There is no doubt that outer space has some sort of magical lure for all of us simple Earthlings. Here are some incredible facts about outer space and the planets to keep you busy while you wait on a spaceship being built to take us all out there on vacation.
A Long Day in Mercury
If you ever make a trip to Mercury you might want to drink an extra big cup of coffee to get you through to bedtime. This is because a day on Mercury lasts around 59 Earth days. It would be a long wait to the weekend but it would be worth it.
A Day or a Year in Venus
If someone asked you whether you wanted to spend a day on Venus or a year there you might think that you would go for the shorter trip. Ok, so that’ll be a year then. What? Venus takes 243 Earth days to rotate but only 225 to orbit the sun, meaning that a day is technically longer than a year. Additionally, it rotates the opposite way from the Earth, so it would appear as though the sun rises in the west rather than the east.
Silent Days and Nights in Space
What noises do you think you would hear if you were out in space? Maybe comets hurtling past and the sound of alien spaceships? Well, since there is no atmosphere in space there is absolutely no sound either.
Long Lasting Moon Prints
Only 12 people have walked on the Moon, all of them guys from the USA. The footprints they left there are expected to last for millions of years. With no rain or wind an extremely slow rate of erosion means that they could last for about 100 million years before disappearing.
Bye Bye Moon
While we are talking about incredible facts about space and the Moon, this might be a good time to say goodbye to the old fellow. The Moon is drifting further away from Earth all the time. To be fair, it is only moving away by 3.8 cm every year, so it’s going to be a long goodbye.
The Diamond Planet
The snappily named planet 55 Cancri e is twice as big as Earth and orbits a (relatively) nearby star. The interesting thing about this place is that it is believed that its surface is covered in graphite and diamond. It is located in the Cancer constellation and visible to the naked eye form Earth, so maybe it is time to head outdoors and look for that space bling.
Let’s Stick Together
If two pieces of metal come together in outer space what do you think happens to them? That’s right; they get stuck together forever. This is due to there being no oxidization layer like there is on Earth. This makes avoiding crashing into other crafts just that little bit more important.
How Many Stars?
Humans have no idea how many stars there are in the Universe. Some estimates say maybe 70 sextillion (70,000 million million million) but there is a wide margin of error in that figure. Try counting them the next time your outside on a starry night and let me know how many you can get to.
