Right this second many millions of miles from here the first orbital study of Mercury is going on. Now you may not think thats got much to do with parenting and i would have thought the same until today.

We had just returned from the hospital with our youngest (3rd) and I wandered to the shops with our second in tow only for him to start pointing over my shoulder shouting, “‘oon!” Now bearing in mind he’s not even two yet and to be honest I’m not entirely sure how many times he’s seen the moon as he’s usually all tucked up in bed by the time its out I was struggling to understand what it was he was trying to say. It was early in the afternoon after all. Sure enough I turned round and there it was high in the sky and my son had a huge grin on his face and it got me thinking. I wasn’t much older than him when I started wanting to be a spaceman when I grew up and I was 8 when I got my first telescope. Astronomy seems to be something that lights a spark in young kids minds and very few people seem to realise it until it’s to late I think.

During the 70’s the Mariner 10 space craft swooped around Mercury a few times but despite this we still have only seen 50% of the planets surface.

Until now that is. On the 14th January 2008 the Messenger space craft took this picture.

Trying to explain that this photo was taken from 270,000 miles away from Mercury doesn’t really phase a child. Telling them that the journey to the shops that you go on every day is one mile and they still won’t really get just how far away the planet is from the space craft. Tell them it would take walking to and from the shops for for over 700 years just to walk that distance and watch their face as they start to comprehend. Once that one sinks in try explaining just how many miles it is from Earth to Mercury! I’ve just had to explain why Pluto isn’t on the list of planets at the back of number 1 child’s homework diary but it’s on all our posters.

If the sky’s are clear tonight take your kids out and see if you can find mercury. Just after sunset you should just see it low on the horizon and explain to them just how we get there.