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Astronomy — More fascinating astronomy facts


More fascinating facts!

  • Mercury orbits the sun at 108,000 mph, Earth orbits at 67,000 mph, Jupiter at 30,000 mph.
  • The atmosphere on Venus is 90x as dense as Earth’s, composed of CO2 & H2SO4.
  • Saturn has a moon (Titan) that is larger than Mercury. Our moon is the same size as Mercury.
  • The rings of Saturn are only 10 miles in width, composed of dust, debris, and ice.
  • Saturn is less dense than H2O, so it would float in you could find a tub of water big enough.
  • In our solar system, Mars has the largest volcano (Mount Olympus, 16 miles high), the largest impact crater (Hellas, 1000 miles across and 3 miles deep), and the largest canyon (Valles Marineris, 2500 miles in length and 4 miles deep)
  • Jupiter contains more mass (material) than all the other 8 planets combined, and the Sun contains 700 times more mass than all the planets combined.
  • Jupiter’s atmosphere is composed hydrogen gas, helium gas, methane, and ammonia.
  • Earth and Io (a moon of Jupiter) are the only active volcanic bodies in the solar system.
  • Saturn’s rings are only 10 miles wide.  There are over 1000 ringlets.  Titan is a very large moon.
  • Uranus rotates on its side (axis 98 degrees).  This is due to a collision with a planetesimal.
  • Sunlight reaches Earth in 8 minutes.  It takes 6 hours to reach Pluto.
  • If the sun was represented by a golf ball in Provo, then the closest star to our sun would be represented by another golf ball in Vancouver, British Columbia.
  • On a scale drawing with Pluto 10 inches from the Sun, the nearest star to our sun (Proxima Centauri) would be over 1 mile away.
  • If the earth is compared to a dime, the sun would be over 6 feet in diameter and Jupiter would be a dinner plate.
  • If our solar system was compared to a Mason jar lid, the Milky Way galaxy would be the size of North America.
  • One thimble-full of neutron star matter would weigh eight-times more than all cars on Earth.
  • If Betelgeuse or Antares replaced our sun, they would reach out to the orbit of Jupiter.
  • A hollow Betelgeuse could hold 43 million objects the size of our sun.
  • The Keck telescope in Hawaii could resolve the headlights of a car at 16,600 miles distance.
  • An electron is to a grain of sand as the grain of sand is to the earth.
  • It takes a flow of one million trillion electrons per second to light a 10-watt bulb.
  • If the outer electron shell of an atom was compared to the Astrodome, the nucleus would be a golf ball in the center of the stadium.
  • It takes 1 million years for a photon to travel from the Sun’s center to its surface.
  • Saran Wrap is 100,000 atoms thick, and the nucleus of one of the atoms is 100,000 times smaller than the atom itself.
  • Our Sun could hold 1 million objects the size of our Earth.
  • Cricket temperature: count the number of chirps in 24 seconds, add 35, and you will have a close estimate of the temperature in Fahrenheit degrees.

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