INTRODUCTION

People have always wanted to know more about the planets and stars outside Earth. Until recently, this has simply been a dream. Exploration of space began when people like the Italian astronomer, Galileo Galilei, built a telescope to look closely at the Moon and planets like Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. Since then, telescopes have improved to look even closer and deeper into space. There are even telescopes orbiting Earth, such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

As well as looking into space, man has also travelled into space. People have landed on the Moon on six different ocassions, lived on space stations orbiting Earth and sent probes to visit all of the planets of the Solar System (apart from Pluto) and some of their moons. Space craft and probes visit these other planets to search for extra-terrestrial life, to find out what they are made of, to discover what their surfaces look like and look for vital things such a water.

In the future, man is likely to land on Mars and have to live there for up to three years. A probe will be sent to visit the most distant planet, Pluto, and probes are also being sent out to revisit the Gas Giants and land on some of their moons, for example, Titan of Saturn.