Space — Page 7
Mysteries of the universe
190 facts
The footprints left on the Moon by Apollo astronauts will likely remain there for millions of years.
The Moon has no atmosphere, wind, or liquid water, which are the main agents of erosion on Earth. Without these…
There is a giant cloud of alcohol in space, specifically ethyl alcohol, near the center of the Milky Way.
Astronomers have detected a massive molecular cloud in the Sagittarius B2 region, near the center of our galaxy. This…
A teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh about a billion tons on Earth.
Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of massive stars. Gravity crushes the matter so hard that atoms lose their…
There is a giant cloud of alcohol near the center of the Milky Way.
The Sagittarius B2 molecular cloud contains massive amounts of vinyl alcohol and ethanol. Although the concentration…
The footprints left on the Moon by astronauts will remain there for at least one hundred million years.
There is no wind or water on the Moon to cause erosion. The only thing that will very slowly erase them is the…
About one million Earths could fit inside the volume of the Sun.
The Sun contains over ninety-nine percent of the solar system's mass. Its diameter is about one million four hundred…
The exoplanet 55 Cancri e is largely composed of diamond.
Its mass and radius suggest a composition very rich in carbon. Due to the extreme pressure and heat near its star…
Space is completely silent because there is no medium for sound to travel through.
Sound is a mechanical wave that needs molecules like air or water to propagate. In the vacuum of space, the lack of…
Olympus Mons on Mars is almost three times taller than Mount Everest.
This shield volcano reaches about twenty-two kilometers in height. The lack of moving tectonic plates on Mars allowed…
Venus rotates in the opposite direction to most planets.
The planet spins from east to west, meaning the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, possibly due to a massive…
There is a giant cloud of alcohol in space.
The Sagittarius B2 cloud contains enough vinyl alcohol to fill billions of pints of beer, although it is dispersed…
Neutron stars can spin up to six hundred times per second.
After the collapse of a massive star, the conservation of angular momentum causes these ultra-dense objects to rotate…
The Sun rotates faster at the equator than at the poles.
Due to its gaseous nature, the Sun has differential rotation, completing one turn in about twenty-five days at the…
A day on Venus is longer than its year.
The planet takes two hundred and forty-three Earth days to complete one rotation, but only two hundred and…
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a storm that has lasted for centuries.
This anticyclonic storm has been observed since the seventeenth century and is larger than Earth, with winds reaching…
There is a known planet composed mostly of diamond.
The exoplanet 55 Cancri e has a carbon-rich interior which, due to extreme heat and pressure, likely exists in the…
The Sun loses millions of tons of mass every second.
Through nuclear fusion and solar wind, our star constantly converts and ejects matter into space, although this loss…
A day on Venus is longer than a year on the same planet.
The planet takes longer to complete one rotation on itself than to complete an entire orbit around the Sun.
There is a giant cloud of alcohol at the centre of our galaxy.
The Sagittarius B2 cloud contains vinyl alcohol in quantities sufficient to fill billions of litres of beer.
On Pluto, it snows methane on the highest mountains.
The dwarf planet's thin atmosphere contains methane that freezes and falls as snow in elevated regions, creating a…
The astronauts' footprints on the Moon will remain there for millions of years.
Since there is no atmosphere, wind, or water on the Moon, there is no erosion to erase the marks left by the Apollo…
Jupiter shrinks by about two centimetres every year.
The planet's huge mass generates strong gravitational compression, and the slow loss of internal heat causes the gas…
There is a planet covered in graphite and diamond.
The exoplanet 55 Cancri e is extremely hot and carbon-rich, which led scientists to conclude that a large part of its…
Venus is hotter than Mercury, even though it is further from the Sun.
The dense atmosphere of Venus is composed mostly of carbon dioxide, creating an extreme greenhouse effect that traps…