When it comes to fun facts, one topic in particular seems to WOW me more than others: SPACE. It’s one of life’s biggest mysteries, and experts are discovering more and more about it as time goes on.
So, I went to the best place to find conversations on niche topics: Reddit. And I compiled the very best, most “wow”-worthy astronomy facts I could find. Dare I say, they’re…out of this world? OK, I’ll stop.
Ready…blast off! To infinity and beyond! (OK, *now* I’ll stop.)
1.
“Space has a smell. Different astronauts have described it as smelling like gunpowder, burnt almond cookies, pleasantly metallic, welding, and even steak.”
2.
If you average the colour of the light emitted by galaxies, their stars, and all visible clouds of gas and dust in the universe, it forms a colour similar to ivory, nearly white. The colour is called ‘cosmic latte.’“
4.
“A full moon is 9–10 times brighter than a half moon due to the Lunar regolith having retroreflective properties.”
5.
“The average distance between asteroids in the asteroid belt is twice the distance between the Earth and Moon. You could fly through the asteroid belt while texting or even taking a nap without fear of hitting anything. Think about that next time a movie shows flying through an asteroid belt.”
8.
“If we could travel at light speed, it would take around four years to reach our closest star system, Alpha Centauri. Using the now-retired Discovery space shuttle, it would take almost 150,000 years.”
9.
“Magnetars are pretty fascinating objects, which are basically neutron stars with the strongest magnetic fields we know of in the universe. How strong? If you got within 1,000 km of one, you’d die — because the magnetic field itself would kill you by stripping the literal electrons from your body.”
10.
“The moon is actually extremely dangerous to visit because the lack of atmosphere has an interesting effect on its surface. The dust of the moon is extremely fine since it’s been constantly bombarded by space debris — since it doesn’t have an atmosphere, it has no wind. This means that on the microscopic level, moon dust is extremely sharp and pointy. Without wind, it doesn’t get any friction or anything to smooth it out, like wind and water do here.”
11.
“Australia is wider than the moon. The diameter of the moon is 3,400 km, and Australia’s is around 4,000 km. The moon is a sphere, so it has more surface size, but it’s still kinda cool.”
12.
“J1047b is a ringed planet orbiting V1400 Centauri. What is interesting about this planet is that its ring system is approximately 200 times larger than Saturn’s — which is why it’s also known as ‘Super Saturn.’ If J1047b was where Saturn is in our solar system, it would dominate our sky.”
13.
“Quasars are some of the most absurdly amazing things in the universe to me. As far as I know, they’re basically very bright energy emitters powered by supermassive black holes. They can be up to 100,000 times the brightness of the ENTIRE MILKY WAY GALAXY.”
14.
“You can only survive around 10–15 seconds in a hard vacuum — AKA being in space without a spacesuit. You also would freeze solid in 12–26 hours after failing to get into a suit.”
15.
“Gravity has an infinite range, with its strength weakening as distance increases, but never reaching zero. That means that, right now, everything in the universe with any mass at all is pulling on you, right now. Obviously, nothing comes close to how much force the Earth’s gravity is applying, but it’s all there nonetheless.”
16.
“If somebody in a different galaxy 100 million light-years away had some sort of super-telescope, they could look back at us and see the dinosaurs. This is because the light reaching them would be 100 million years old.”
18.
“Light speed is not that fast. Imagine travelling somewhere 1,000 km away — for some people, that’s just vacation distance. Now imagine flying there and back 150 times. This is a lot, but I think one can grasp it. Now you have traveled 300,000 km, or just above one light-second. This is roughly the distance between Earth and the Moon.”
19.
“Hydrogen, in sufficient quantities, and with enough time, will eventually begin to think about itself. Because it eventually turns into people.”
20.
“It’s estimated that over 95% of stars in the universe that will ever form have already formed, and star formation now is just 3% of what it was at the peak of star formation more than 10 billion years ago.”
21.
“The Sun is 93 million miles away, so it takes over eight minutes for sunlight to get to us. So technically, we only see the Sun as it appeared eight minutes ago.”
22.
“Apollo astronauts reported seeing ‘light flashes’ while in transit to the Moon. Researchers believe it may be energetic particles from the Sun being detected by their retina. Earth-bound humans are protected from this phenomena by the magnetosphere.”
23.
“Because of the constant motion of all space and everything therein, time travel is pretty futile. It would have to operate relative to Earth’s space time or any successful attempt would put you in the same position, but the Earth wouldn’t be there anymore or yet. To work successfully, it would have to travel through space as well to put you relative to the planet. Without an origin point and accounting for all gravitational effects involved, it’s a lot more complicated.”
What’s the wildest astronomy-related fact YOU know? Share it in the comments below! Flex your space knowledge on us!
And check out BuzzFeed Canada on TikTok and Instagram for more like this!
Related
Discover more from InstiWitty Media Studios
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
