EARTH AIR!

Monument Valley, USA

Hi.

Nice you could come today!

Be sure to THANK the adult who is reading this to you!

They are being responsible and helping you to grow into the best person you can be!

Good luck to them AND good luck to you!

Last week I mentioned WATER how important it is to life and I said that PLANET EARTH is the only place we know of that has it!

You know that there are other planets circling around our SUN (like MARS and VENUS and JUPITER) but none of them has any WATER for certain.

There is something else we have here on our home planet EARTH that none of the other planets we know about have--something you breathe all day every day--that's right!

AIR!

Boy!

Take a big deep breath right now!!!!

Bye for now.

Uncle Tom

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PLANET EARTH SYMBOL

PLANET EARTH INTERNATIONAL SYMBOL

Hi!

Today I am sending you a very easy way to write "PLANET EARTH".

The above symbol is one people use to quickly write the planet's name.

The picture (pictogram) means PLANET EARTH in every language on earth.

Now you can write the name of our home planet!

See you next Tuesday!

Uncle Tom

Death Valley

Death Valley, California

Hello.

Glad you are here again!

We are discussing PLANET EARTH, our home.

There are many different places on PLANET EARTH.

Some are very dry--like in today's photograph.

Some are rainy and wet.

But every kind of life we know about on PLANET EARTH needs WATER.

And as far as we know right now, PLANET EARTH is the ONLY place where there is WATER!

There are other PLANETS circling around our own STAR, the SUN, but they don't have any WATER.

They don't seem to have any LIFE either--though they are very interesting!

Our MOON doesn't either though it is a very nice MOON! It is dry!

Without WATER we could not live!

NOTE: A few days after this BLOG was published, NASA announced that it's robot space probe Phoenix has shown evidence of water (as ice) on the planet Mars. July 31, 2008. TW

PLANET EARTH

Lake Murray San Diego, CA USA

HI!

I am writing this BLOG to you from my home: PLANET EARTH.

PLANET EARTH is YOUR home too!

All of us human beings like your mother and father, and sister and brother (if you have any) live here with you.

Out of all the planets which may exist in all the GALAXIES and STARS in the universe--PLANET EARTH--our very own home planet--is the only one we know about that has people on it!

In fact our very own home, PLANET EARTH is the only place in the whole universe--of all the suns and stars and other planets--that we know about--where LIFE exists.

You are alive on this planet in space and so am I and so are all the other people and plants and animals and insects and so forth on PLANET EARTH--but, so far as we know for sure--this is the only place where things
live!

WOW!

Our good old "mother", PLANET EARTH!!!

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PLANET EARTH

Photograph of a globe of PLANET EARTH

Hi.

Look around you.

Where do you live?

Oh, yes, in a house or apartment in some town or city and in some country or other--

BUT you also really live on our nice, big world called: PLANET EARTH!

I live on PLANET EARTH too!

And except for a very few astronauts who live on a space station in space very near near PLANET EARTH--every man, woman and child now living is your neighbor--next-door neighbor or far from you neighbor--on our big PLANET EARTH!

Tomorrow I'll talk to you some more about our home planet.

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Galaxy

Bits of paper--a cartoony spiral galaxy

Hi.

Use your imagination again, please.

I re-arranged some cartoon bits of paper "STARS" on a black "space" background to look like a twisty loop of STARS.

This swirling group of STARS represents a GALAXY of STARS. (And remember every STAR is REALLY a SUN--just like our sun except very, very, very far away.

The MILKY WAY is our GALAXY--and our SUN is one of the many, many, many STARS in our GALAXY.

You can see LOTS of other GALAXIES when you look into space on a dark night, but they are SO FAR AWAY that usually they look just like tiny points of light--in fact--they look just like STARS .

Curious scientists have built powerful TELESCOPES to look at some of these other GALAXIES and they have discovered that there are thousands and millions of them.

They have never seen the end of them.

So there does not seem to be any end to space.

There are more galaxies and stars than anyone can count!

And they all SUNS and some other dark stuff that not even the smartest scientists know much about!

Maybe the adult reading you this will take you outside to show you some of the most interesting things about the night sky and maybe you will even look at some of the STARS and galaxies in a telescope!

THAT IS INTERESTING!

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SPEEDO!

You can travel to anyplace you can imagine at the SPEED OF THOUGHT!

HI!

Yesterday we had some fun talking in print about how FAST you can go!

You can RUN, you can RIDE a horse or in a car and you can FLY in a plane and maybe someday fly in a spaceship--BUT your body CAN'T Go FASTER than the SPEED OF LIGHT!


BUT CAN YOU?

Have you ever wanted to be somewhere so bad you imagined you were there?

This is a like a trick, because your body can't go, but it may be a REAL way to travel FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT!

Right now--today--a little kid like you or a grown-up like me can travel----

AT THE SPEED OF THOUGHT!


WOW!

Now that's really FAST!!!

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FAST!

Hello there.


I'll bet you are FAST!

Right?

But I know YOU know other things that are faster!

If you have a dog or know a dog-- that animal can probably run even faster than YOU.

When you ride in a car you go even faster!

Faster than a very fast dog!

Any when you fly in a plane you go faster still!

Space rockets can go even FASTER!

BUT--do you know what goes fastest of all?

(Pause for answers.)

Yes!

LIGHT!!

LIGHT is the fastest thing we know about.

When you turn on a light-- the light from the lightbulb gets to you eye so fast you can't even think about it before it is in your eye!

Now look at the picture of the cartoon star I drew for you.

As fast as light goes--it still takes light YEARS to get from the star to your eye!

And not just four or five years--but HUNDREDS of years!!

Isn't that interesting?

See you tomorrow!

Uncle Tom

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earthrise

Hi.

I have another puzzle for you today.


Take a look at today's picture.


It is a drawing I made of an astronaut's famous photograph.


Guess what it is!

(Various guesses...)


If you were on the moon---and you may be on the moon someday---you would see something like this in the morning.

Because this is a picture of the earth coming up in the morning!

When you are ON the moon, the EARTH rises!

And you can see the earth--our very own "Mother Earth" rising like a blue ball over the dry moon rocks.

(There are no trees or grass growing on the moon because there is no water!)

Isn't this interesting?

See you tomorrow!

Uncle Tom

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