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Wonder · Look up tonight

Sky Wonders

Eighteen free cards for anyone who has ever looked up. Each card holds one astronomical wonder: a painting that gets the details right and one sentence that changes how you see the sky. Open a card for what’s really going on, a common myth, and where to read more.

For ages 8 to adult · 18 free cards · Free to share and print

See the cardsTwo games to play

Our Solar System

Our Sun and its giant planets, up close.

Sky Wonders card SKY-01, The Sun, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: About 1.3 million Earths could fit inside the Sun, and it holds 99.8% of all the mass in our solar system. The SunSKY-01Sky Wonders card SKY-02, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a storm wider than Earth, and people have watched it swirl for nearly 200 years. Jupiter’s Great Red SpotSKY-02Sky Wonders card SKY-03, Saturn’s Rings, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: Saturn’s rings stretch hundreds of thousands of kilometres, yet in most places they are only about as thick as a three-storey house is tall. Saturn’s RingsSKY-03

Stars

How stars are born, what their colours mean, and how they end.

Sky Wonders card SKY-10, Star Colours, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: The bluest stars are the hottest and the reddest are the coolest — the opposite of the red and blue on a tap. Star ColoursSKY-10Sky Wonders card SKY-11, Star Nurseries, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: Stars are born inside dark clouds of gas and dust. Our Sun was born in one about 4.6 billion years ago. Star NurseriesSKY-11Sky Wonders card SKY-12, Neutron Stars, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: A neutron star packs more than the Sun’s mass into a city-sized ball. A sugar cube of it would weigh like a mountain. Neutron StarsSKY-12

Galaxies

Our home galaxy, our nearest big neighbour, and the black hole at our centre.

Sky Wonders card SKY-19, The Milky Way Is Home, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: That faint river of light across a dark sky is our own galaxy, seen edge-on from the inside. The Milky Way Is HomeSKY-19Sky Wonders card SKY-20, Andromeda, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: On a dark night you can see another galaxy with just your eyes: Andromeda, whose light left it about 2.5 million years ago. AndromedaSKY-20Sky Wonders card SKY-21, The Heart of the Galaxy, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: Our galaxy’s heart holds a black hole four million times the Sun’s mass. In 2022 we saw its shadow for the first time. The Heart of the GalaxySKY-21

Cosmic Scale

How far, how many and how long ago: the universe’s true size.

Sky Wonders card SKY-28, Light from the Past, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: You always see the past: the Moon as it was a second ago, the Sun 8 minutes ago, the stars years ago. Light from the PastSKY-28Sky Wonders card SKY-29, A Grain of Sand, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: Hold up a grain of sand at arm’s length. The patch of sky it covers holds thousands of galaxies. A Grain of SandSKY-29Sky Wonders card SKY-30, The Cosmic Calendar, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: Squeeze the universe’s 13.8 billion years into one year, and humans arrive about 11 minutes before midnight on 31 December. The Cosmic CalendarSKY-30

Sky Events

Eclipses, auroras and shooting stars, and what is really happening.

Sky Wonders card SKY-37, The Perfect Eclipse, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: The Sun is about 400 times wider than the Moon and about 400 times farther away, so the Moon can just cover it. The Perfect EclipseSKY-37Sky Wonders card SKY-38, Northern and Southern Lights, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: Auroras are the Sun’s wind made visible: particles from the Sun make the air itself glow, high above the ground. Northern and Southern LightsSKY-38Sky Wonders card SKY-39, Shooting Stars, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: Most shooting stars are specks of space dust, often no bigger than a grain of sand, burning up high above us. Shooting StarsSKY-39

Us and the Sky

What the sky has to do with you.

Sky Wonders card SKY-46, Made of Star Stuff, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: The calcium in your bones and the iron in your blood were made inside stars that died before the Sun was born. Made of Star StuffSKY-46Sky Wonders card SKY-47, The Pale Blue Dot, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: From six billion kilometres away, Voyager 1 looked back and saw all of Earth as a dot smaller than one pixel. The Pale Blue DotSKY-47Sky Wonders card SKY-48, The Same Moon, with a painting of the night sky. It reads: Everyone on Earth sees the same face of the Moon. On the other side of the world, it just looks upside down. The Same MoonSKY-48

Two games to play with the cards

Tonight’s Sky

A game with no losers. 2 or more players, ages 6 and up, outdoors, 20 to 40 minutes.

  1. Use only the cards with an eye in the top corner: things you can see without a telescope. Leave out any you can’t see tonight (no Moon tonight? Leave out The Same Moon).
  2. Each player takes two cards and lays them face up.
  3. Go somewhere as dark as you can, switch off torches and screens, and wait 20 minutes for your eyes to adjust.
  4. When someone spots what’s on a card, they point it out to everyone and read the card’s sentence aloud. The card goes on the “seen tonight” pile.
  5. Then someone reads that card’s myth or its fact, and everyone guesses which it is.
  6. Count your pile at the end. Next time, try to spot one more.

Children should always have a grown-up with them. Never look straight at the Sun.

Myth or Fact?

2 or more players, ages 8 and up.

  1. The reader opens a card page and secretly picks one line: the sentence on the card (a fact) or the myth below it.
  2. Everyone gives a thumbs up for fact or a thumbs down for myth.
  3. The reader reveals the answer and reads What’s going on. A right guess scores a point.

The same rules work with Quantum Wonders, so you can mix the two.

Cards you can see with your own eyes: Star Colours · The Milky Way Is Home · Andromeda · Light from the Past · The Perfect Eclipse · Northern and Southern Lights · Shooting Stars · The Same Moon

About these cards

Are they accurate?

Every number on these cards was checked against its source, mostly NASA, ESA, OpenStax astronomy textbooks and original research papers, and each card page lists where to read more. The paintings were checked too: Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s stripes and the shape of Andromeda are drawn the way they really look. If you spot a mistake, please tell us at [email protected].

Can I use them in a classroom?

Yes. Show them on screen, print them, or copy the explanations for your class. Please keep the web address on the card. How you can use these cards

Is there a full deck?

These 18 cards come from a 54-card deck with six groups of nine. The rest will come with a printed deck. Printed card sets