Our Neighbourhood (附近的)Stars

Most of the stars that we see in the night sky are billions of kilometers away. But there is one star which is much closer to the Earth. We see it every day as a large, bright ball in the sky. It is called the Sun. It is the only star in our solar system(太阳系). It gives us heat and light. Without the sun, there would be no life on our planet.

The nearest star outside the solar system is called Alpha Certauri. It is bigger and hotter than the Sun. It looks much smaller because it is very far away. It takes four years for light to reach us from Alpha Centauri. The Earth is only about eight light minutes away from the Sun.

The Sun is not our nearest neighbour in space. The Moon is just 380, 000 kilometers away. It is the only part of the solar system that people have visited from the Earth. Where will we go next?

Do you know what will happen in a weightless environment? Students attend a science lesson given by astronauts on board China’s Tiangong space station on Wednesday, March 23, 2022. Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu, the members of the Shenzhou XIII, which was launched (发射) on October 16, appear on television screens watched by millions of students across China.

During the 41-minute lesson, the astronauts did four experiments to show physical phenomena (现象) only possible in a weightless environment, such as “liquid crystallization” and “a water bridge”. In one experiment, Wang used a toy of Bing Dwen Dwen, the mascot of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, to show how objects fly in Tiangong. They invited the young viewers to do similar experiments to see the differences between space and land environments.

Before closing the lesson, the astronauts answered questions from students. The questions covered the life and work in space, such as how to take care of the skin and whether hot water was available. Wednesday’s event marked the third time Wang had taken part in a space lesson. In June 2013, she gave the nation’s first space lesson to over 60 million Chinese students in Shenzhou X. It made China the second country, following the United States, to have given a lesson to schoolchildren from space.

In early December, Wang gave the country’s second space lesson from the Tiangong station. The astronauts showed viewers how they lived and worked inside the space station.

“These science lessons can encourage students to explore the world of science and technology.” Shi Yi, a physics teacher, said after today’s activity, “Encouraged by China’s spaceflight achievements, my school has built a space science laboratory and the teachers give lessons about space exploration.”

What is it like to travel in space? People aboard the Aurora Station（曙光女神空间站）, the world's first luxury（豪华的）space hotel, can tell you in the future. The hotel plans to welcome its first guests in 2022, CNN reported.

US company Orion Span built the hotel. It will fly 320 kilometers above Earth. It can hold six people at a time. Two of them will be workers. They may be former NASA astronauts.

Each trip aboard the station will last for 12 days. Guests there will be able to do many interesting things. For example, they will see 16 sunrises each day. They can fly and move around in zero gravity（重力）. They can also grow food in space. Later, they can bring the food back to Earth as a souvenir（纪念品）. These are the same things that astronauts usually do.

Guests can also share what they see and hear with others on Earth. They can have a video chat using a high-speed internet connection.

But the trip will be expensive. Each guest will have to pay at least $ 9.5 million（about 60 million yuan）.