Amazing facts about Space, planets and universe

Here are some of the most interesting and amazing facts about planets, universe and space.  Read them and enjoy.

• Do you know that our milky way galaxy is rotating very rapidly, spinning our sun and all other stars at around 100 million kilometers per hour.
• The Milky Way galaxy that we live in  is one of the BILLION galaxies in this universe.
• Do you know that Sun takes around 200 million years to travel around the galaxy.  The distance that sun travels is 100,000 light years.
• It is estimated that universe is 15 billion years old.
• The farthest galaxy in this universe is spreading away from us at a speed of more than 90% of the speed of light.
• The matter that spirals into a black hole is torn apart and it glows so brightly that it creates the brightest objects in the universe - the Quasars.
• The opposite of black holes are white holes which spray out matter and light like fountains.
• One day on Mercury is equal to approximately 59 earth days.
• Do you know that astronauts brought around 375 Kg. of Moon rock to earth.
• Do you know that the brightest star in each constellation is called as Alpha and the next brightest as Beta and so on..
• The first rockets were made around 1000 years in China.
• The slowest planet in our solar system is Venus, which takes around 243 days to turn around itself.
• Do you know that the fastest spinning objects in the universe are the neutron stars?   they can rotate 500 times in one second.
• The sun does not set for 20 years in summer on Uranus.  The darkness lasts for 20 years in winter on Uranus.  In autumn, the sun rises and sets every 9 hours on Uranus.
• Solar flares has temperatures of nearly 10 million degrees celcius and their energy is equal to one million atom bombs.
• The age of sun is about 5 billion years.  The Sun may live for another 10 billion years.
• The weight of Sun is 2,000 trillion trillion tonnes -  which is about 3,00,000 times as much as the earth.