. In ancient times they helped people keep track of the calendar, which let them know when to plant and harvest crops. They also help travellers to navigate. For example, the North Star (Polaris) is easy to find once you can spot the constellation Ursa Major.
D
20 whizzpopbang.com
w ra
ha pe sc an
yo u
Th er cone are ste 88 nstellations by connecting th o m l i c n w e e dot the lation ain en m s o s o n th nt sky s is p Inve . s a n ge! io t W a ll ha ts ste
ns io sky t lla te the est. s s n n co cros to w co e t n a Th vel eas ow r a u tr rom yo f
Find a printable version of the pullout here: bit.ly/3BEGMJj
co m e up
’t on D ? ith w
tions. stella n o c our ey m na to t e rg fo
Spooky window scene
1
You will need: • Black paper (or any scrap paper painted black and left to dry) • Pencil • Scraps of colourful tissue paper and/or translucent flexible plastic packaging (e.g. sweet wrappers)
• Scissors • Craft knife (or sharp scissors) • Glue stick • Sticky tack
Draw the outlines of some houses with windows on your black paper. They don’t need to be realistic – tall, wonky houses work well! Carefully cut them out.
3
2
Ask an adult to cut out the windows using sharp scissors or a craft knife. Draw some creepy characters like monsters, ghosts and spiders and cut them out.
I’d love to see your Halloween decorations! Take a photo and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag and email it to Y@whizzpopbang.com
ECO
More
ideas...
Celebrations like Halloween can create lots of waste. Pack away this year’s Halloween bucket, costume and decorations in a box in your wardrobe to reuse next year. Pass costumes you've grown out of to a smaller friend or family member.
Continued from page 16
Stick the houses into a front window with sticky tack!
Turn the buildings over, then use a glue stick to attach the creepy shapes so that they're peeking through windows and over rooftops. Next, stick scraps of colourful tissue or plastic packaging over any gaps in your designs.
It’s up to us to save the planet. Lots of small actions can make a BIG difference! Snip out the spooky shapes from the houses and add santa, a sleigh, reindeer, snowflakes and fir trees to make a Christmas scene!
whizzpopbang.com 21
➜
Interview with a SCIENCE HERO
In my job I get to... photograph black holes
ayashida
Katie works at Caltech Institute of Science and Engineering in California, US, and is involved in the Event Horizon Telescope’s project to capture images of black holes.
“
I loved gazing up at the night sky from an early age.
© Lance H
Katie Bouman, com scientist and honoputational imaging rary astronomer
A BLACK HOLE is an area of space where matter has collapsed in on itself. A black hole’s gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape!
“
”
I got really into rocks when we learned about them at school. I had a big collection! From then on, I really liked science. My dad’s an engineer – we used to build model rockets and planes together. He told me that working hard and persevering make more of a difference than how smart you are.
Later, I got really interested in looking for hidden information in images.
”
There’s interesting information scattered in the light bouncing all around us. If we can understand where it is hiding, and how we capture that light with cameras, maybe we can pull that information out. I studied electrical engineering then computer vision at university – I learned about making machines that are like robot eyes!
The first image of a black hole (called M87*), captured by the Event Horizon Telescope. © EHT Collaboration
22 whizzpopbang.com
at the first image Katie could hardly believe th of a black hole was real! © Andrew Chae
l
Interview with a SCIENCE HERO
“
© EHT Collaboration
It’s super-cool to take a picture of something that seems ‘unseeable’.
”
The Event Horizon Telescope allows us to see the area around a black hole, so it has helped us to get closer to actually proving they exist. Now we have compared photos with our predictions, and found that they are in perfect agreement.
“
Our next aim is to make a movie of a black hole!
The first image of Sagittar ius A* – th hole at the centre of our gala e black xy
“
I went to a talk about the Event Horizon Telescope and I understood nothing at all!
”
But I still thought, ‘This is cool!’ I knew the project used skills I’d learned at university, but working on the coolest topics I could ever imagine: understanding our universe, gravity and black holes! I learned about astrophysics from people already working on the project, they learned about imaging from me, and we worked together to capture the very first image of a black hole.
“
”
We need to work on the algorithms (which is my job) and also improve the telescope so we can see more clearly and find out even more about them. There’s a huge team of people working on it across the world – there’s no way we could make these images without teamwork. The Atacama Large Milimeter Array telescope collected data that was used in the black hole images on this page.
When I first saw a black hole image, I thought it was too good to be true!
”
© Iztok Bončina/ESO, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Black holes are so far away that it’s like someone in northern Greenland trying to take a photo of a grain of sand in London. To take a photo of something that small, you need a telescope the size of Earth! We couldn’t build that so instead we linked smaller telescopes across the globe and simultaneously collected the data, then used algorithms to help us to fill in the gaps.
Find out more about xxxxxx
Telescopes
HOW STUFF
WORKS
Ever since the famous astronomer Galileo first looked at the stars with a simple spyglass more than 400 years ago, scientists have been using telescopes to understand the mysteries of space. Early telescopes used glass lenses to magnify the light from distant objects – these are called refracting telescopes. Most modern telescopes use curved mirrors instead. Here’s how these reflecting telescopes work…
2 3
At the back of the telescope is the primary mirror, which is made from curved glass with silver backing so that it focusses the incoming beams of light together as they are reflected.
The distance between the primary mirror and the point where the light beams meet is known as the focal length. The larger the focal length, the more powerfully the telescope magnifies the image – but the area of sky visible is smaller than with shorter telescopes.
4
The light from the primary mirror shines back down the telescope until it meets the secondary mirror, which is a flat mirror tilted at 45 degrees so that the light is deflected up and out of the body of the telescope.
39.3 m
The diameter of the primary mirror of the world’s largest telescope, the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which is currently being built in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. This telescope will collect 100 million times as much light as the human eye, enabling astronomers to see amazing images from far distant galaxies, millions of light years from Earth.
5
6
A convex eyepiece lens straightens out the beams of light as they leave the telescope, so they form a clear image in the astronomer’s eye.
Telescopes are mounted on adjustable supports to keep them stable and allow them to be moved around. Some telescopes have automated controls operated by electric motors, but others are adjusted by hand.
1
Light from distant objects, such as planets and stars, enters the telescope through an opening at the front called the aperture. The larger the aperture, the more light can get into the telescope. The largest telescopes on Earth have openings up to 10 metres in diameter so they can collect as much light as possible from very faint objects far away in outer space.
Galileo’s refracting telescope was a lead tube with two kinds of lenses: concave (curving inwards) and convex (curving outwards). It made distant objects appear 30 times closer.
whizzpopbang.com 25
g... in z a m A ly e m o s e w A 0 1
D L R O W S I H OUT-OF-T to examine parts Telescopes allow us eathtaking detail. of the night sk y in br edible sights… Check out these incr
1
The centre of the Milky Way can’t be seen in visible light – but this image was taken by an infrared space telescope called Spitzer. The glow comes from bright young stars and the dots around the image are also stars.
3
5
2
One of the best-known objects in the sky, the Horsehead Nebula is a cloud of gas and dust just south of the eastern end of Orion’s belt.
The pink blobs in this image collected by NASA’s NuSTAR space telescope actually show the location of two black
holes of the Circinus Galaxy!
22 to Turn to page image see the first ole! of a black h
4
The Sombrero galaxy looks like a wide-brimmed hat when viewed from the side. From Earth, this glowing galaxy can almost be seen with the naked eye, even though it’s 30 million light years away!
26 whizzpopbang.com
The Hubble Space Telescope captured this ultraviolet image of
auroras on one of Jupiter’s poles – an outer-space version of Earth’s northern lights!
W
D
S R E D N WO
6
8
The Helix nebula, famous for looking like
a giant eye, was photographed by the Spitzer Space Telescope. It’s a planetary nebula, which is the final stage of a star’s life cycle.
7 The white dot in the centre of this image of the Crab Nebula is a neutron star which has the mass of the Sun crammed into a spinning ball of neutrons just 12 miles across!
2021’s partial
eclipse of the Beaver Moon – November’s full Moon – was the longest partial lunar eclipse in 580 years!
9
This image of the Sun was formed from photos taken by three different telescopes. The blue areas are high-energy X-rays, green are low-energy X-rays and the yellow and red areas are extreme ultraviolet light. The most energetic spots are shown as blue-white.
10
This was the final full image of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft before it plunged into the planet it had studied for the previous 13 years.
© 1. NASA/JPL-Caltech, 2. Giuseppe Carmine Iaffaldano; Processing: Roberto Colombari, 3. NASA/JPL-Caltech, 4. NASA, ESA, and J. Nichols (University of Leicester), 5. NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), 6. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ.of Ariz, 7. NASA/Michael DeMocker, 8. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/CXC/Univ. of Ariz./Univ. of Szeged, 9. NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/JAXA, 10. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
whizzpopbang.com 27
Sensational Scientists
by Claire Cock-Starkey
Edwin Hubble As a child, Edwin loved sports and reading science fiction novels, which inspired a lifelong fascination with space. He studied astronomy at university, where he became interested in nebulae – clouds of light in the night sky.
@ Antares_StarExplorer / Shutterstock.com
28 whizzpopbang.com
EDWIN HUBBLE WAS BORN IN MISSOURI, USA, IN 1889. © Johan Hagemeyer / Wikimedia Commons
You might have heard of the Hubble Space Telescope, but what about the man it’s named after? Astronomer Edwin Hubble completely changed how we think about the universe.
In the 1920s, it was generally believed that the Milky Way was the only galaxy in the universe – but Edwin began to suspect that this was wrong. He spent hours observing the sky through the largest telescope available at the time, the 100-inch Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory in California.
Edwin studied the Andromeda Nebula. As he watched it through the telescope, he began to make out individual stars. He noticed a Cepheid variable – a type of star which can be used to measure distances by tracking changes in its brightness. @ NASA
Through these observations, he realised that the stars in the Andromeda Nebula were further away than the stars in the Milky Way – and probably formed another galaxy entirely! This was just the beginning for Edwin. He continued to study deep space, measuring distances and working out that the further apart galaxies are from one another, the faster they move away from one another.
This became known as Hubble’s Law and it showed that the universe is getting bigger. Edwin’s work proved that our galaxy was just one of many in a universe that was ever expanding. Despite his huge contribution to science, Edwin never won a Nobel Prize because astronomers were not eligible for the award at that time.
However, he has since been honoured by having a crater on the Moon and an asteroid named after him. And of course the famous Hubble Space Telescope, which since 1990 has travelled through space allowing researchers to learn even more about our vast universe.
@ Juergen Faelchle / Shutterstock.com
now?
Did you k
Way The Milky after is named yth a Greek m the in which Hera goddess milk sprayed e sky. across th
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 adventures in science hizz Pop Bang robot, Y, and other W atured on readers! Everyone fe an this page will receive e! enamel pin badg
Why does our hair go grey when we get older? Thanks, from Isaac, aged 9
F oR
CURIoUS K I DS
We love seeing all the fantastic things you have been doing to earn Y’s Wonder Club badges.
from melanin. Our eyes, skin and hair all get their colour elanin (say Two kinds are added to hair as it grows: eum pheomelanin you-mel-a-nin) which is black-brown and It’s a bit like mixing (say fee-o-mel-a-nin) which is yellow-red. of different paint – and one person can have a mixture r, the melaninolde get we As . head r coloured hairs on thei . Without melanin, producing cells slow down and then stop white because of hair is completely colourless, but it looks mix of white and the way it reflects light. You usually get a it look grey. coloured hairs as you age – which makes
Ella, aged 9, designed and built this burg lar alarm for her Epic Enginee ring badge.
Joshua, aged 6, investigated which of his paper aero designs wou plane ld farthest as p fly the art of his Super Scienti st badge.
Logan, aged 7, tic created this fantas r fo er st po cle cy frog er ch his Wildlife Wat badge.
Y’s Wonder Club Badges Help local wildlife to earn your Wildlife Watcher badge.
Investigate scientific questions to earn your Super Scientist badge.
Collectable enamel badges for you to earn! Help save the planet to earn your Eco Hero badge.
E
Dear Y, If everything is made of atoms, then why does everything feel different?
From Megan, aged 10
You’ve won this book!
Things feel different because not all atoms are the same. Different kinds of atom are made from different amounts of subatomic particles: protons (positively charged), electrons (negatively charged) and neutrons (neutrally charged). The kind of atom is down to the number of protons present. Oxygen has eight protons, gold has 79 – and you already know gold and oxygen feel very different! Atoms bond (join) together to make molecules. This can happen in different ways, making materials with different properties. If carbon forms weakly bonded sheets, you have pencil graphite, but with strong, regular bonds it makes a diamond!
Patric lettuce k’s st growing arted af only a f ter ew days.
, Emily, aged 11 g in az am is th grew lettuce from leftovers.
It took 3 weeks to grow this lettuce.
Nancy, aged 12, planted her pants to check out the soil health in her garden.
Joe, aged 7
d 7, Harry, age a fle is th made om fr lt u p cata 8 Issue 6 .
It was awesome seeing how high and far it went!
Why do things smell? Sammy, aged 7 ¾
lecules into the air – but a Perfume releases lots of smell mo it smells less. These molecules metal teaspoon releases fewer, so your nose, which send a land on smell-detecting nerves in smell. Scientists used to think message to your brain about the tor, like a key in a lock, but that each smell had its own recep shape of the molecule, or how smell might actually be due to the finding out! Smells can remind it vibrates (moves) – we’re still can also warn you to stay you of good or bad experiences and make you ill. away from something that might
Get problem solving to earn your Epic Engineer badge.
It was great to see that so many of you were inspired by issue 83 and “Got Growing”. Here are some examples…
S TA R LET T E R
Write a report or a review to earn your Science Reporter badge.
Connor, aged 6, created his own Whizz Pop Bang T-shirt.
Danish, aged 8, loves to read all about the universe , es black holes. pecially He this rocket an made dw like to becom ould e aerospace en an gineer.
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
whizzpopbang.com 31
How much can you remember from this issue?
um/ Test your m an to dad/librari
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.
see what they know!
1
2
What does ELT stand for?
What will patients with Clostridium difficile infections soon be treated with?
a) Eyeglass Lens Teles
a) Poo bacteria pills
cope
b) Extremely Large Te
b) Vitamin pills
c) E xtraterrestrial Le
c) Leeches
lescope
vitating
Teapot
3
In which direction do constellations travel across the sky?
4
ng bigger
b) There’s only one ga laxy in the universe
b) North to east
c) T he Hubble Space Te
c) East to west
is bigger than the
6
Our nearest star is called… a) Probably Centurion
7
What does Hubble’s Law state? a) The universe is getti
a) West to east
5
Why don't I like black holes? Because they suck!
lescope
Andromeda Nebula
How wide is the Milky Way galaxy?
a) 2.5 million kilometres
b) Prehistoric Centipede
b) Over 100,000 light years
c) Proxima Centauri
,000 miles c) 1
Which is NOT a type of badger?
sel badger
a) Fearsome wea
dger
b) Asian ferret ba
er
c) European badg
8
What do people say the Helix Nebula looks like? a) A bowler hat b) A seahorse c) A giant eye
Need a hint? Find the answers by reading these pages… 1) Page 24 2) Page 4 3) Page 20 4) Page 29 5) Page 9 6) Page 10 7) Page 12 8) Page 27
Answers on page 34.
I scored: .......... 1-3: Mega meteor! 4-6: Shooting star! 7-8: Stellar supernova!
W ! IN
Starry scene
k.c ©Shutterstoc
We’ve got some out-of-this-world books to give away to five lucky winners! We want you to create an astronomical picture using whatever you like – paint, pencils, felt-tip pens, collage or anything else. Send us a photo of your picture to be in with a chance of winning two books.
om
Two books by Professor Raman Prinja
Prof Prinja’s top stargazing tips! Professor Raman Prinja is Head of Physics and Astronomy at University College London.
In Wonders of the Night Sky, Professor Prinja helps you to reach for the stars in our galaxy and beyond. Learn to navigate the spectacular sights of the night sky, visible to the naked eye.
1. Be patient. Nature doesn’t give up its best secrets easily. You might be ready to explore the night sky, but clouds and rain could send you back inside. Try again another day! 2. T he darker the better! Find a location away from outdoor lights. It’s even better if you can pick a clear, Moon-less night. Give your eyes about 30 minutes to get used to the dark. Whatever site you pick, be safe and go with adults you know.
Rocket forwards in time trillions of years in The Future of the Universe to experience a shiny new ring on Mars, Earth’s axis flip and a dramatic galaxy crash!
3. U se a sky chart. There are really good apps to tell you what stars and planets you can see from your current location at the time you go out.
Both books are from hatchettchildrens.co.uk
Send a photo of your picture to win@whizzpopbang.com with ‘Night sky competition’ as the subject of your email. Alternatively, post your picture to Night sky 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. Sorry, we are unable to return any post. Deadline: November 8th 2022. UK residents only. Full terms and conditions available at whizzpopbang.com.
WINNERS
4. Watch the Moon. Earth’s Moon is a great target because it’s so bright. Look carefully at the craters, dark patches and changing phases from night to night. Using a pair of binoculars, look along the Moon’s day-night dividing line to see shadows cast by craters and mountains. 5. Stretch your imagination. While looking at the stars, think about the planets they might have going around them. Perhaps some of these exoplanets have oceans while others may have surfaces covered in lava! Perhaps that bright star that’s caught your eye will explode one day as a supernova and leave behind a black hole!
Issue 85 competition winners Thank you to everyone who sent in awesome designs for eco-friendly vehicles inspired by nature. These six lucky winners will each receive a Rubber Band Racers kit from thamesandkosmos.co.uk: Joe Chamberlain, 7
Thomas Franklin, 10
Maisie Strange, 11
Yijie Yang, 8
Tilly Wyn-Jones, 11
Oscar Moon, 9
whizzpopbang.com 33
What did you think of our night sky edition?
JOKES Which type of stars always wear sunglasses? Movie stars!
Tell us your views here: bit.ly/3DsaO4l
What do you do if you se e an alien? Give it ACE some sSpaP ce! MISSION! SPACE MISSION!
auts spend n o r t s a o d Why cleaning? e im t h c u so m tardust! s e h t ll a f Because o What do you call a meal in space? A satellite dish! This starry scene is packed with out-of-this-world puzzles! Solve as many as you can and then check your answers on page 34.
Each month, readers who fill in the survey will be entered into a prize draw to win an awesome Whizz Pop Bang Science Scrapbook Find a way to the centre of the star!
STELLAR MAZE! Find a way to the START centre of the star!
This starry scene is packed with out-of-this-world puzzles! Solve as many as you can and then check your answers on page 34.
FINISH
START
MISSING PIECES
FINISH
Can you find where these three triangles fit into the starry scene?
MISSING PIECES
a
bCan you findcwhere these three
triangles fit into the starry scene?
a
b
How does the solar system h old up its trousers ? With an asteroid belt!
c
How do you get clean in space? Take a meteor shower! Find two identical spiral galaxies!
MATCHING PAIR
Find two identical spiral galaxies!
– a star no bigger than a PULSAR STAR SEARCHSTAR SEARCH PULSAR large city, which emits strong radio Page 14 – Star search
– a star no bigger than a large city, which emits strong radio
Page 7 – True/Untrue
waves at regular waves intervals. Find and circle these names in the grid. written at regular intervals. Find and circleThey thesecould names be in the grid. They could be written forwards,vertically backwards,or horizontally, verticallyQUASAR or diagonally. forwards, backwards, horizontally, diagonally. QUASAR – an active supermassive – an active supermassive
TRUE: The Southern Hemisphere H H and Y P the northern hemisphere seeRthe I W R sky from opposite angles, soAthe Y Q U constellations look opposite Sways T Aup. B Page 11 – Stars dot-to-dot L U The object is a space rocket. P Q B T J
W H U F N X R
P U R A E A W
X D I S T S H
SPACE MISSION! Page 13 – Badger puzzle
hole centre of a galaxy. black hole at the black centre ofatathe galaxy.
BLAZAR Y PV EAR YN N O VBLAZAR A Y – aNquasar whose jets are E RH NH O Earth. R I W R A Z T I L pointed B Edirectly H atSUPERNOVA SUPERNOVA – a bright and A ZA TY Q I UL ABS EA H R Ppowerful U G explosion B HYPERNOVA of a star. A S S AT R really A BP FUT GE B Z T HYPERNOVA G O L– a really, NEUTRON STAR bright, powerful supernova! P XT AGD OE L R ANEUTRON Z A STAR A – a very small, F T L EW Z U DA GZJ AO A N I dense P star Z left Z behind after a A DU EH R supernova explosion (when the MAGNETAR P U R I Q N A O Gexploding T Q star A wasn’t massive G JQ OF N I P Z Z black hole). A S S S V L Yenough A Wto make R aBLITZAR MAGNETAR – a neutron star with Q NB AN O GIANT field. E TG ZT A QS A T ZanNextra-powerful M Z RED magnetic A SY UAP W E R NBLITZAR O V – aAneutron star that spins S S T VX L so fast it collapses into DWARF a black hole. WHITE D WRED AGIANT R F – a dying star that has Z AJ SR W T HZ INT ME Z slowly swollen up to many times its original size. U14 whizzpopbang.com P E R O V Amaze! Page 15N– Stellar WHITE DWARF – a hot, dense I T E D W A R F remnant of a dead star that has
14 whizzpopbang.com
– a quasar whose jets are pointed directly at Earth. – a bright and powerful explosion of a star. – a really, really bright, powerful supernova!
– a very small, dense star left behind after a supernova explosion (when the exploding star wasn’t massive enough to make a black hole).
– a dying star that has slowly swollen up to many times its original size. – a hot, dense remnant of a dead star that has used up its fuel.
used up its fuel.
QUASAR – an active supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy.
H H E R N O Vpieces A Y N Page 14Y –P Missing R I W R A Y Q U S T A B L W P X U H U D P U R I Q F A S B N E T TSTARXSEARCH A S J R W H
This starry scene is packed with out-of-this-world puzzles! Solve as many as you can and then check your answers on page 34.
Find a way to the centre of the star!
START
FINISH
a
14 whizzpopbang.com
B X D I S T S H
F A G Q S Z U I
T D J N S A P T
E E O A V S E E
Z R N O L T R D
T A I G Y Z N W
Page 15 – Matching pair These are the two identical galaxies: SPACE MISSION!
Finish writing in the numbers 1-9 so that every straight line of 3 numbers adds up to 15 This starry scene is packed with out-of-this-world puzzles! Solve as many as you can and then check your answers on page 34.
G Z P T A N O A
O A Z Q W M V R
L A Z A R Z A F
large city, which emits strong radio waves at regular intervals.
QUASAR – an active supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy.
used up its fuel.
BLAZAR – a quasar whose jets are pointed directly at Earth. SUPERNOVA – a bright and powerful explosion of a star. HYPERNOVA – a really, really bright, powerful supernova!
NEUTRON STAR – a very small,
dense star left behind after a supernova explosion (when the exploding star wasn’t massive enough to make a black hole).
MAGNETAR – a neutron star with
NUMBER STAR Finish writing in the numbers 1-9 so that every straight line of 3 numbers adds up to 15
slowly swollen up to many times its original size.
WHITE DWARF – a hot, dense
remnant of a dead star that has used up its fuel.
8
MAKEMAKE PEGASUS PETIT-PRINCE PIG
3
RED GIANT – a dying star that has
CIGAR HOCKEY STICK
PHOENIX
1 6
an extra-powerful magnetic field.
BLITZAR – a neutron star that spins so fast it collapses into a black hole.
One of these is not the name of a real thing found in space. Circle the one you think is fake!
SCULPTOR SUNFLOWER TADPOLE TOMHANKS WHIRLPOOL
STELLAR MAZE! Find a way to the centre of the star!
MISSING PIECES Can you find where these three triangles fit into the starry scene?
3
a
b
c
How do you get clean in space? Take a meteor shower!
STAR SEARCH Y W Q A P U R A E A W
14 whizzpopbang.com
P R U B X D I S T S H
E A A F A G Q S Z U I
R Z S T D J N S A P T
N T A E E O A V S E E
O I R Z R N O L T R D
ODD ONE OUT!
PULSAR – a star no bigger than a
Find and circle these names in the grid. They could be written forwards, backwards, horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
H I Y T W H U F N X R
2
3
SUNFLOWER
3
TOMHANKS
TADPOLE
5
WHIRLPOOL
9
4
2) It was daytime.
MATCHING PAIR Find two identical spiral galaxies!
H R A S L U P Q B T J
8
7
PIG SCULPTOR
1) With the letter r!
FINISH
6
8
6
PHOENIX
Page 17 – Riddles
START
1
Find two identical spiral galaxies!
H H Y P E R N O V A Y N R I W R A Z T I L B E H A P U R A E A W
Find two identical spiral galaxies!
c
PULSAR – a star no bigger than a
14 whizzpopbang.com A Y Q U A S A R P U G B T W H U F N X R
b
1
PEGASUS
PETIT-PRINCE
Cigar, Hockey Stick, Sunflower, Tadpole and Whirlpool are all galaxies. Pheonix, Sculptor and Pegasus are constellations. Makemake is a dwarf planet in the outer region of our solar system. Tomhanks is an asteroid (named after the movie star) and Petit-Prince is a moon orbiting an asteroid (named after a character in a children’s book).
FINISH
Can you find where these three triangles fit into the starry scene?
Find and circle these names in the grid. They could be written forwards, backwards, horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
S L U P Q B T J
BLAZAR – a quasar whose jets are pointed directly at Earth.
A Z T I L B E H SUPERNOVA – a bright and powerful explosion of a star. A SP S A B MAZE! HYPERNOVA – a really, really ACRE P U GSTELLAR bright, powerful supernova! FMI TSS EIO ZN! T G O L NEUTRON STAR – a very small, dense star left behind after a A D E R A Z A A supernova explosion (when the star wasn’t massive G J O N I P Z Z exploding enough to make a black hole). – a neutron star with Q NMISSING A OPIECES G T Q Aget MAGNETAR How do you an extra-powerful magnetic field. space? in clean shower! BLITZAR – a neutron star that spins S S V L Y A TakeWa meteorR so fast it collapses into a black hole. MATCHING PAIR Z A S T Z N M Z RED GIANT – a dying star that has slowly swollen up to many times its ODD ONE OUT! U P E R N O V A original size. WHITE DWARF – a hot, dense I T E D W A R F remnant of a dead star that has
1
6
MAKEMAKE
Pig is not a real object.
START
c
PULSAR – a star no bigger than a large city, which emits strong radio waves at regular intervals.
Find and circle these names in the grid. They could be written forwards, backwards, horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
numbers 1-9 so that every straight
line of 315 numbers adds up to 15 numbers Page – Missing
HOCKEY STICK
Page 15 – Odd one out!
Find a way to the centre of the star!
MISSING PIECES b
NUMBER STAR
Finish writing in the numbers 1-9 so that every straight Finish in the line of 3 writing numbers adds up to 15
8
Can you find where these three triangles fit into the starry scene?
a
CIGAR
– a neutron star that spins so fast it collapses into a black hole.
Becky badger has dug up and eaten the most worms. TRUE: Honey badgers, which live in Africa, are expert tree climbers, clambering up to raid bees’ nests for STAR SEARCH honey.
One of these is not the name of a real thing found in space. Circle the one you think is fake!
– a neutron star with an extra-powerful magnetic field.
This starry scene is packed with out-of-this-world puzzles! Solve as many as you can and then check your answers on page 34.
Page 13 – True/Untrue
Answers
ODD ONE OUT!
V L P T A I G Y Z N W
A B U G Z P T A N O A
Y E G O A Z Q W M V R
N H B L A Z A R Z A F
One of these is not the name of a real thing found in space. Circle the one you think is fake!
large city, which emits strong radio waves at regular intervals.
QUASAR – an active supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy.
CIGAR
BLAZAR – a quasar whose jets are pointed directly at Earth. SUPERNOVA – a bright and powerful explosion of a star. HYPERNOVA – a really, really bright, powerful supernova!
NEUTRON STAR – a very small,
dense star left behind after a supernova explosion (when the exploding star wasn’t massive enough to make a black hole).
MAGNETAR – a neutron star with
NUMBER STAR Finish writing in the numbers 1-9 so that every straight line of 3 numbers adds up to 15
slowly swollen up to many times its original size.
WHITE DWARF – a hot, dense
remnant of a dead star that has used up its fuel.
8
PEGASUS PETIT-PRINCE PIG
3
RED GIANT – a dying star that has
MAKEMAKE
PHOENIX
1 6
an extra-powerful magnetic field.
BLITZAR – a neutron star that spins so fast it collapses into a black hole.
HOCKEY STICK
SCULPTOR SUNFLOWER TADPOLE TOMHANKS WHIRLPOOL
3) Eyelids! Page 32 – Quiz 1) b 2) a 3) c 4) a 5) c 6) b 7) a 8) c
A view through time This image from the new James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest-ever view of the universe. It shows thousands of distant galaxies, each containing billions of stars and planets. Some of the light you see here is from over 13 billion years ago, soon after the Big Bang. If you look closely, you can see that some galaxies look distorted. This is because their light is being bent and magnified as it passes the immense gravity of galaxies closer to us.
R A L U C A T C E SP
e c n e i c s
© NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
This picture is of a tiny patch of sky the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground. Check out this awesome tool for zooming in and out – it really shows just how vast and full of galaxies our universe is!
bit.ly/3P9YtVx
BRAND NEW!
The Whizz P op Bang SCIENCE
book is here! E L D D I R This bumper book of brainteasers is packed with over 150 fun riddles and quirky questions, all with a science twist! I’m a
super
The WOW! wer se resu e surp lts risin g!
scientis
t!
I’m a
super
TO est P iga tion!
inv
K
TS SUBLLE!
MY AT
TA
t!
YA I’m Y ! so
K
RE
TS SUBLLE!
MY AT
TA
t!
YA I’m Y ! so
LO O K
TS SUBLLE!
MY AT
RE
TA
YAY !
e thi
ex
VE this I LO eriment ! p
rimen s t I lov
expe I’m SU a scienPER tist!
e thi
rimen s t
EXP
I lov
expe
ERIM
goin ENT FAIL out g to find ! why !
I’m SU a scienPER tist! I dis so co NE me ve W th re to ing d da
YEP!
I dis so co NE me ve W th re to ing d da
YEP!
y!
I gu thi essed s wo happ uld en!
This wa
YEP!
TRICK s a Y rim ent
I gu thi essed s wo happ uld en!
This wa TR s a
expe
I’m SU a scienPER tist!
y!
I gu thi essed s wo happ uld en!
expe
ex
VE this I LO eriment ! p
y!
e thi
rimen s t
I’m I dis so co NE me ve W th re to ing d da
YEP!
I gu thi essed s wo happ uld en!
ICK Y
rimen
t
This wa
TRICK s a Y rim
expe
whizzpopbang.com/shop
ent
Pack some science into Christmas!
RE
TA
TS SUBLLE!
I lov
expe
goin ENT FAIL out g to find ! why !
LO O MY AT
t
ERIM
t!
TO est P iga tion!
inv
K
I’m pr so of thoud is!
I’m
scientis
OO H!
I exp didn’t ect res these ult s!
s
EXP
I’m a
super
TO est P iga tion!
inv
e thi
rimen
I’m SU a scienPER tist! I dis so co NE me ve W th re to ing d da y!
The WOW! wer se resu e surp lts risin g!
scientis
OO H!
I exp didn’t ect res these ult s!
pr of thoud is!
I lov
I’m a
super
TO est P iga tion!
inv
LO O
pr of thoud is!
expe
The WOW! wer se resu e surp lts risin g!
scientis
n’t the ult se s!
res
LO O
RE
OO H!
I exp did ect
Find loads of great value bundles in our online shop