One Sun, Eight Planets, Countless Small Things
- SOLAR SYSTEM: the sun, plus everything that goes round it
- PLANET: a large body orbiting the sun, with NO light of its own
- SATELLITE: a body orbiting a planet. The moon orbits the earth
- ASTEROIDS between Mars and Jupiter. COMETS of ice and dust
Presenter notes: Open with the fact that unsettles everybody. Tell the class the sun is a star of medium size, an ordinary one, nothing special among the billions out there. Then ask why it looks so enormously bigger and brighter than every other star in the sky. Let somebody get to it: because it is the near one. Then turn that round and let it land properly. Every point of light they have ever seen on a clear night is another sun, and some are far larger than ours. They are not looking at small things when they look up. They are looking at other suns, from very far away.