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withRori Borealis

andScope

A space-themed activity book for children of all ages!

Visit www.usra.edu/galleries/rori/ for the answer key!

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Credits This activity book is a production of the Universities Space Research Association.

Steve Baird Lauren Beward Stacy BowlesErin CarverShawna CrouchTessa Goldscher

On the Cover

On the Cover: Aurora Borealis The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are streamers of colored lights some-times seen in the night sky in the most northern parts of the world.

Auroras result when charged particles blasted from the Sun are captured by the Earth’s magnetic field and spiral down toward the north and south poles. In do-ing so, they collide with gases (primarily nitrogen and oxygen) in Earth’s upper atmosphere. These collisions cause the gases to glow a variety of colors, mostly shades of green and red.

ContentsThe Story of Rori ..................... 3A-maze-ing Moon .................... 4Connect the Stars .................. 5Crossword ............................... 6Flash Cards ............................. 7Earth & Atmosphere ............11The Littlest “Planet” .............12Word Search .........................13Sun ........................................14About USRA...........................15

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When Rori Borealis was a little girl, she knew she was a bit different than the other kids at her school. She loved space. Not just a little bit – a lot! Of course, with a spacey name like “Borealis,” her head was always in the clouds. She loved to look up at the stars and dream about seeing them up close.

Her mother worked as a pilot, and she used to take Rori on flights with her, bringing her as close to the stars as she could possibly go. Her father worked for NASA as an engineer. Every day, he would come home from work and rave about the rockets he had helped build that day. The family lived in Florida, and Rori loved to watch the rockets and shuttles launch from the space center. She dreamed of one day being an astronaut, able to slip through the atmosphere and float through space.

Fresh out of school, Rori now works at NASA as an engineer, just like her father – though she still dreams of being an astronaut someday. In her spare time, she has her own little plane that she flies for fun, just like her mother. If she isn’t tinkering with planes and rockets, Rori enjoys camping, stargazing, and going to the beach. Her favorite foods are pizza and spaghetti, and her favorite color is blue.

Her best friend is her dog Scope. He follows her everywhere! She found him when he was a puppy, curled up in an empty telescope box. This curious dog has a nosy nature – he just loves to get into everything!

Rori and Scope are here to share their love of science with you. Look for them throughout the book to learn a fun new fact!

The Story of Rori (and her pal Scope!)

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A-Maze-ing MoonSilly Scope, he’s forgotten his collar on the Moon. Help him to retrace his path to find it. Be sure to explore the Moon’s surface along the way. But be careful, watch out for the impact craters!

Start End

VocabularyHIGHLANDS: The light areas of the Moon.LUNAR REGOLITH: Powdery dust covering the Moon’s surface.MARIA: Dark features, or basalt planes, on the Moon.MEGARGOLITH: Fractured bedrock beneath the regolith.

Ohhh... dear!Where is my collar?

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Connect the StarsConstellations and asterisms are distinctive and easy-to-recognize patterns of stars. Throughout his-tory, groups of stars have been named by farmers, astronomers and others- see if you can see what they saw by connecting the stars below!

COLUMBA THE DOVE

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2

3

45

6

7

8

910

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1216

15

1314

1

2

3

4

5

DRACO THE DRAGON

THE BIG DIPPER

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3

4

5

6

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Some countries call the Big Dipper by these names: The Plough, The Saucepan, The Great Wagon, or the Big Bear. We call it the Big Dipper because it looks like a big spoon or ladle. What would you call it?

Fun Fact!

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1

2

3 4

5

6

7

8

Crossword

ACROSS

3. This planet’s rings are made of ice and rock. It is the fifth planet from the Sun.

5. The first man-made object sent into space was in 1957 when this Russian satellite was launched.

7. In ________, people do not walk like people on Earth, they float because of the absence of Earth’s gravity.

8. This star’s rays are about 30,000 years old when they reach the Earth.

DOWN

1. The full name of the first American woman to fly in space.

2. The ________ is the fifth largest planet in the Solar System and third from the Sun. It was formed around four and a half billion years ago.

4. The ________ is made up of everything that exists, including planets, stars, galaxies and all forms of matter and energy.

6. Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on this.

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• Name Means: Messenger of the Roman gods

• Distance: Closest to the Sun• Size: Smaller than Earth• Orbit Period: about 87 Earth days• Has an exosphere (instead of an

atmosphere)• Known Moons: 0• Rings: 0

• Name Means: Roman goddess of love and beauty

• Size: Close in size to Earth (Earth’s twin!)

• Hottest average temperature (880°F)

• Orbit Period: about 224 Earth days• Very thick atmosphere made of

carbon dioxide• Known Moons: 0• Rings: 0

• Has Liquid Water• Has the only known life• Orbit Period: about 365 days• Has an atmosphere• Surface Temperature:

–88 to 58°C (–126 to 136°F)• Known Moons: 1• Rings: 0

• Name Means: Roman god of war • Thin Atmosphere• The “Red Planet”• Tallest volcano in solar system• Orbit Period: about 686 Earth days• Known Moons: 2• Rings: 0

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Mercury Venus

Earth MarsMerc

ury

EarthJupite

rSaturn

MarsVe

nus

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Jupiter

Uranus Neptune

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Solar System

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• Name Means: King of the Roman gods

• Largest Planet• Has a red spot (most of the time)• Radiates more heat than it gets

from the Sun• Orbit Period: about 4,330 Earth

days• Has an atmosphere made of hydro-

gen and helium• Known Moons: 63• Rings: 1

• Name Means: Roman god of agri-culture

• Orbit Period: about 10,755 Earth days

• Has an atmosphere made of hydro-gen and helium

• Less dense than water• Largest rings• Known Moons: 62• Rings: 7 main rings (C, B, A, D, F,

G, E)

• Name Means: Greek god of the heavens (“Ouranos”)

• Much smaller than Jupiter and Saturn

• Axis tilted at a 90 degree angle• Orbit Period: about 30,687 Earth

days • Has an atmosphere made of hydro-

gen and helium • Known Moons: 27• Known Rings: 13

• Name Means: Roman god of the sea

• Much smaller than Jupiter and Saturn

• Orbit Period: about 60,190 Earth days

• Has an atmosphere made of hydro-gen and helium

• Known Moons: 13• Known Rings: 6

ElectromagneticSpectrum

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T R RC

NN R LNM T

LNM T

NN R RC

T R

TR SC

16km/10mi

64km/40mi

1040km/646mi

30960km/19237mi

1221km/758mi2259km/1403mi

2171km/1348mi720km/447mi30km/18mi

RRT P PS H E E

RS E E

RRT PS H ES T

ONO

EOE P H E

OUTER SPACE

*distances are approximate.

Earth & Atmosphere

Identify the layers of the Earth and Atmosphere by fillingintheblanks!

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High in the sky, much higher than you or I can see without a telescope, lived a little planet named Pluto. For as long as he could remem-ber, even before Clyde Tombaugh found him in 1930, he was sad. You see, the other planets all made fun of him for being so little. And be-ing so far from the sun, he was always so cold. It was very lonely.

One day, the four gas giants – Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus – were teas-ing him terribly.

“It would take over 188,000 of you to equal my size!” boomed Jupiter, the largest planet.

“And you’re so plain!” laughed Saturn. “You don’t have any distinguishing marks. Just look at my beautiful rings made of ice crystals.”

“But I’m made almost entirely of ice and rock!” said Pluto. “In fact, my surface is so cold that my thin atmosphere, made from nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide gases, some-times freezes to my surface. That makes me cool, right?”

“Big deal! My atmosphere is the coldest one around, as low as 49 Kelvin,” said Uranus.

“And my atmosphere shows visible weather pat-terns. Yours doesn’t show anything! It’s barely there!” teased Neptune.

Poor Pluto! Nobody seemed to like him very much!

Just then, he heard the horrible news – scien-tists from the International Astronomical Union on Earth were saying he was no longer a planet! He shared his orbit with other large masses, like the plutinos, making him a “dwarf planet.”

“The other planets will never let me live this down!” he cried. “I’m not even top dog in my

own orbit!”

Just then, he met another dwarf planet named Eris. She asked

him why he looked so sad, and he told her about the mean things the other planets would say when they heard the news.

“Don’t let them bother you,” she told him. “I’m a dwarf

planet too, the biggest one there is. There are three others in

our solar system – Ceres, Haumea, and Makemake. Would you like to

meet them?”

Pluto said he would. One by one, the other dwarf planets drifted over to meet their newest brother.

“Wow! You’re so much bigger than the rest of us,” said Ceres. “Since you and Eris are so much larger, will you look out for us?”

Pluto was shocked to hear this. Finally, he was one of the biggest planets, a leader of the other dwarf planets. As the other planets crowded round and smiled at him, asking him count-less questions, he had only one thought on his mind:

“I’ll never be lonely again.”

The Littlest “Planet”

This is my favorite story!

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Y P H H P J Y L G B T T N E Y U P E O M G U S I I K Y Q T R P F P A T O K M O R O L W T X T N C O J C H P N Y A B U S I L S J Q I O O P G T F C D Y M Y M G Q T O A L V I M O F H J B S A Z H Q O I U Z E R A R E S T E L O I V A R T L U A L D G R O T P T S U W H K J Y T B N N S Q C G X E H L E T T A I M F J F E O Y M R U V G E H I L R J T Z O J S U R L N V A U Z R R J P E A B E S H W X T F D L S M U E R T S X S T Y R G T L S J C N T I V B R X M T W C O Y S C G A W C A E G O T V A M M A G O S N U N N M I C R O W A V E J X K X T P P H O J E C M O R A D A R H R U R W I E H L Z I L N I W E A T H E R N A B H B C E O W N E D E R A R F N I V Y E N Y R S R C D X V V E U A G S Y Q S W D M U O I E T P S A Y G E A D D H I A D W L O L Z D F S I W A F W V X I T Y M K F C S S F L D J E O N D X J P B O F K

Word SearchASTEROID

ASTRONAUT

CARBON

CLIMATE

COMET

GAMMA

GEOLOGY

GRAVITY

INFRARED

IONOSPHERE

LUNAR

MICROWAVE

ORBIT

ORION

PULSAR

RADAR

RADIO

SATELLITE

STRATOSPHERE

TELESCOPE

TROPOSPHERE

ULTRAVIOLET

WATER

WAVELENGTH

WEATHER

XRAY

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The Sun is the closest star to Earth. Read the descriptions of the Sun’s parts below, try to match each part of the Sun to the picture.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

a. The CORE is the innermost part of the Sun and is the source of the Sun’s energy.

b. The RADIATIVE ZONE trans-fers energy near the Core to the outer regions.

c. The CONVECTIVE ZONE moves heat from the Radiative Zone to the Photosphere.

d. The PHOTOSPHERE is the visible surface of the Sun.

e. The CHROMOSPHERE is a thin layer above the visible surface.

f. PROMINENCES are large glow-ing loops of hot gas projecting from the surface of the Sun.

g. FILAMENTS are prominences that can be seen flat on the surface of the Sun.

h. SUNSPOTS are temporary phenomena on the photosphere that appear dark compared to surrounding areas.

Sun

Fun Fact!LOOK how tiny the Earth is compared to the Sun above!

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ABOUT USRAFounded in 1969, USRA is an independent research corporation with competencies that span space, Earth, and life sciences, along with related disciplines. These competencies are closely aligned with the nation’s science & technology, homeland security, and national security agencies. As a non-profit corporation, USRA’s scientific and technical staff collaborates with over 400 academic and professional research organizations annually. A member consortium of 105 major research universities oversees USRA to ensure that it meets its public purpose as a non-profit in a way that provides equal, unbiased access to opportunities for all researchers. This depth of reach into the research community provides a unique platform for advancing science and technology.

EDUCATION & PUBLIC OUTREACH As one of USRA’s core mission areas: to de-velop and manage education programs for the benefit of the space research community, USRA continues to develop a global influence through scholarships, funding for students, and other benevolent efforts. Furthermore, by recognizing that education and outreach opportunities exist

not only in but beyond the classroom, USRA supports a broad range of

activities targeted at a wide, di-verse audience, both inside and

outside of the STEM pool.

ENGAGING STUDENTS Encouraging students to get involved in science at a young age is a priority for USRA and its employees. As

testament to that, each year USRA manages and sponsors

a host of student competitions that span the breadth of scientific

disciplines.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH Traveling exhibits, bringing current science and exploration to rural and underserved communi-ties, are making the rounds at libraries, science centers, and planetariums across the nation. The exhibits support public events at these venues, including reading programs, night-sky viewing, and children’s programs.

SUPPORTING EDUCATORS USRA champions the support of educators as the foundation for building successful scientists and ensuring the future of research and devel-opment in the United States. Each year USRA programs prepare hundreds of teachers to engage and educate their students in science and engineering disciplines.

About USRA

For more information about USRA’s Education Programs and to download the answer key to this booklet, visit: www.usra.edu/galleries/rori/

withRori Borealis

andScope

A space-themed activity book for children of all ages!

Visit www.usra.edu/galleries/rori/ for the answer key!