Aug 28, 2014

interesting space facts

  • Pluto, if cut in half, would fit face down on North America
  • The sun comprises 99.85% of all matter in the Solar System. Jupiter is about another 0.1. The rest comes in at 0.05%
  • The approximate average density of the universe is 1 atom per cubic meter
  • If you could arrange them in this way, all the remaining planets would just fit between the the Earth and the Moon
  • There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on earth. There are more atoms in your fingernail than stars in the universe
  • When you are in orbit you increase your orbital velocity by slowing down
  • If you had a pipe that was as long as the radius of the known universe and the thickness was equal to that of a uranium nucleus, the pipe would hold about 13 liters.
  • Normal matter (baryonic) makes up about 5% of the known universe. We're not really sure what makes up the rest of it.
  • Light (photons) created in the center of the sun takes about 4,000 years to make it's way out of the sun due to collisions with particles 

1 comment:

Iron Yuppie said...

One more thing - if you witnessed a supernova from 1 AU, it would be 9 orders of magnitude brighter than if you detonated a hydrogen bomb in front of your eye.