Make a galaxy biscuit
Have you ever looked up and seen that fuzzy white band across our night sky? It is called the Milky Way. The Milky Way is our Galaxy, and it contains 100- 400 billion stars; our Sun is just one of those.
A galaxy is a huge collection of billions of stars and their solar systems, plus gas and dust all held together by gravity. There are a few common galaxy shapes- the Milky Way is spiral-shaped while others are elliptical or irregular. They are very colourful and are excellent inspiration for decorating biscuits or even cupcakes!
- Choose your favourite biscuit recipe and bake a batch with the help of an adult then let them cool. A smoother biscuit works best. Store bought biscuits work well too.
- Make icing by mixing a cup of icing sugar with 2-3 tablespoons of milk or milk-substitute in a small bowl, adding a little at a time until you have reached a thick, but still runny consistency.
- Split your icing into 3 or 4 containers or bowls. Add a few drops of food colouring to each bowl. Black or dark blue to represent space then choose one or two others like purple, pink or yellow. You could also leave some white.
- Add a spoonful of the black or dark blue icing to a biscuit and spread the icing out to the edges, then add a smaller blob of the other colours.
- Use a toothpick or skewer to carefully swirl the colours together to make your galaxy. Have you made a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way or is it more irregular?
- Finish by sprinkling on some hundreds and thousands on top to finish. Repeat with your other biscuits. Enjoy!
If we were able to fly through space we would see that the stars in these galaxies are all different colours. This is due to the different temperatures of the stars. Here on Earth we know that very hot things like fire are different temperatures depending on how hot they are. Blue flames are hottest and yellow to reddish/orange flames are cooler, although even these are very hot indeed!
If we were to travel to distant stars and see them as close as we can see our sun, the blue stars would be hotter than the red stars. Our yellow sun is a medium temperature compared to other stars in the universe. How many very hot stars are on your galaxy biscuits?
As always, you can share your creations with us using #Scienceworks and #MuseumatHome.