Galaxies and the universe
Describe the scale of the universe, including the structure of galaxies, the position of the Sun in the Milky Way, and the use of light years as a unit of distance, and appreciate why space exploration requires enormous timescales
Typical age: 12–13 years
“If your child heard that a star is 400 light years away, could they explain what a light year means, roughly how far that is, and why we will never be able to visit it with current spacecraft?”
0 / 3 mastered
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Needs first
- Earth & Space Vocabulary
Describing the scale of the universe using light years and galaxies draws on this vocabulary
- Universal Gravitation
Gravity as a universal force provides context for why galaxies hold together and for the orbital dynamics at galactic scale
- Star Brightness & DistanceREQUIRED
Understanding the wider universe (galaxies, light years) extends the KS2 concept that the Sun is a nearby star and brightness varies with distance