Sky commemorates lunar landing with website 'solar system'

Sky News has commemorated the moon landing 40 years ago today by launching an interactive solar system graphic with video on its website.

The feature allows visitors to the site to ‘travel’ around our solar system and learn more about the eight planets and redefined planetoid, Pluto. By clicking on a planet visitors can read key information and statistics about that body.

This includes a ‘did you know’ fact, its distance from the earth and how long it would take to travel to the planet.

For example do you remember from school that Venus is the only planet where the sun rises in the west and sets in the east?

A series of videos narrated by Anu Ojha, director of education and space communications at the National Space Centre, gives the user more key data about the planet in question.

He explains why he thinks that another landing on the moon by man is probably about 10 years away – why Mars is 30 years away, and anywhere further is 100 years away.

He also explains why man might want to go back to the moon in the future 40 years after that historic first landing on July 20, 1969 and the last manned mission to the moon in 1972.

“Robots are great for starters, but if we really want to get deep understanding, we need to send humans at some stage in the future,” he says.

The link to the interactive graphic will be prominently featured on the Sky News website today, but will remain available to visitors on an ongoing basis after that time.