Cool Space Facts
- Jupiter is larger than 1,000 Earths.
- The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is a hurricane-like storm system that was first detected in the early 1600’s.
- The Sun look 1600 times fainter from Pluto that it does from Earth.
- There is a super massive black hole right in the middle of the Milky Way galaxy (our galaxy) that is 4 million times the mass of the Sun.
- Asteroids and comets are believed to be ancient remnants of the formation of our Solar System (more than 4 billion years ago!).
- The most dangerous asteroids, those capable of causing major regional or global disasters, usually impact the Earth only once every 100,000 years on average.
- Some large asteroids even have their own moon.
- Some of the fastest meteoroids can travel through the solar system at a speed of around 26 miles per second.
- The Sun is over 300,000 times larger than Earth.
- Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system with a surface temperature of over 450 degrees Celsius.
- Saturn isn’t the only ringed planet. Other gas giants such as Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune also have rings, they are just less obvious.
- Footprints and tire tracks left behind on the moon will stay there forever as there is no wind to blow them away.
- In 2006, astronomers changed the definition of a planet. This means that Pluto is now referred to as a dwarf planet.
- The only planet that rotates on its side like a barrel is Uranus, and the only planet that spins backwards relative to the others is Venus.
- The first man-made object sent into space was in 1957 when the Russian satellite named Sputnik was launched.