Far, far away

Activity overview

Run the activity

You will be zooming in and out of the image above – starting very close and stepping back slowly.

1. Start by asking everyone:

• What do they think the image is and why?
• What does the image remind them of and why?

2. Every time you zoom out, ask the class:

• Can they describe the colours, shapes and textures?

What do they think the image is now – have they changed their minds?

Background science

This image was taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This is the largest, most powerful telescope ever built and was launched into space in December 2021. The Webb telescope is as tall as a 3-story building and as long as a tennis court. It was so big that it had to be folded origami-style to fit inside the rocket that launched it. The telescope then unfolded in space, sunshield first and travelled one million miles to capture this image.

The image shows the Southern Ring nebula, a dying star with a foamy edge of escaping gas. The rings of gas and dust are expelled by the star as it dies. It’s about 2,500 light-years away. A light-year is 9.3 trillion kilometres. Scientists were puzzled by the streak on the left-hand side and have concluded it is another galaxy viewed edge on.

New stars can be formed in the giant clouds of gas and dust of nebulae. Our Sun and solar system formed in a nebula 4.5 billion years ago. Eventually, all stars run out of fuel and they change. They expand and become red giant stars. The Sun will turn into a red giant in around 5 billion years’ time - its surface will reach the orbit of the Earth. All of the material left over from dying stars will form more baby stars, and new planets.

Watch out for...

Any object visible in space that generates its own heat and light is called a star. Many children do not realise that our Sun is a star. This is because they think that stars have a pointy shape. The Sun looks different to other stars because it is only 150,000,000 km away. Other stars that we can see in the sky are much further away than the Sun. The next nearest star is more than 250,000 times further away from Earth than the Sun is. It is because most stars are so far away that they appear as tiny, faint points of light.

This does not need to be corrected during the session, but you can pick it up later.

Take it further

Activities

UK-ESERO have created a number of activities linked to the James Webb telescope, while this ESA activity gets children folding their Webb telescope origami style.

Children could explore how telescopes work using lesson 6 of the BBC Stargazing guide. You could also use the Deep Space Diaries.  

Get the children thinking about how many stars we can see with this Big Question. This Odd One Out includes an image of our Sun.

Linked Explorify activities- our recommendations: 

Get the children thinking with the Big Question, How many stars can we see?. Compare the Sun with the Moon and planet Earth in Celestial objects. 

Watch

Learn about the story of stars with this Royal Observatory video or about the James Webb telescope with this NASA video.

Cross-curricular

The UK-ESERO publication Are we alone? has lots of activities about the search for life on other planets beyond our solar system.

Explorify useful reading

Read this teaching guide about Earth and Space.