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The cheetah is an a typical member of the cat family
that is unique in its speed, while lacking climbing abilities.
It is the fastest land animal,
reaching speeds between 112 and 120 km/h
and has the ability to accelerate from 0 to 110 km/h
in three seconds, faster than most supercars.
Recent studies confirm the cheetah's status as fastest land animal.
A mammal’s body makes its own warmth.
It can keep its temperature the same
weather it is hot or cold.
This is called being warm- blooded.
Chimpanzees are mammals.
They live in the forests of Africa.
Chimpanzees have been kept as pets for centuries
in a few African villages, especially in Congo.
The male common chimp is up to 1.7 m high when standing,
and weighs as much as 70 kg; the female is somewhat smaller.
All mammals have fur or hair.
Hair or fur is a characteristic that's only seen in mammals.
All mammals develop fur or hair at some point during their development,
though not all keep their fur or hair throughout their lifespan.
Mammals are all warm-blooded,
and all mammals are vertebrates
(meaning they have vertebrae, forming a spine).
All Mammal Mothers feed their babies milk.
They make their milk in the mammary glands
on their chest or bellies.
Milk is a rich food which is easy for a baby to swallow.
Mammals produce milk to feed their young.
Female mammals possess a modified sweat gland
– a mammary gland –
that is activated by hormonal changes that occur with pregnancy.
In fact, this trait is what inspired the term “mammal,” a derivation of “mammary.”
Shooting stars, or meteors,
are the streaks of light you sometimes
see at night.
They are made by pea-sized bits of rocks or metals
called meteoroids, which fall from space
and burn in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Comets are huge clouds of gas and dust,
much bigger than the Earth,
with a rocky core a few kilometers across.
Halley’s comet is named after the English scientist
Edmond Halley (1656-1742),
Who worked out that its orbit around the Sun
brings it close to Earth every 76 years.
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The Sun is a star.
It is like a blowing ball of hot gasses
producing a vast amount of energy which streams
through space in waves of light and heat.
This energy is essential to life on Earth.
Without it our planet would be so cold and dark
for plants and animals to survive.
The Sun is about 150 million km from Earth.
The Sun is made of a gas called Helium.
Much of the Sun is made of a gas called Hydrogen.
A satellite is something that orbits a planet.
Until the Space age began,
the Earth’s only satellite was the Moon.
Now it also has many artificial satellites-
machines which orbit it,
doing all sorts of jobs.
Some satellites relay TV and telephone signals.
Some study the stars,
others the Earth and its weather.
It is the Earth’s atmosphere that makes stars twinkle.
On its way to Earth, starlight passes through bands
of warm and cold air in the atmosphere.
These heat currents make the stars flicker.
The Moon is lit by the Sun
and doesn’t give any light of its own.
However the Sun only lights half of the Moon,
Leaving the other half dark and invisible.
We can only see one face or side of the Moon from Earth,
Because we see this face from different angles
During the 29 1/2 days the Moon takes to orbit Earth.
Sometimes the Sun lights all of the face of the Moon that we see.
At other times only part is lit.
Although we can’t feel it,
The earth is always moving.
It orbits, or goes round, the Sun,
And this journey takes a whole year.
At the same time the Earth itself is spinning-
one whole spin every 24 hours.
As the Earth spins, the Sun comes into view
And it seems to move across the sky.
The Earth spins from West to east,
So the Sun is in the East when we first see it in the morning,
and in the West when it sets in the evening.
People who travel into space are called astronauts.
They have to train for many years before their trip.
This astronaut wears a space suit to “walk” in space.
A star is a blazing ball of very hot gas.
The Sun is a star.
The moon travels around the Earth.
The Earth travels around the sun.
The moon is very different form Earth.
There is no air and no life.
It is boiling hot during the day
and freezing at night.
The surface of the moon is covered
with sauce-shaped holes called craters.
It is huge!
It is 109 times as wide as the earth,
Or wider than the length of 15.000.000 football fields!
In fact the sun is big enough to hold 1 million Earth’s inside it!
Most planets have an atmosphere –
a layer of gas that covers the surface.
The Earth’s atmosphere is made of air.
It stretches 400 km above us.
It also provides air to breathe,
And helps protect us from the sun’s heat.
A day is the time it takes for a planet to spin around once.
Earth’s day lasts 24 hours.
A year is the time it takes for a planet to go all the way around the sun.
Earth’s year lasts 365 days.
We live on planet Earth.
A planet is a large body that revolves around the sun.
Find Earth and the eight other planets in the picture. Many of the other planets have moons.
The sun, the nine known planets and their moons, and other objects that revolve around the sun make up the solar system.
The path an object takes as it revolves around the sun is called its orbit.
Our solar system is the sun
and everything that revolves around it.
It includes all the planets and their moons,
and space objects such as comets.
There are also two vast bands of drifting rocks
called the Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt.
The sun is a ball of hot, glowing gasses called plasma.
It is a star.
The sun looks larger and brighter than stars you see at night
because it is a lot closer to earth.
The other stars in the sky look smaller because they are so far away.
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