Kids' zone
Shooting stars, space rocks, craters, comets and the Moon. Read true stories, ask questions, learn new words, print pictures to colour and play games. Everything here is true, and there are no adverts.
Stories
20 short, true stories to read together or alone.
What is a shooting star?
A quick streak of light flashes across the night sky. What made it?
Ages 5+Why do shooting stars come in showers?
On some nights of the year, you can see many more shooting stars than usual. Here is why.
Ages 5+The stone on the driveway
The true story of a space rock that landed in a small English town in 2021.
Ages 5+Where do meteorites come from?
A meteorite is a rock from space that lands on Earth. But where in space?
Ages 5+The Solar System family
Meet the Sun and the eight planets that travel around it.
Ages 5+How is a crater made?
A big space rock can make a giant hole in the ground. Here is how it happens.
Ages 5+The Moon's craters
Look at the Moon through binoculars and you will see it is covered in round holes.
Ages 5+Comets: icy visitors
Comets are giant lumps of ice and dust that grow glowing tails.
Ages 5+Hoba, the biggest meteorite
The heaviest meteorite ever found is so big it has never been moved.
Ages 7+Metal from space
Some meteorites are made almost entirely of metal. Where did it come from?
Ages 7+Rocks from Mars
Nobody has brought back a rock from Mars yet. But some Mars rocks have come to us by themselves.
Ages 5+Why is a meteorite black outside?
Many fresh meteorites have a thin, dark coat. It tells the story of their fiery fall.
Ages 7+The oldest rocks you can hold
Most meteorites are older than any rock on Earth.
Ages 7+Vesta and the howardites
This website is named after a kind of meteorite. Here is where they come from.
Ages 7+A spacecraft brings home asteroid dust
In 2020 a Japanese spacecraft delivered a gift from space: a little capsule of asteroid dust.
Ages 7+Bennu's surprise
When a spacecraft touched the asteroid Bennu, the surface acted more like a ball pit than solid ground.
Ages 5+How to watch for shooting stars
You do not need a telescope to see shooting stars. Just your eyes, a dark sky and a little patience.
Ages 7+Space dust on your roof
Tiny pieces of space land all over the world, all the time. Some might be on your roof.
Ages 7+Is it a planet or a star?
Some of the brightest points in the night sky are not stars at all. They are planets.
Ages 7+The day stones fell on L'Aigle
Over 200 years ago, most scientists did not believe stones could fall from the sky. Then came L'Aigle.
Kids ask
Do shooting stars make a noise?
Almost never. They happen about 100 kilometres up, much too far away to hear. Very rarely, a huge fireball makes a rumble or a boom that arrives a few minutes later, like distant thunder.
Are meteorites hot when they land?
Usually not. The outside melts during the fall, but only for a few seconds. The inside stays cold from space, so most meteorites are only warm or even cold when they land.
Why are craters round?
A big space rock hits so fast that it acts like an explosion. The explosion pushes out evenly in every direction, so the hole is round, even when the rock comes in at a slant.
Why does the Moon change shape?
The Moon does not really change shape. The Sun always lights up half of it. As the Moon travels around Earth, we see different amounts of the lit half, from a thin crescent to a full Moon. The whole cycle takes about 29 and a half days.
Which planet is the brightest in the sky?
Venus. After the Sun and the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the sky. It is often seen low in the west after sunset, or low in the east before sunrise.
Can children help scientists?
Yes! Counting shooting stars during a meteor shower, and reporting a bright fireball with an adult, both give scientists useful information. Lots of discoveries have been made by people who simply looked carefully.
Word book
What is a radiant? What does lunar mean? The word book explains 80 space words in a sentence or two.
Colouring and activities
Colour in: a shooting star over the hills
A shooting star over the hills
Colour in: a rocket blasting off
A rocket blasting off
Colour in: the Sun and the eight planets
The Sun and the eight planets
Dot-to-dot rocket
Join the dots to draw a rocket
Space maze
Steer the spacecraft to the asteroid
My Moon diary
Draw the Moon every clear night
Games
Family quiz
Pick the Kids level for picture questions.
Memory match
Flip the cards and find the pairs.
Word search
Hunt for hidden space words.
Word scramble
Unscramble space words, with a clue.
Pip the Pebble
An interactive picture book about a tiny rock's journey to Earth.
All games
Every game on the site, for every age.
The Space Rock Star test
Fifteen questions about the stories and answers in the Kids' zone. Get 12 right to earn your own Space Rock Star certificate.
Look up tonight
The sky calendar shows the Moon's shape, the next meteor shower and which planets you can see each month, with the best nights to watch from the UK.
The free Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 courses turn these topics into lessons with quizzes and a certificate. Older children can move on to Start here. Teachers will find free lesson plans, worksheets and science-fair project ideas by age in the teachers' area. Children's pages on this site show no adverts and collect no names.
Safety: go out at night only with an adult; never look at the Sun; and never lick, scratch, break or heat a rock you think might be a meteorite.