1 Saturns’ Rings
Saturns’ rings are, cosmically speaking, a very brief event. We are about halfway through their 200 million year lifespan and are very lucky as a species to be alive to witness them. “Some velociraptor with a telescope looking at Saturn would not have seen rings.”
2. Astronomers have discovered a bizarre rogue planet named SIMP J01365663+0933473 wandering the Milky Way. The free-range planet, which is nearly 13 times the mass of Jupiter and does not orbit a star, also displays stunningly bright auroras that are generated by a magnetic field 4 million times stronger than Earth’s.
3. The moon has “moon-quakes” and because the moon has a smaller core than earth, this causes it to ring like a bell
4. Jupiter’s outermost known moon hasn’t been spotted since its discovery in 2003, and is currently considered “lost.”
5. The Sun is actually white. Viewed from space or a high altitude, it appears as its true color white, whereas when it is viewed from a low altitude, atmospheric rendering makes it appear to be what we believe as yellow.
6 Cosmic Vacuum Cleaner
Jupiter is a “cosmic vacuum cleaner.” Its gravitational influence causes comets and asteroids to collide with it. The rate of impacts on Jupiter is about 2000-8000X higher than the rate on Earth. Without Jupiter, the probability of asteroid impacts with the inner planets would be much greater.
7. When Uranus was discovered it was called George for about 70 years.
8. There are “lone planets” that roam endlessly through space without ever going into orbit. They are actually predicted to be more common than stars. Scientists believe these lone worlds were probably ejected from developing planetary systems.
9. It takes 243 Earth-days for Venus to rotate about its axis, yet it takes 225 Earth-days for Venus to orbit the sun. That means that, on Venus, a day takes longer than a year.
10. About 70,000 years ago, a nomadic star came within 1 light-year of the Sun and research suggests this close pass sent dozens of comets and asteroids tumbling out of our solar system.
11 Cosmic Point of No Return
If you were able to travel from the Earth to a distance of 8.3 BILLION Light Years, you would cross the ‘Cosmic Point of No Return’, where you would never be able to make it back to Earth, even if you somehow traveled the speed of light. So it’s an important philosophical point to reflect on, that there are places in our own universe that we can’t see (or get to), and will never be able to see, or get to, or communicate with, no matter how much time passes or how fast we go.
12. The Sun is so loud that if space was filled with air its sound would be 125db on Earth, 92 Million miles away.
13. The oldest known galaxy in the universe is GN-z11, a galaxy approximately 32 billion light-years away from us. Scientists observe it as it existed 13.4 billion years ago, only 400 million years after the Big Bang.
14. Pluto and its moon Charon are mutually tidally locked. This means they are both always facing each other with the same hemispheres, so Charon would appear to be “fixed” in a point in the sky from the surface of Pluto rather than rising or setting.
15. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is so loud, it’s acoustic sound waves heat up the surrounding atmosphere to almost 2400 degrees Fahrenheit.
16 Neutron Star
A teaspoon of matter taken from a neutron star would weigh around 10 billion tons, which is similar to the weight of an average mountain on earth.
17. Venus could have had habitable conditions for billions of years. Long enough for life to have developed.
18. If you stand on Mercury, experiencing a day, from sunrise to sunrise, will take two full orbits around the sun, and three full rotations of the planet.
19. Scientists have discovered a Jupiter-like planet which they have name HAT-P-7b where it rains rubies and sapphires. It is located 1,000 light-years from Earth.
20. In 2006, astronomers spotted a huge cloud of fiery gas which is 3 million light-years in diameter and hotter than the center of our Sun. The gas ball contains more matter than a 1,000 billion Suns.
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21 Milky Way Galaxy
The Milky Way Galaxy is located in the largest empty void in the observable universe, which is a good thing because interesting cosmic activity seems to be completely incompatible with life. Maybe it’s not even a coincidence that a Supervoid evolved intelligent life able to map the Universe.
22. Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, has volcanic eruptions so powerful that they can be seen with large telescopes on Earth.
23. “Pan” the second moon of Saturn, is irregularly shaped because it has accidentally captured some of Saturn’s ring material.
24. While the dwarf planet beyond Pluto is officially named Eris, and its moon is Dysnomia, they are unofficially called Xena and Gabrielle.
25. Betelgeuse is a massive star 450 light-years away that may go supernova at any given moment and outshine the moon at night and be clearly visible during the day.