What's over our heads

10/12/2020

Astronauts can grow approximately two inches (5 cm) in height when in space.

This is due to the lack of gravity in space causes the discs between the vertebrae to expand a little.

However, this extra height is lost when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere and being subjected to the Earth’s gravity again.

10/12/2020

Coca-Cola was the first commercial soft drink that was ever consumed in space.
There is an alien themed Coca-Cola Vending Machine in Roswell.
The first food ever eaten in space was applesauce and was eaten by John Glenn in space during the Friendship 7 mission in 1962.

10/12/2020

Space is completely silent.

This is because there is no air in space, and air is needed to carry the sound vibrations.

10/12/2020

The Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft that visited Mercury in 1974.

It was launched at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in 1973, and flew by Venus 3 months later. It then crossed into Mercury’s orbit managing to photograph 45% of Mercury’s surface.

08/12/2020

The Milky Way galaxy is 105,700 light-years wide.
It would take a modern spacecraft 450,000,000 years to travel to the center of our galaxy!
You can read more unbelievable space facts with this list of Milky Way facts!

08/12/2020

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) was the first celestial object identified as being spiral.
The grand, spiraling arms of the Whirlpool Galaxy are made up of long lanes of stars and gas, sprinkled with lots of space dust.

These arms act as star formation factories, compressing hydrogen gas and creating clusters of new stars.

08/12/2020

Enceladus, one of Saturn’s smaller moons, reflects 90% of the Sun’s light.
Because Enceladus’ icy surface reflects sunlight rather than absorbing it, temperatures reach as low as -394° Fahrenheit (-201° Celsius).

08/12/2020

05/12/2020

Our solar system is 4.57 billion years old.
Well, give or take 30 million years(ish). Accurately speaking, it is 4.571 billion years old.

Scientists estimate that in about 5 billion years, our Sun will expand becoming a Red Giant.

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

03/12/2020

The hottest planet in our solar system is Venus.
Most people think that this would be Mercury, as it is the closest planet to the sun.

However, Venus has a lot of gasses in its atmosphere which creates a “Greenhouse Effect” that causes a constant temperature of 864° Fahrenheit (462° Celsius) everywhere on the plant’s surface.

03/12/2020

If a star passes too close to a black hole, it can be torn apart.
For 20 years, a team of astronomers observed a star at the center of our galaxy orbiting a black hole.

The star has now got close enough to the black hole for “gravitational redshift” to occur which is where the star’s light loses energy as the black hole’s gravity intensified.

03/12/2020

Mercury & Venus are the only 2 planets in our solar system that have no moons.



In total, there are 176 confirmed moons that orbit the planets in our solar system, with some of them being bigger than Mercury itself!