What is your favourite space fact/s to pass on to others?

reply to post by Xcathdra


Yes,Titan(saturn moon) has a dense atmosphere and is also the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found.it is larger by volume than the smallest planet, Mercury, although only half as massive.

Size comparison: Earth, Titan and Earth's Moon:



Source:Wikipedia

To escape from an orbit around Earth (the "Escape Velocity"), you need to be traveling about 7 miles per second.

Mass of the Earth is about 6,600 million million million tons. (6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons)

1-The Space Shuttle main engine weighs 1/7th as much as a train engine but delivers as much horsepower as 39 locomotives.
2-The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.
3-Saturn's rings are about 500,000 miles in circumference but only about a foot thick.(Each)
4-It takes eight and a half minutes for light to get from the sun to earth.(i knew that one haha)
5-Some asteroids have other asteroids orbiting them.

Source:funfactz-Space Facts

Originally posted by Xcathdra
Nasa spent a few million dollars developing a pen that can write in space.. The Soviets used a pencil.

That's a popular myth actually. The space pen was invented with private money and then sold to NASA as well as space geeks everywhere. NASA did not spend millions of dollars on it. They spent closer to about $1,300 for their first bulk purchase of 400 pens after it was invented by Fischer, entirely on Fischer's dime. Since then it's been used on every manned space flight, but NASA initially just used pencils just like the Soviets did. Pencils are a potential hazard in space though as the tip can break off and eventually drift into someone's eye or nostril in the zero-g cabin. It can also contribute to clogged air vents and the old style pencil lead even posed a risk of shorting out circuits if they really got into the wrong location. These were all good reasons for NASA to buy the more expensive Fischer pens instead of pencils.

Recently we discovered that our Solar system was not origionally part of the Milkyway Galaxy. We were a member of a much smaller galaxy that was and still is being absorbed into the Milkyway.

Another popular myth, originating from the discovery of the Sagittarius dwarf stream. You can see a visualization of the sun's location relative to the stream here:
www.thelivingmoon.com...
We can tell by our motion relative to other stars in the milky way as well as globular clusters (which act like signposts around the galaxy) that we are indeed orbiting firmly within the Orion spur of the milky way. If we were part of the sagittarius stream we would have a highly elliptical orbit that occasionally took us through the plane of the milky way but our orbital components relative to the milky way would show that we were part of the sagittarius stream.

in micro-gravity you have the ability to alter a suspended mass of orange juice (liquid) and oscillate it to form into a cube or other geometrical shape. not sure how many types of shape can be oscillated but it's done through two streams of pressure on an axis of said blob pointing inwards. like headphones.
Reinhard Furrer (DLR/Germany) performed this experiment between Oct. 30 - Nov. 6, 1985 a member of the astronaut crew of the German Spacelab Mission "D1".
regards f

A long time ago, pretty much the only thing in the universe was hydrogen & helium (hydrogen is the fuel in the Space Shuttles' main engines, and helium is the stuff in balloons that makes them float). All of the stars that you see are made of these two elements. As the stars burn, they convert these gases into heavier elements. Carbon, which is the basis of all life on earth, the oxygen & nitrogen we breath, the silicon & iron & other minerals in the earth we walk on - every single atom of what we touch and breath and what makes us - was forged in the 100 million-degree furnaces at the heart of mighty stars that exploded long ago and spread these elements throughout the universe.

We are star-stuff!

reply to post by Saint Exupery


we are star dust

reply to post by CX


the fact that light takes time to reach the eye and so when we look into the sky we see stars as they were thousands of years ago.....

reply to post by punctual


Not thousands,id say millions,since most of the stars visible by the naked eye(on a light polluted location) is more than a million light years away from the observer.

I have to admit I was shocked when I went camping a few years ago with some friends and found out that not only weren't they able to identify Orion, Ursa Major, Ursa minor or the pole star but they didn't even know what planets were in the solar system!!! There were at least 40 of us camping together and non of them knew the very basics

So I have to say my favourite space fact to pass on to others is... "look, see those three stars in a row? that's Orion's belt"

Originally posted by jpsdasnake
reply to post by punctual

 

Not thousands,id say millions,since most of the stars visible by the naked eye(on a light polluted location) is more than a million light years away from the observer.

Basically you're looking back in time. Some of those stars might not be there anymore in real-time.

Originally posted by jpsdasnake
reply to post by punctual

 

Not thousands,id say millions,since most of the stars visible by the naked eye(on a light polluted location) is more than a million light years away from the observer.

This is not correct. Our galaxy is only 100,000 light-years across (we are ~30,000 LY from the core). Most of the stars that we see are within ~2,000 LY of earth. For example, let's look at some of the stars visible in the night sky right now.

Sirius - The brightest star in the sky is 8.6 LY away.
Procyon - The "Little Dog" star" is 11.4 LY away.

Speaking of Orion:
Betalgeuse (the head): 427 LY
Rigel (the knee): 773 LY
Bellatrix (the shoulder): 243 LY
Alnitak, Alnilam & Mintaka (the stars in Orion's belt): 817, 1342 & 916 LY, respectively.
The Orion Nebula (in the sword) is ~1,340 LY away

Taurus:
The Pleiades (an open cluster of new, bright stars) is ~360 - 380 LY
The Hyades (another open cluster that forms the V-shaped face of the bull) is closer, at ~150 LY.
Aldebaran (the angry red eye of the bull) is actually in the foreground at 65 LY

Gemini:
Castor: 51.5 LY
Pollux: 33.7 LY

Other notable stars in the winter sky:
Capella: 42.2 LY away
Polaris: 431 LY
Regulus: 77.5 LY

One interesting bit of space trivia is that the bright stars that we see are only a small fraction of the nearby stars. 90% percent of the stars at comparable distances are too faint to see!

reply to post by Saint Exupery


hey,thanks for that cool info,i got ahead of myself when i said "Most" of the stars,i guess...

reply to post by Versa


Yeah,thats a pretty easy to indentify object,its very useful for star hopping too.

reply to post by CX

Saturn's density is so low it would float on water!

If you could find enough water.

In space no-one can hear you scream! No sound can be heard.

I know it's very well known but it put a huge dampener on watching sci-fi spacey type shooty films

reply to post by CX


S & F

I am such a geek when it comes to the cosmos.....

and like you, I love looking up, especially nowadays.

My interesting fact that I LOVE to pass to others:

"If you were traveling at the speed of light ( 186,000 miles per second) going from one end of the Milky Way galaxy to the other, it would take 100,000 years".

Originally posted by Wally898
There are more stars in this universe than grains of sand on this planet!

Makes you think.

P&L

Yes indeed!!!

I love telling people that one too!!!!

Originally posted by jpsdasnake
reply to post by Saint Exupery

 

we are star dust

Omigosh, this is one of my favorites too!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by jpsdasnake
reply to post by Saint Exupery

 

we are star dust

Omigosh, this is one of my favorites too!!!!!!!!!!!