Space — Page 3

Olympus Mons on Mars is the largest known volcano in the solar system, about 22 kilometres high.

Olympus Mons is about 22 kilometres high, almost three times the height of Mount Everest, with a base hundreds of…

Moonquakes can last more than an hour.

Moonquakes, seismic events that occur on the Moon, can last more than an hour. Unlike earthquakes on Earth, which…

A day on Jupiter lasts only about 10 hours.

Jupiter is the fastest-rotating planet in the solar system, completing one rotation in about 9 hours and 56 minutes…

There is a maximum limit for the mass of a star.

Stars with a mass greater than about 150 times the mass of the Sun would be unstable due to radiation pressure and…

Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, has water geysers at its south pole.

The moon Enceladus ejects jets of water vapour and ice from cracks at its south pole. The Cassini probe flew through…

Fast radio bursts are cosmic signals that last milliseconds.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are pulses of energy that last only a few milliseconds, but can release as much energy as…

The Kuiper Belt is a region of the solar system beyond Neptune.

The Kuiper Belt is a ring of icy bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune, between 30 and 50 astronomical units. It…

Venus is often mistaken for a star.

Venus is often called the morning star or evening star, because it is the brightest planet seen from Earth. Its dense…

Halley's comet only passes near Earth every 76 years.

Halley's comet completes one orbit around the Sun in about 76 years. Its last passage near Earth was in 1986, and the…

The planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets.

Planetary nebulae are clouds of gas and dust ejected by dying stars. The name arose in the 18th century when…

The exoplanet PSR J2322-2650b is shaped like a lemon because it orbits a normal star.

The exoplanet PSR J2322-2650b, with a mass similar to Jupiter s, orbits a pulsar at an extremely short distance…

The interstellar comet 3I/Atlas releases more than five tonnes of water vapour per second.

Comet 3I/Atlas, the third known interstellar object to cross the Solar System, was observed releasing water vapour at…

A supermassive black hole was expelled from its galaxy and is creating stars along its path.

The James Webb telescope observed a runaway supermassive black hole, expelled from its galaxy, travelling through…

Saturn would float in water if there were a bathtub large enough.

Despite its gigantic size, Saturn is the only planet in the solar system with an average density lower than that of…

A sunset on Mars appears blue to the human eye because fine dust in the Martian atmosphere scatters red light and allows blue light to penetrate more directly.

Unlike Earth, where the atmosphere scatters blue light during the day, dust particles on Mars scatter red light…

Jupiter does not have a defined solid surface, being composed mainly of hydrogen and helium in gaseous and liquid states.

As one descends into Jupiter's atmosphere, the pressure increases until the gases are compressed into a dense…

A year on Mercury lasts only eighty-eight Earth days.

Being the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury completes its orbit at an extraordinary speed, resulting in the shortest…

One million Earths could fit inside the volume of the Sun.

The Sun is a medium-sized star, but its scale is so vast that its volume could contain approximately one million…

The planet 55 Cancri e is believed to be largely composed of diamond.

Orbiting very close to its star, this super-Earth exoplanet has such high pressure and temperature that the carbon…

The rings of Saturn are made primarily of ice particles, rocky debris, and dust.

These rings extend for hundreds of thousands of kilometers but are incredibly thin, being only about ten meters thick…

Venus rotates on its axis in the opposite direction to most other planets in the solar system.

This retrograde rotation causes the Sun to rise in the west and set in the east on Venus, a unique phenomenon among…

Neutron stars can spin at a rate of over 700 rotations per second.

When a massive star explodes and its core collapses, the conservation of angular momentum causes the resulting…

There is a massive water vapor cloud around a quasar that holds 140 trillion times the water in Earth's oceans.

Astronomers observed the quasar APM 08279+5255, over 10 billion light-years away, and discovered this massive cloud…

The Moon is moving away from the Earth by about 4 centimetres per year.

The Moons gravity causes tides in the Earths oceans. This movement creates friction that transfers energy from the…