25 Heavenly Facts About Our Solar System Everyone Should Know

Uranus and Neptune are not "Gas Giants" as is commonly believed, but belong to a separate category of giant planets called "Ice Giants." This is because less than 20% of their mass is made up of hydrogen and helium. True gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn are over 90% hydrogen and helium.

Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky, right after the moon. It is bright enough to be seen in the day, and cast a shadow at night.

Phobos orbits Mars fast enough that solar eclipses last about 30 seconds, and there can be two eclipses in a single day.

The moon is moving away from earth at about the same rate as a human’s fingernails grow.

Planets "emit sounds" by pulsing with radio waves, which can be picked up by radio antennae. The Earth's noise is sometimes referred to as Earth's "chorus" because it sounds a bit like birds chirping.

Earth's magnetic poles flip on average every 200,000 - 300,000 years. It flipped 780,000 years ago.

There is a non-spherical, egg-shaped dwarf planet orbiting the Sun in our Solar System named Haumea. It is approximately 1/3 the size of Pluto.

It takes 248 years for Pluto to orbit the Sun, meaning it hasn't even gotten halfway around the sun since it was discovered in 1930.

Uranus has a magnetic field that "flickers" because the magnetic field is so off-kilter with its rotational axis that magnetic lines will snap apart and reconnect as it rotates. According to one astronomer, "Uranus is a geometric mess."

Earth has enough iron to make 3 new planets, each with the same mass as Mars.