100 interesting space facts that will blow your mind - The Facts Site (2023)

With new space discoveries happening weekly, it's no surprise we wanted to write these 100 Random Interesting Space Facts!

space suits areforeverinteresting to learn!

Over time, technological advances over the last century have allowed us to learn more about space than at any previous time.

We've literally scoured the universe for the most incredible space facts, including facts about our solar system's planets, moons, the Milky Way and beyond! We are sure that number 100 will make you smile!

Without further ado, let’s get started with these 100 Crazy Space Facts!

Mercury and Venus are the only two planets in our solar system that do not have moons.

In all, there are 176 confirmed moons orbiting the planets in our solar system, some of which are larger than Mercury itself!

If a star passes too close to a black hole, it can decay.

For 20 years, a team of astronomers has been observing a star at the center of our galaxy, orbiting aBlack hole.

The star has now moved close enough to the black hole for a "gravitational redshift" to occur, in which the star's light loses energy as the black hole's gravity increases.

The hottest planet in our solar system is Venus.

Most people think it's Mercury since it's the planet closest to the Sun.

Although,Venushas a large amount of gases in its atmosphere that create a "greenhouse effect" that causes a constant temperature of 864° Fahrenheit (462° Celsius) over the entire surface of the plant.

Our solar system is 4.57 billion years old.

Well, about 30 million years (give or take). In fact, it's 4.571 million years old.

Scientists estimate that in about 5 billion years our sun will expand and become a red giant.

In about 7.5 billion years, its expanding surface will engulf and engulf the Earth.

One of Saturn's smallest moons, Enceladus reflects 90% of the Sun's light.

Because Enceladus' icy surface reflects sunlight instead of absorbing it, temperatures reach -394 degrees Fahrenheit (-201 degrees Celsius).

The tallest mountain discovered is Olympus Mons on Mars.

Its peak is 25 km high, almost three times higher than Mount Everest.

And not only is it tall, it's also 374,015 ft² (114,000 m²) wide, an area the size ofArizona!

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) was the first celestial object to be identified as a spiral.

The great spiral arms of the Whirlpool Galaxy are made up of long chains of stars and gas dusted with plenty of space dust.

These arms act as star-forming factories, compressing hydrogen gas and creating clumps of new stars.

A light year is the distance that light travels in a single year.

Light travels at a speed of about 186,411 miles (300,000 km) per second.

Therefore, a light year is approximately 5,903,026,326,255 miles!

The Milky Way is 105,700 light-years across.

It would take a modern spaceship 450,000,000 years to travel to the center of our galaxy!

Check out more amazing space facts with this list ofMilky Wayfacts!

The Sun weighs about 330,000 times more than Earth.

It is about 109 times the diameter of Earth and so large that Earth could fit inside the Sun about 1,300,000 times!

In fact, the sun is so gigantic that it contains 99.85% of the total mass of our solar system.

The contrails left on the moon will not go away because there is no wind.

But wait a minute... if the wind isn't blowing, why is the flag waving? Well, it didn't really blow.

The ripple you see is due to a persistent horizontal telescoping pole that the astronauts were able to laboriously remove from the top hem of the flag.

Still not sure we walked the moon? Here you are5 Common Moon Landing Myths Debunked.

Because of the lower gravity, a person who weighs 220 pounds on Earth would weigh 84 pounds on Mars.

By sending droids to the surface of Mars, scientists plan to load the droid with more gear and build it out of sturdier materials.

There are 79 known moons orbiting Jupiter.

JupiterIt is the planet in our solar system with the most moons, and it also has the largest moon in our solar system.

This moon is called Ganymede and is larger than Mercury at 5,262 km (33,279 miles) in diameter and only visible with binoculars!

A Martian day lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds.

So I would say that there are fewer days in the year on Mars than on Earth, right? Not correct!

Because Mars revolves more slowly around the sun than Earth, there are actually 687 Martian days in a Martian year!

NASA's Crater Detection and Observation Satellite (LCROSS) has found evidence of water on Earth's moon.

Although water cannot exist on the lunar surface under current conditions, scientists believe water ice can survive in the cold, permanently shadowed boxes at the moon's two poles.

The sun makes a complete revolution once every 25 to 35 days.

So for us on earth, a full rotation corresponds to a whole day. However, our gigantic sun needs between 25 and 35 earth days for a complete revolution!

Want to learn more space facts? Check out these 40 interesting facts aboutThe sun!

Earth is the only planet not named after a god.

Nobody knows how the earth got its name; All we know is that it derives from a conflation of Old English and Old Germanic words for "earth".

Because of the gravitational pull of the sun and moon, we have the tides.

This is because the moon's tidal force causes the earth and the water on it to swell on the side closest to the moon.

These bulges are the cause of the worldwide floods.

Pluto is smaller than the United States.

If you circumnavigated Pluto's equator, that would be the same distance as you would go from London to Denver (well, plus or minus 56 miles).

According to math, white holes are possible, although we haven't found any so far.

A white hole is a hypothetical region of spacetime that is inaccessible from the outside, although matter and light can escape from within.

Basically, it's the back side of a black hole.

Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet in our solar system.

There are more than 1,600 large volcanoes on the surface of Venus, including an 8 km high volcano called Maat Mons.

However, none of these volcanoes are known to be erupting today, and most are likely long extinct.

Uranus' blue glow is due to the gases in its atmosphere.

The atmosphere of Uranus consists of hydrogen, helium and methane.

Methane in Uranus' upper atmosphere filters out all red light from the Sun, but reflects the Sun's blue light back into space, giving it its blue appearance.

Do you like our space suits? If you want to learn more, we have more interesting facts aboutUranus.

In our solar system there are 4 planets known as gas giants: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

A gas giant is a large planet composed mostly of gases such as hydrogen and helium and has a relatively small rocky core.

Uranus has 27 moons discovered so far.

It has 5 major moons and 22 minor moons. Titania is the largest moon of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in our solar system with an average diameter of 980.5 miles (1,578 kilometers).

Because of its unique tilt, a season on Uranus is equal to 21 Earth years.

Additionally, Uranus' tilt of 97.77 degrees on the axis means that a day is only 17 hours, 14 minutes, and 24 seconds long.

Neptune's moon Triton orbits the planet in reverse.

Newtit is the only large moon from both planets to do so.

This is known as a retrograde orbit, and astronomers are unsure why Triton orbits Neptune in this way.

Triton is gradually approaching the planet it orbits.

Scientists believe that when Triton finally gets very close to Neptune, the planet's gravity will pull it apart and could form another ring around Neptune, giving it more rings than Saturn.

There are more stars in space than grains of sand in the world.

There are ten times more stars in the night sky than there are grains of sand on Earth, with 70 sextillion stars visible from Earth through a telescope.

To put that in numbers, 70 sextillion is that: 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Neptune takes almost 165 Earth years to orbit the Sun.

That corresponds to 60,190 earth days to go around the sun once! Neptune has a very slow orbital speed of 3.37 miles per second (5.43 km/s).

That means it has only completed one orbit since its discovery in 1846!

You might also be interested in these interesting factsNeptuneYou are out of this world!

Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is half the size of Pluto.

The surfaces of Charon and Pluto themselves always face each other, in what is known as tidal locking.

The International Space Station is the largest manned object ever sent into space.

At 119 yards (109 meters) long, the International Space Station (ISS) is about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth and is the third brightest object in the night sky.

A day on Pluto lasts 153.6 hours.

This corresponds to 6 days, 9 hours and 36 minutes. A day on Pluto is very long due to its slow rotation speed.

Check out these other cool space facts about the dwarf planet,Pluto.

Saturn is the second largest planet in our solar system.

It has a radius of 58,232 km (36,184 miles), nine times that of Earth.

Due to its low density, however, it weighs only about one eighth of Earth's weight.

Any liquid that moves freely in space becomes a sphere.

This is due to something called surface tension, which is an imbalance of intermolecular attractive forces.

This can also happen in low Earth orbit.

Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are known as the "inner planets".

They are called inner planets because they orbit closer to the sun.

An inner planet is classified as a planet that is inside the asteroid belt.

We know more about Mars and our moon than we do about our oceans.

We have fully mapped 100% of the surface of Mars and Earth's Moon, while we have only been able to map about 5% of the ocean floor.

Black Arrow is the only British satellite launched on a British rocket.

Black Arrow was developed in the 1960s and used on four launches between 1969 and 1971.

In 2019 it was recovered from its crash site in the Australian outback and put on display in Penicuik, Scotland.

Only 5% of the universe is visible from Earth.

68% of the universe is dark energy and 27% is dark matter. Both are invisible even with a telescope, meaning we can only see 5% of the universe.

Light travels from the sun to earth in less than 10 minutes.

Photons emitted from the sun's surface travel through the vacuum of space at the speed of light to reach our eyes in just 8 minutes and 20 seconds.

At any one time there are at least 2,000 storms on Earth.

An estimated 16 million storms occur worldwide each year.

About 100,000 of these storms occur in the United States alone.

You can read more strange facts about itThunder and lightningon here.

The Earth's rotation slows slightly over time.

This means that the days used to be shorter. This is due to the tidal effects that the moon has on the earth's rotation.

If you drove at 120 kilometers per hour, it would take you 258 days to circumnavigate Saturn's rings.

Saturn's rings are about 175,000 miles long, though they're only about 3,200 feet thick.

For more interesting facts seeSaturn's Ringscontinue here!

Outer space is only 62 miles away.

Although there is no official fixed boundary as to where space begins, the Kármán line is 62 miles above sea level and is conventionally used as the beginning of space in space treatises or for aerospace records.

The International Space Station orbits the earth every 92 minutes.

The speed of the ISS in its orbit around the Earth is approximately 17,150 miles per hour, which is 5 miles per second!

Stars twinkle because of the way light is broken as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere.

Starlight is affected by the winds in our atmosphere when it enters, as well as different regions and temperatures.

This causes each star's light to flicker as we look at it.

We always see the same side of the moon no matter where we are on Earth.

This is because the moon rotates on its axis at the same speed as the earth. It is known as synchronous rotation or tidal lock.

There are three main types of galaxies: elliptical, spiral, and irregular galaxies.

The Milky Way, in which our solar system is located, is classified as a spiral galaxy.

There are about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way.

Of all known galaxies, the Milky Way contains the most stars.

With the naked eye you can see from 3 to 7 different galaxies from Earth.

You can see the Andromeda Galaxy (M-31), the Two Magellanic Clouds, our own Milky Way, the Triangle Galaxy (M-33), the Omega Centauri, and the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy.

In 2016, scientists discovered a radio signal from a source 5 billion light-years away.

This means that when the signal began its journey, Earth didn't even exist.

The detected signals were located using the Very Large Array (VLA) at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico.

The galaxy closest to us is the Andromeda galaxy, which is estimated to be 2.5 million light-years away.

Before the discovery of the Andromeda galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud was believed to be the galaxy closest to us.

The first supernova observed outside of our own galaxy was in 1885.

This supernova has been named S Andromedae and is located in the Andromeda galaxy.

This was observed by Ernst Hartwig in Estonia and was only possible thanks to the recent invention of the telescope.

The first black hole photographed is 3 million times the size of Earth.

Released in April 2019, the photo shows a halo of dust and gas 310 trillion trillion kilometers from Earth.

It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope, a network of eight linked telescopes, and captured thanks in part to programmer Katie Bouman's algorithm.

The distance between the sun and the earth is defined as an astronomical unit.

One astronomical unit (AU) is approximately 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers.

The second man on the moon was Buzz Aldrin. "Luna" was Aldrin's mother's maiden name.

She was born Marion Moon and later married Edwin Eugene Aldrin.

Buzz Aldrin's birth name was Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.

He earned the nickname "Buzz" due to his sister's mispronunciation of the word "brother", which became "summer".

In 1988, he legally changed his first name to "Buzz".

It snows metal and rains sulfuric acid on Venus.

That's because Venus is a scorching planet choked with sulfuric acid, causing the planet's metals in the atmosphere to turn into a gas and then a liquid before raining down to the ground after freezing temperatures turn it into a solid transform.

Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft to visit Mercury in 1974.

It was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 1973 and flew past Venus three months later. He then crossed Mercury's orbit and was able to photograph 45% of Mercury's surface.

The second spacecraft to visit Mercury was Messenger, which completed 100 percent mapping of Mercury's surface in 2013.

The room is completely silent.

This is because there is no air in space and air is needed to transmit sound vibrations.

So if you yell at someone next to you in space, they wouldn't be able to hear you. How's that for a fun space suit?

Coca-Cola was the first commercial soft drink to be consumed in space.

The first food consumed in space was applesauce, and John Glenn ate it in space during the Friendship 7 mission in 1962.

Astronauts can grow to about 5 cm in space.

Because the lack of gravity in space causes the intervertebral discs between the vertebrae to expand slightly.

However, that extra altitude is lost when it re-enters Earth's atmosphere and is again subjected to Earth's gravity.

The Kuiper Belt is a region of the solar system beyond the orbit of Neptune.

The Kuiper Belt is a ring of ice bodies and that's where Pluto is located.

The first woman in space was a Russian named Valentina Tereshkova.

It was brought into history and into space during the Vostok 6 mission16. June, 1963.

He spent almost three days in space and orbited the earth 48 times in his space capsule before returning to earth.

If Saturn's rings were 3 feet long, they would be 10,000 times thinner than a razor blade.

The rings around Saturn are so thin because they are made of dusty chunks of water ice ranging in size from dust grains to rock.

The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most prolific scientific instruments ever built.

Astronomers using Hubble data have published over 15,000 scientific papers. These articles have been cited 738,000 times in other articles.

We have more data on space andThe Hubble Space Telescopecontinue here!

The first artificial satellite in space was called “Sputnik”.

It was placed in an elliptical low-Earth orbit by the Soviet Union4 October, 1957.

Exoplanets are planets orbiting other stars.

All the planets in our solar system orbit the sun. But what about other solar systems?

In 2009, NASA launched a spacecraft called Kepler to search for exoplanets and has discovered thousands since launch.

The center of the Milky Way smells of rum and tastes of raspberries.

This was discovered by the IRAM radio telescope, which focused on a gas cloud called Sagittarius B2 at the center of our galaxy.

IRAM discovered a chemical called ethyl formate that gives rum its distinctive smell and raspberries their distinctive taste.

You can read more about this fascinating space fact here:

Our moon is receding from Earth at a rate of 1.6 inches (4 cm) per year!

Scientists believe that the moon will eventually leave Earth's gravitational field; However, this will not happen for billions of years.

Pluto is named after the Roman god of the underworld, not Disney's dog.

The planet's name was suggested by Venetia Burney, an eleven-year-old British schoolgirl, to the planet's discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh.

Space suit helmets have Velcro to help astronauts bite.

This is the sole purpose of the velcro.

The ISS is visible to over 90% of the world's population.

When you view the International Space Station (ISS) in the night sky, it appears as a fast-moving star, streaking from horizon to horizon.

Saturn is the only planet that can float on water.

Although Saturn is the second largest planet in our solar system, it is also the lightest planet.

Saturnit could float on water because it's mostly gas, although the real fact here is you'd need a giant bathtub!

Asteroids are by-products of formations in the solar system more than 4 billion years ago.

The birth of Jupiter in our solar system prevented the formation of planetary bodies between Mars and Jupiter, causing the small objects to collide with each other and break up into asteroids.

Astronauts can't burp in space.

Because the lack of gravity in space means that the air in the astronaut's stomach does not separate from the ingested food or rise.

Uranus was originally called "George's Star".

This name was in honor of explorer William Hershel's new patron, King George III.

The name "Uranus" was proposed in 1782, a year after its discovery, but was not officially used until 1850.

You might like these factsWhen were the planets discovered in our solar system?.

A sunset on Mars is blue.

Mars has less than 1% of Earth's atmosphere.

For example, sunsets on Mars appear blue because of the way blue light from the sun is captured in the Martian atmosphere.

The earth weighs about 81 times as much as the moon.

The moon's gravity, like that of other planets, depends on where you are on its surface.

The first living mammal to fly into space was a dog named "Laika" from Russia.

Laika was a mixed-race stray from the streets of Moscow who was launched into space on the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 23. November, 1957.

Unfortunately, Laika died from overheating and stress 5-7 hours after the flight. Poor dog.

The word "astronaut" originally means "star sailor".

It derives from the Greek words "astron" for "star" and "nautes" for "navigator".

Therefore, the word astronaut literally means "stellar sailor".

„NASA“ bedeutet die National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

It is an independent agency of the United States federal government and was established in 1958.

NASA is discovering new data about space every day, check them outNasa Factsif you want to learn more!

Gennady Padalka has spent more time in space than anyone.

He is an RKA cosmonaut and has been in space for 879 days

He worked on Mir and the International Space Station.

Mercury has no atmosphere, meaning there is no wind or weather.

Instead of an atmosphere, Mercury has a thin exosphere made up of atoms blasted from the surface by the solar wind and meteorites.

In China, the Milky Way is known as the "Silver River".

In Japan and Korea, "Silver River" means galaxies in general, not just the Milky Way.

Low mass red dwarf stars can burn continuously for up to 10 trillion years!

A small, cool star at the end of its life, a red dwarf has a surface temperature of less than 7,200,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scientists believed that the same side of Mercury always faces the Sun.

In 1965, however, astronomers discovered that the planet rotates three times in every two orbits.

Jupiter's red spot is shrinking.

Jupiter's Red Spot is a huge hurricane-like storm that used to be three times the size of Earth! However, the storm decreases over time, but as it subsides, it gets louder.

Scientists are still baffled as to what's causing this, although they think it may have to do with jet streams on Jupiter changing location or direction.

A large percentage of asteroids are attracted to Jupiter's gravity.

Because of this, Jupiter is known as the garbage dump of our solar system.

Many of the asteroids that are potentially harmful to Earth, long-period comets, tend to get sucked into Jupiter's gravitational field.

Thank you Jupiter!

A day on Mercury equals 58 Earth days.

That's becausemercuryIt rotates very slowly on its axis compared to Earth.

Because space has no gravity, the pins don't work.

Regular ballpoint pens work by gravity pulling the ink toward the pen tip (the writing part) as you hold the pen down in the writing part of your hand.

like there isn'theavinessin space, the ink doesn't reach the tip.

However, special pens have been made that work in zero gravity.

On average, light takes just 1.3 seconds to travel from the moon to Earth.

The distance between the Earth and the Moon is only 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers).

There are 88 recognized constellations in our night sky.

These 88 constellations cover Earth's night sky and can be seen in both the southern and northern hemispheres.

The center of a comet is called the "nucleus".

Dust streams behind comets are called a "coma" or "tail."

Space suits aren't just about planets! Here are some interesting facts aboutsomeone.

Already in the year 240 a. C. the Chinese began to document the appearance of Halley's Comet.

After 164 BC C. There was a continuous record of the comet whenever it was visible.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union classified Pluto as a dwarf planet.

This is because Pluto does not gravitationally dominate the neighborhood around its orbit.

There are 5 recognized dwarf planets in our solar system.

The dwarf planets are Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, Eris and Pluto.

The dwarf planet Ceres is also the largest asteroid in our solar system and is located in the asteroid belt, making it the only dwarf planet not inhabiting the outer solar system.

Mars is the most likely planet in our solar system on which life is possible.

In 1986, NASA found fossils of microscopic living organisms in rock recovered from the surfacemarte.

Halley's Comet will pass Earth again on July 26, 2061.

Kids love this space suit!

The famous comet was last seen inFebruary 9, 1986, and it orbits the Earth only once every 75 to 76 years.

There is a planet half the size of Earth whose surface is made of diamonds.

55 Cancri e has a mass eight times that of Earth despite being half a radius, and may have a graphite and diamond surface.

It is only 40 light-years away and visible to the unaided eye beneath the constellation of Cancer.

Buzz Lightyear desdetoy storyreally been in space!

Buzz Lightyearspent 15 months aboard the International Space Station and then returned to Earth11. September, 2009.

To infinity and beyond!

We said number 100 would make you smile!

Outer space is something strange and wonderful to many. The great unknown is something humanity has always watched and tried to learn: by understanding our galaxy, we can understand our place in it and how this world came into existence.

We hope these 100 Interesting Facts About Outer Space will help make the mystery of outer space...well, less mysterious!

If you liked these unusual space suits, we have many more space suits for you in ourPlatzCategory.

All of these fun space facts were correct at the time of writing, although we update them regularly so please let us know if anything is wrong here!