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Whether it's for kids looking to learn more about space, or you're looking for incredible facts for an article, or even if you just love space facts for no real reason, this is for you. Below we have put together a list of 50 of the most ‘out there’ space facts to inspire young minds, and old alike.
Apr 24, 2017 · Updated April 24, 2017. By Ho-Diep Dinh. Our solar system came into being 4.6 billion years ago, as evidenced by the dating of space rocks called meteorites. The solar system coalesced from a cloud of gas and dust particles, giving rise to the sun and the inner and outer planets.
Aug 7, 2023 · What are four facts about the outer planets? The outer planets are a fascinating group of celestial objects that share the same characteristics: They all contain rings, have gaseous and icy surfaces, have many moons around them and are located farthest away from the Sun.
- Howstuffworks
- What are the outer planets?The outer planets of our solar system consist of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune; all four are gas giants made up primarily of hydrogen and hel...
- What are the four outer planets also called?The four outer planets of our solar system – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – are also known as the Jovian planets or gas giants due to their...
- What are six characteristics of outer planets?The outer planets of our solar system are characterized by their longer orbits, faster spins, a composition of gaseous and liquid elements, numerou...
- What are the primary components of the atmospheres of gas giants?The atmospheres of gas giants are primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, accompanied by trace amounts of methane and ammonia. Thus, these four...
- Our Solar System Is A Group of Celestial Bodies in The Milky Way Galaxy.
- The Sun Is huge.
- Mercury Is shrinking.
- A Block of Lead on Venus Would Melt Like A Block of Ice on Earth.
- Rocks from Space Have Been Found All Over Planet Earth.
- Jupiter Is Massive.
- Jupiter's Red Spot Changes in Size.
- Another Dwarf Planet Named Haumea Was Found Around The Time Eris Was discovered.
- Space Junk Is A Big problem.
- Space Junk Can Move at More Than 17,500 Mph.
At its center is a 4.5 billion-year-old star, a.k.a. our sun, that is orbited by eight planets, over 150 moons, and millions of meteoroids, comets, and asteroids, plus a few dwarf planets. Which sounds impressive, but it’s just one of tens of billions of solar systemsthat scientists estimate can be found within the Milky Way.
If you combined the mass of everything in the solar system, the sun would account for more than 99 percentof that mass.
Like Earth, Mercury experiences tectonic activity. Pictures taken of the planet have indicated that the surface is changing. The planet has a solid inner core that’s surrounded by a liquid metal outer core, which is in the process of cooling. Every rocky planet is still cooling from when they initially emerged. And as the liquid parts of Mercury’s ...
The surface temperature on the second planet from the sun is around 900°F. Even spacecraft that get sent to Venus aren’t able to withstand the environment for long. The Soviet Union’s Venera 13craft, for example, landed on Venus in 1982 and lasted about two hours. Before its demise, though, Venera was able to send back the first color pictures of t...
In 1996, for example, geologist Aly Barakat found one in the Sahara Desert. It was dubbed the “Hypatia stone” and its unique chemical composition has been studied extensively. Geologists have never seen anything like it, even in meteorites or other planets. In 2018, researchers hypothesized that the Hypatia stone is older than our solar system. It ...
It’s large enough to fit all the rest of the planets inside it. Or put another way: It would take 1300 Earths to fill up the inside of Jupiter.
Even Jupiter’s red spot is larger than Earth—sometimes. The red spot is a storm containing winds up to 400 mph that heats the atmosphere above it to 2400°F, and its size isn’t constant.
Haumea is a weird-looking rock; it spins so fast that it’s shaped like a “football” or “plump cigar,” as NASA describes it. Haumea completes a rotation in under four hours.
Between meteoroids and debris created by humans, NASA knows of over 20,000 pieces of "space junk" bigger than a softball orbiting the Earth. And that's of 500,000 total pieces they track, all of which is the size of a marble or larger. There are millions of pieces so small that it’s not possible to track them. According to the agency, man-made spac...
That means that even something as small as a chip of paint can do damage to operational spacecraft—sometimes, the International Space Station has to maneuver to get out of the way of space junk.
- Meredith Danko
Discover the Wonders: 14 Fascinating Fun Facts About the Outer Planets. Venture beyond the realm of 'basic' planets and dive into an endless cosmic playground filled with intriguing tidbits on the outer planets – where your astronomical appetite will be out-of-this-world satisfied! 1. Jupiter's Moon Collection.
Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth are inner planets as they are closest to the Sun and Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter and Uranus are outer planets. Inner planets are also known as terrestrial planets and outer planets are known as gas giants.
Both the gas giants and ice giants are part of the outer solar system, being the farthest from the Sun. They are separated from the terrestrial planets by the Asteroid Belt. The gas giants are the biggest planets in the solar system.
