facts about space
fact 1In space the skin on your feet peels off!
Astronauts are not using their feet to walk. Therefore the skin on their feet starts to soften and flakes off. As laundry facilities do not exist in space, astronauts will wear the same underwear and socks for a few days. Those socks then need to be taken off very gently. If not those dead skin cells will float around in the weightless environment |
fact 2We have eight planets in our Solar System. However, outside of our Solar System there are thousands of other planets. The extra-solar planets or exo-planets are in orbit around another star. So far we have almost 1800 confirmed new worlds, with another 3000 awaiting confirmation.
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Fact 33. On Venus a day is longer than a year.
This is a tricky one to get your head around but a year on Venus (that is the length of time it takes to complete one whole orbit around the Sun) is 224.7 Earth days. However it takes 243 Earth days to rotate on its axis just once |
fact 4One million Earths can fit inside the Sun. Ancient astronomers once believed the Earth was at the centre of the Universe but now we know that the Sun is at the centre of our Solar System and our planets orbit the Sun. The Sun makes up 99.8% of the entire mass of the whole Solar System. One million Earths would be needed to be the same size as the Sun. fact 7 The hottest planet is not the closest planet to the Sun.
Even though Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, it is not actually the hottest. Mercury does not have any atmosphere meaning that this planet is only hot in the daytime when it is directly facing the Sun. At this stage temperatures can rise to 425°C but at night the planet’s temperature can drop down to a freezing -180°C. Venus is the hottest planet. Its thick clouds trap the Sun’s heat causing Venus to be a sizzling 500°C all of the time! |
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