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.

Interesting Science Facts

Here is a list of fascinating and interesting science facts.

• The highest speed ever achieved on a bycycle is 167 miles per hour by Fred Rompelberg.
• It is possible to produce a laser light which is million times brighter than sun shine.
• The oceans on our planet have enough salt in them to cover all the continents to a depth of nearly 500 feet.
• Do you know that Dolphins and humans shared the same ancestor some 60 to 65 million years ago
• There are 62000 miles of blood vessels in human body
• The evaporation from a large oak tree is about 10 to 25 gallons in  a day.
• Butterflies taste with their feet.
• The temperature on the surface of mercury is more than 430 degree celcius during day time and less than -180 degree celcius during night times,.
• The total length of a finnish pine tree is around 30 miles.
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How big is the universe?

Can any one guess how big is the universe?  The answer to this question can only be guessed because no one can exactly tell how big is the universe.

Our earth is only a small and tiny dot in space which is revolving around another bright and larger dot, the Sun.  The Sun revolves around the center of Milky Way galaxy.  Milky Way is one of the billions of galaxies that exist in this universe.  These galaxies form clusters and these clusters form super galactic clusters.  In this way it goes on increasing and there is no end.

Does the universe has an end or it is going on expanding? As per Big Bang theory, the universe formed with a big bang and is now expanding.  There is no way to understand how big is the universe.  The only unit for measuring distance of objects far away is the light year which is the distance travelled by light in one year (Light travels at speed of 3,00,000 Kilometers per second). One light year is approximately equal to 9.45 trillion kilometers ( A trillion is 1000 billions or 1 followed by 12 zeroes).  The nearest galaxy is Andromeda galaxy is about 2,500,000 light years away from us.  

The only way we can understand how big is the universe is by observing the light from as far as we can.  The Hubble telescope is one eye that can see the farthest point from us.  Just by observing the light from a far off place is not enough.  We need to find a way in which we can estimate the distance from where the light started.  This is achieved by use of cosmic candles, which are objects for which astronomers have a calibrated relation between distance and the brightness.  By using such cosmic candles, the farthest points of our universe have been explored by scientists.  Even then we cannot say how big is the universe but we can safely assume that the diameter of universe is 93 billion light years!!.

Interesting facts about Stars

The stars are huge balls of gas in outer space.  These stars are made from Hydrogen, Helium and other elements.  The star are very much far away from us and the sun is nearest star to us. Hence Sun looks like a huge glowing ball.  Sun has planets revolving round it.  Many stars also have planets revolving around them.  Here are some of the interesting facts about stars.

• There are huge number of stars in this universe. Astronomers guess that there are 1 septillion ( 1 followed by 24 zeroes) stars in this universe.  But you can see around 3,000 stars with your naked eye.
• Like animals and humans, stars also have their own life cycles. Stars pass through many phases and die. Stars explode when they die which is called as supernova. Very small percentage of stars explode.  Some stars end their lives by cooling down to become white dwarfs.
• A Galaxy is nothing but a group of hundreds of billions of stars which are relatively close to each other.
• There are more than 100 billion galaxies and each galaxy has an average of 100 billion stars.
• Stars are of different sizes. Some stars are smaller than our sun while some of very huge that sun is only a small dot when compared to them. Some stars called as super giants have radius of about thousand times that of our sun.  Some stars are very small. These stars are called as neutron stars and has radius of only 6 to 10 kilometers.
• Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the earth.  It is located at 4.2 light years away.  If you travel at speed of light ( 3 lakhs kilometers per second), it will take 50000 years to reach this nearest star.
• The most biggest stars can be as much as 2 billion miles across. If one such massive star were in our solar system, it would cover upto 5 planets including our earth.
• If you look at he Andromeda galaxy ( which is 2.3 million light years away), you are seeing the galaxy as it was 2.3 million years ago.
• The stars with strong gravity become smaller and smaller with time and finally turn into black holes. Black holes have such a great gravity that even light cannot escape from them.
• Hot stars give blue light while cool stars give red light.
• Some of the stars are 6,00,000 times as bright as our sun.
• The stars in out Milky Way Galaxy revolve around the center of the galaxy once in every 200 millions years.