Star Light
Maria looked up at the night sky. So many stars! She wondered what was out there in the big universe. Her dad gave her a small telescope for her birthday last week. Tonight was the first night without clouds.
“Can I see the moon?” she asked her dad.
“Of course! Let me help you,” he said, setting up the telescope in their garden.
Maria looked through it. The moon seemed so close now! She could see the dark and light parts clearly.
“Wow! It’s amazing!” she said. “What are those dark spots?”
“Those are called ‘seas’, but they don’t have water,” her dad explained. “They are flat areas where lava cooled a long time ago.”
Maria looked for a long time. Then she pointed the telescope at a bright star.
“That’s not just a star,” her dad said. “That’s Jupiter, a big planet. It has many moons too.”
Maria couldn’t believe her eyes. She was seeing other worlds! She stayed outside until it was very late. Her dad brought her hot chocolate to keep warm.
“Can we do this again tomorrow?” she asked.
“Every clear night,” her dad promised.
Space Dreams
That night, Maria dreamed about space. In her dream, she was an astronaut, flying in a spaceship. She went past the moon and waved to it like an old friend.
She flew to Mars, the red planet. It had orange sand everywhere. Then she went to Jupiter and saw its big red spot, a storm bigger than Earth.
“Where should I go next?” she asked herself.
She decided to go far, to see other stars. In her dream, her spaceship was very fast. When she looked back, our sun was just a small bright point.
Maria saw many amazing things: stars being born in colorful clouds, stars dying in big explosions, and strange black holes that pulled everything in.
She even found a planet with blue water like Earth. She wondered if someone there was looking back at her.
When Maria woke up, her room was full of morning light. Her telescope stood by the window. It wasn’t just a tool anymore. It was a key to the universe.
At breakfast, she told her parents about her dream.
“I want to learn everything about space,” she said. “Maybe one day I can really go there.”
Her mom smiled. “You can start by reading these books from the library.”
Night Sky
Every night after that, Maria and her dad watched the sky. They saw Saturn with its beautiful rings. They saw Venus, so bright in the evening. They even saw a shooting star!
“Make a wish,” her dad said when they saw it.
“I wish to know more about the universe,” Maria said.
At school, Maria’s teacher was happy about her new interest. The class was learning about the solar system. Maria knew many things already.
“Did you know that Earth goes around the sun once every year?” she told her friends at lunch. “And the moon goes around Earth every month.”
Maria’s room changed too. She put up pictures of planets and stars on her walls. She had a map of the moon and knew the names of many places on it. Her bookshelf had more and more books about space.
One evening, there was a special event at the local science center. An astronomer was giving a talk about new planets found around other stars.
“Can we go, please?” Maria asked her parents.
At the talk, Maria listened carefully. She learned that there are billions of stars in our galaxy, and many have planets. The universe was bigger than she ever imagined.
“One day,” the astronomer said, “we might find life out there.”
Maria smiled. The universe was full of wonderful secrets, waiting to be found.