Grade 5 · Unit 6: Earth’s movements
The Sun, the Earth and the Moon
A star, a planet and a moon.
The Sun is a star
The Sun is a star, a huge ball of very hot, glowing gas. It gives the Earth light and heat. It is so big that more than a million Earths could fit inside it.
The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old. It is a medium-sized star – some stars are hundreds of times bigger.
The Earth is a planet
The Earth is a planet. It travels round the Sun in an orbit. It is about 150 million km from the Sun. It is the only planet we know of where living things are found.
Earth has liquid water, air we can breathe and a comfortable temperature – the right conditions for life.
The Moon
The Moon is the Earth’s moon. It orbits the Earth. It is much smaller than the Earth and has no air or water. It is covered in craters made by rocks from space.
Twelve astronauts walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Their footprints are still there, because there is no wind or rain to wipe them away.
Sizes and distances
If the Earth were a football, the Moon would be a tennis ball about 7 metres away. The Sun would be as tall as a building, more than 2 km away!
Making a scale model shows how empty space is: most of the solar system is empty space between the planets.
What I learnt
- I know that the Sun is a star, the Earth is a planet and the Moon orbits the Earth.
- I can describe the relative sizes of the Sun, Earth and Moon.