100 Interesting Facts
About Space
Space is mysterious and beautiful, understand it more with this
list of one hundred interesting facts about space, planets, moons and stars!
1. Mercury and Venus are the only two planets in our solar system
that do not have any moons.
2. If a star passes too close to a black hole, it can be torn apart.
3. The hottest planet in our solar system is Venus. Most people often
think that it would be Mercury, as it’s the closest planet to the sun. This is
because Venus has a lot of gasses in its atmosphere, which causes the
“Greenhouse Effect”.
4. The solar system is around 4.6 billion years old. Scientist
estimate that it will probably last another 5000 million years
5. Enceladus, one of Saturn’s smaller moons, reflects some 90% of the
sunlight, making it more reflective than snow!
6. The highest mountain known to man is the Olympus Mons, which is
located on Mars. It’s peak is 15 miles (25KM) high, making it nearly 3 times
higher than Mt Everest.
8. A light year is the distance covered by light in a single year,
this is equivalent to 5.88 trillion miles (9.5 trillion KM)!
9. The width of the Milky Way is around 100,000 light years.
10. The Sun is over 300,000 times larger than Earth.
11. Footprints and tire tracks left by astronauts on the moon will
stay there forever as there is no wind to blow them away.
12. Because of lower gravity, a person who weighs 100kg on earth would
only weigh 38kg on the surface of Mars.
13. Scientists believe there are 67 moons that orbit Jupiter, however
only 53 of these have been named.
14. The Martian day is 24 hours 39 minutes and 35 seconds.
15. NASA’s Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) declared
that they have found evidence of significant amounts of water on the Earth’s
Moon.
16. The Sun makes a full rotation once every 25-35 days.
17. Venus is the only planet that spins backwards relative to the
other planets.
18. The force of gravity can sometimes cause comets to tear apart.
19. It is thanks to the Sun and our own moons gravity that we have
high and low tides.
20. Pluto is smaller than the Earth’s moon!
21. According to mathematics, white holes are possible, although as of
yet, we have found none.
22. Our moon is around 4.5 billion years old.
23. There are more volcanoes on Venus than any other planet within our
solar system.
24. Uranus’ blue glow is down to the methane in its atmosphere, which
filters out all the red light.
25. The four planets in our solar system that are known as gas giants
are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus.
26. Uranus has 27 moons that have been discovered so far.
27. Because of its unique tilt, a single night on Uranus lasts for 21
years!
28. Triton, one of Neptune’s moons, is gradually getting closer to the
planet it orbits.
29. Scientists say that eventually Triton will get so close to
Neptune, it will be torn apart by gravity, and Neptune could end up with more
rings than Saturn currently has!
30. The only large moon in our solar system to orbit in the opposite
direction of its planet is Neptune’s moon, Triton.
31. Neptune takes 164.79 years (60,190 days) to make one orbit of the
Sun. this means that since it’s discovery in 1846, it has only completed just
one orbit!
32. Charon is one of the moons of Pluto, and is only slightly smaller
than Pluto itself.
33. The Space Station is the largest manned object ever sent into
space.
34. A day on Pluto lasts for 6 days and 9 hours.
35. Saturn is the second largest planet in our solar system.
36. Any free-moving liquid in outer space will form itself into a
sphere, because of its surface tension.
37. Earth, Mars, Mercury and Venus are called the inner planets as
they are closest to the sun.
38. We know more about space than we do about deep in our oceans.
39. The only satellite that Britain has launched was called Black
Arrow.
40. Black Arrow was developed during the 1960’s and was used for four
launches between 1969 and 1971.
41. The light takes 8.3 minutes to travel from the Sun the Earth.
42. The odds of being killed by space debris is 1 in 5 billion.
43. The Earth’s revolution time increases .0001 seconds annually.
44. If you were driving at 75 miles (121 km) per hour, it would take
258 days to drive around one of Saturn’s rings.
45. The first man on the moon was Neil Armstrong.
46. The Space Station circles the earth every 90 minutes.
47. Stars seem to twinkle in the night sky due to the light being
disrupted as it passes though the Earth’s atmosphere.
48. Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon with his left foot.
49. There are three main types of galaxies out in space, and they are
spiral, elliptical, and irregular.
50. There are approximately 200,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way.
51. In the northern skies, you are able to see two galaxies. These are
the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33).
52. The planet with the most moons in our galaxy is Jupiter, with 67.
53. The closest galaxy to us is the Andromeda Galaxy.
54. The first Supernovae that was observed outside of our own galaxy
was the S Andromeade, in the Andromeda galaxy in 1855.
55. The Andromeda Galaxy appears in the night sky as a smudge of
light, and is in fact the most furthest away object in the night sky that you
can see with your eyes.
56. The distance between the Sun and Earth is defined as an
Astronomical Unit, or AU for short.
57. The second man on the moon was Buzz Aldrin.
58. “Moon” was Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name.
59. The Mariner 10 is the only spacecraft that has ever visited the
planet Mercury. It managed to take pictures of about 45% of the surface.
60. If you shouted in space even if someone was right next to you they
wouldn’t be able to hear you.
61. February in 1865 and 1999 are the only months in recorded history
not to have a full moon.
62. Due to the lack of gravity in space, astronauts can grow
approximately two inches in height.
63. The Kuiper Belt is a region of the Solar System beyond the orbit
of Neptune.
64. The first woman in space was a Russian called Valentina
Tereshkova.
65. There are currently 166 moons in our solar system.
66. The largest star known to man is R136a1, which has a mass of
265-320 times that of our sun!
67. The first artificial satellite in space was called sputnik.
68. The furthest away galaxy from Earth, that has been discovered, is
GRB 090423, which is 13.6 billion light years away! This means that the light
we see from it began its journey only 600,000 years after the Universe was
created!
69. The largest black hole known to man is the Quasar OJ287, and has
an expected mass of 18 billion times that of our own sun.
70. Our moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of 4cm (1.6 Inches)
per year! (Read More)
71. Pluto is named after the Roman god of the underworld, not the
Disney Dog.
72. The Sun is the largest object in our solar system.
73. When fully constructed, the Space Station will be visible for more
than 90% of the Earth’s population.
74. Although Saturn is the second largest planet in our solar system,
it is also the lightest planet!
75. Asteroids are the byproducts of formations in the solar system,
more than 4 billion years ago.
76. Astronauts cannot burp in space!
77. As there is no air in space, no one is able to hear each other
speak – as the air is needed to carry the sound vibrations.
78. Uranus was originally called “George’s Star”.
79. The Sun loses up to a billion kilogrammes per second due to the
solar winds.
80. As Saturn has a very low density, if you were able to put it into
water, it would float!
81. The mass of the Moon is about one-eightieth of the Earth’s mass.
82. The first living mammal to ever go into space was a dog named
“Laika” from Russia.
83. The term “astronaut” is derived from the Greek words ástron,
meaning “star”, and nautes, which means “sailor”. So, the word astronaut means
star sailor!
84. All together, the space travellers have spent just over 30,400
days (83 years) in space!
85. Sergei K. Krikalevo has spent more time in space than anyone else.
He has racked up a total of 803 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes, which is
equivalent to 2.2 years!
86. Mercury has no atmosphere which means there is no wind or weather.
87. Only 24 people have ever seen our whole planet from Space.
However, thanks to Google Earth, which has now been downloaded over 500 million
times, we can add a few more to that original number!
88. Red Dwarf stars that are low in mass can burn continually for up
to 10 trillion years!
89. There is an estimated 2 x 1023 stars in space. In English, this is:
200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!
90. Scientists used to believe that the same side of Mercury always
faced the sun. Then in 1965 astronomers discovered that the planet rotates
three times during every two orbits it makes.
91. Jupiter is known as the dumping ground for our solar system, as a
large percentage of asteroids are pulled in by Jupiter’s gravity.
92. A day on Mercury is equivalent to 58 Earth days, and a year is
equivalent to 88 days!
93. As space has no gravity, normal pens won’t work!
94. On average it takes the light only 1.3 seconds to travel from the
moon to the earth.
95. There are 88 recognised star constellations in our night sky.
96. The centre of a comet is called a nucleus.
97. As early as 240 B.C. the Chinese began to document the appearance
of Halley’s Comet.
98. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto
as a dwarf planet.
99. There are now 4 dwarf planets in the Solar System: Ceres, Pluto,
Eris and Makemake.
100. Buzz Lightyear has been out in space! He has spent 15 months on
board the International Space Station, and returned to Earth on the 11th of September, 2009.
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