At the intersection of children's interests and parental passions, a special thing happens. Like all beings from the dawn of time, Monster has begun to look to the heavens and get curious. As a long-time fan of the science and math of the celestial, I am thrilled.
The question, then, becomes how to explain the complexities of chemistry and physics without the assumption that we need to dumb it down. First, I wished for my old professor,
Pan Papacosta, who managed to describe the inner workings of a nuclear reactor in such a way that every last one of us walked away from his lecture feeling confident we could build one in the event of a zombie apocalypse (in retrospect, a little alarming, but no mean feat at an arts school.) This is where mommies like me rely heavily on the mixing of metaphor to explain. Here was my lesson:
The world is made of specks so tiny we can't see them. These specks, like people, are all a little different. Just like Monster likes to be naked, wear clothes, and wear coats at different temperatures, all specks are a gas (like clouds), a liquid (like juice), or a solid (like rocks) at different temperatures. In the whole wide world, which we call the universe, most of the specks travel alone or with one or two friends. These specks are called hydrogen, helium (two friends), or the friendly speck, oxygen. Oxygen is a nice speck, and he'll be friends with anyone, no matter how tired or sad,
which comes in handy when you're breathing in and out.
It takes a very special situation to make big speck, like a big party. We're Irish, so the biggest parties are always funerals. We see very big specks get born when big, old stars die. After the funeral, these big specks go out into the universe, looking for something to do.
A place where all kinds of specks go to look for something to do is called a nebula. When you don't know what to do, and are bored, the best thing to do is start dancing. It helps make new friends, is really good exercise, and makes everyone happy. The easiest way to dance with a big group of people is in a circle, but no matter how you dance, you'll always wind up really sweaty and hot. The middle of the circle is always the hottest, because that's where everyone is the most excited and moving the fastest.
Remember how different specks want to put on different clothes at different temperatures? Well, the specks that are hottest in the middle just want to get naked and keep dancing. Most of what's in the middle is hydrogen - little ones - and they'll dance like crazy for as long as they can, because they don't have anyone with them to get tired and want to go home. Soon, these crazy dancing hydrogens get really really hot and turn into something really really special - a star.
Big specks get tired faster, because it's harder to move a fat group than one person. Because they don't move as fast, they'll get colder faster, and put their coats on, or turn into rocks, closer to the middle than anyone else. The further away from the middle of the circle you get, the more specks start putting on coats and turning into rocks.
Every baby world was born because of specks putting on coats. If you're going to be sitting around in coats, you might as well do it with friends. As bigger groups of friends in coats get together, they start to be called
planetesimals. This just means a bunch of rocks that got tired at the party, but don't want to leave. They'll go around in circles at the party, bumping into other planetesimals at the party but not really wanting to leave. Sometimes they'll make friends with other planetesimals and will get bigger and bigger. Other times they'll just smash into each other, and the big group will break back up into smaller groups.
We've talked about planets in the solar system. The first one, Mercury, is made of the biggest, fattest specks that got tired closest to the party. Just like daddy's little medicine ball is heavier than a beach ball, Mercury is way heavier than almost any other planet in the solar system because it's crammed full of fat guys.
Venus is pretty heavy too, but it's also super hot because it's covered in fart blankets.
Earth, which is our world, is heavy, but not as heavy as Mercury. It's covered in blankets too, but not fart blankets. It's these blankets that keep us warm in the night time when the sun isn't able to touch us and heat us up.
Mars is less heavy than Earth, but has almost no blanket, so it can get very cold.
Jupiter is a funny planet. First, it's like the daddy of all the planets. If it got really hungry, it could eat Earth like a Cheerio. But Jupiter is almost all made of tiny specks that started their own separate party. You can't stand on Jupiter.
Saturn is a lot like Jupiter, but it's a bit smaller. It could still eat Earth, but it be more of a complete breakfast. Saturn wears a hula hoop made of dust, ice cubes and planetesimals that decided to break into smaller bits.
Uranus lies on its side, and is very very cold. It is made of ice, the stinky part of cat pee and farts, and has a tiny little ring around it. It's a lot bigger than Earth, but if it decided to eat Earth, it would be more like a light lunch.
Neptune is also made of ice, the stinky part of cat pee, and farts, but is a little smaller. Four earths could fit inside Neptune. The amount of farts covering Neptune is why Neptune is blue. It also has lots of storms.
