Space, the Final Frontier – a well-known statement for all Star Trek fans but even if you have watched all episodes of that TV show, we bet that you haven’t heard all of our amazing space facts. We have so much interesting facts for you. Be it about the International Space Station, the computing power needed for the first moon landing or about the so called “Point Nemo” on our planet. As scientists are discovering new amazing things each day, it’s no surprise that we were able to collect 111 incredible fun facts about space for you. See it yourself but we are pretty sure that at least fact #49 will make you smile.
111 Amazing Space Facts That Prove Life On Earth Is Boring
1. The International Space Station is the most expensive object ever made by humans. It has cost 150 billion dollars so far.
2. If the earth were as large as a sand grain, the sun would be as large as an orange.
3. If you could fold a piece of paper 42 times, that piece of paper would be able to reach the Moon.
4. On Jupiter and Saturn it rains diamonds.
5. The Wall of China cannot be seen from space – however, China’s smog can.
6. During a solar eclipse, it appears to observers on earth as if the sun and moon were exactly the same size. However, this is only a huge coincidence, because the sun is 400 times as big as the moon, but also 400 times further away.
7. As the earth rotates more slowly around the sun from year to year, 2016 was one second longer than 2015.
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8. The first Game Boy had as much computing power needed for the first moon landing.
9. According to current knowledge, the Earth is the only known planet on which a fire can burn. None of the other known planets have enough oxygen for this.
10. In space you cannot burp.
11. The sun needs 250 million years to orbit the centre of the Milky Way once. This duration is also known as the galactic year. The last time the sun was in its present position, the super-continent Pangaea began to break apart.
12. The gravity on the moon is about one-sixth of the earth’s gravitational pull.
13. On average a spacesuit costs eleven million dollars.
14. The day-night boundary, i.e. the boundary that separates the side of the earth exposed to sunlight from the unexposed shadow side, is also called the “terminator”.
15. It takes about 100,000 years for the sun’s energy to penetrate out from the core of the sun to the outermost layer and only eight minutes until it reaches the earth.
16. During the first days in space, astronauts often suffer from space sickness. Since all bodily fluids are redistributed in weightlessness and the sense of balance is impaired, important tasks such as outboard work are not carried out in the first days of a space mission. There would be an acute risk of the astronauts throwing up in their suits.
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17. NASA claims it will be able to answer the question if we are alone in universe in the next 20 years.
18. Three men from Yemen accused NASA for “settling” on Mars. According to the men, their ancestors gave it to them 3,000 years ago.
19. If you hold a grain of sand against the night sky, it will hide 10,000 galaxies from your eyes.
20. If you could drive directly to the moon by car at a speed of 80 miles per hour, it would take about four months to reach it.
21. Neptune, Saturn and Venus are the names of three seaside resorts in Romania.
22. From 1781 to 1850, the planet Uranus was named George. We also have an article only about Uranus facts.
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23. “Point Nemo” is the place on the earth’s surface that is furthest away from any mainland or island. It is located in the southern Pacific Ocean, 1,670 miles from the nearest mainland. Even the astronauts on the ISS space station are closer to this point than any other person on the mainland anywhere. (Read more)
24. The ISS orbits the Earth at a speed of 4.76 miles per second.
25. “Hot Neptune” is the name given to a planet in which temperatures of more than 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit prevail, but which due to extremely high air pressure nevertheless consists of solid ice.
26. Today, the Earth is surrounded by so much space debris that in the near future it may even be dangerous to leave the Earth in a spaceship. This phenomenon is also known as the Kessler syndrome.
27. Mars is the only known planet which is inhabited solely by robots.
28. Astronauts in the ISS can witness 15 sunrises and 15 sunsets a day.
29. Uranus is 63 times larger than Earth.
30. When the Big Bang theory was presented for the first time scientifically, it was rejected by many scientists because it seemed too religious.
31. A human could survive two minutes in space without a space suit.
32. Due to strong solar storms in 1859, the earth experienced the strongest geomagnetic storm ever recorded. The storm was so strong that you could see auroras even in Rome and some telegraphs could be operated for more than two hours without being connected to the power grid, using only the energy produced by the geomagnetic storm.
33. There is a large dark spot at the North Pole of Pluto’s moon Charon, and scientists have no idea what it is. They therefore called it Mordor, in reference to the mysterious dark land in “The Lord of the Rings”.
34. Sunsets on Mars appear in a blue tone.
35. Helium is the only element that was not first discovered on Earth. Instead, it was discovered in 1868 in the form of previously unknown spectral lines in the light of the sun.
36. All of our school textbooks show the solar system with the planets close enough to fit on one page. In actuality if you were to draw the solar system to scale and the earth was the size of a pea on paper Jupiter would be over 984 feet away and Pluto would be one and a half mile away. The nearest star would be 9,940 miles away on paper.
37. If you shrank the earth to the size of a billiard ball it would be just as smooth as one. You wouldn’t be able to feel the difference between Mt. Everest and the Mariana Trench.
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38. When the Moon is at its greatest distance from the Earth, both celestial bodies are so far apart that all the planets of our solar system could fit between them.
39. Venus rotates around its own axis at only four miles per hour (6.5 kilometers per hour). So you could walk around Venus faster than it can turn itself.
40. If you listen to The Proclaimer’s song “I’m Gonna be (500 miles)” while on board on the international space station, you will have travelled approximately 1,000 miles or “500 miles and 500 more”.
41. The earth is the only planet in our solar system, that is not named after a god.
42. The sun is actually white. But our atmosphere makes it look yellowish to us.
43. If you were able to fold a piece of paper a total of 102 times, it would be about as thick as the entire known universe.
44. NASA plans to grow crops on the moon in the next six years.
45. It has been known since 1971 that the Olympus Mons volcano on Mars is the largest known volcano in our solar system. By comparison, it was not until 2013 that the largest volcano on Earth was discovered: the Tamu Massif in the Pacific.
46. The astronomer Eugene Shoemaker is the only human whose ash was transported to the moon after his death.
47. Russia has more land mass than Pluto. Interested in more facts about Russia?
48. NASA wants to send a probe to Uranus within the next 15 years.
49. In 1976 the BBC made an April fools hoax, that the planets in our sun system are located in a special constellation so that the gravity is decreased. This resulted in more than one thousand calls, confirming that one actually can feel the effect.
50. Valentina Tereshkova, sent into space in 1963, was the first woman in space. To this day, she remains the only woman to have been on a space mission alone. She was alone in space for a total of three days and orbited the Earth a total of 48 times.
51. On Mercury, one day – one revolution on its own axis – lasts 59 earth days.
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52. Michael James Massimino, an astronaut who has made several guest appearances in “The Big Bang Theory”, was the first person to tweet from space.
53. The 1967 Space Treaty stipulates that no country has the right to annex or occupy a celestial body. At the same time, it prohibits the stationing of nuclear weapons in space or the establishment of a military base or military exercises on the moon. More than 100 states, including the USA and Russia, have signed this treaty.
54. Scientists could confirm that on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, vast amounts of water can be found.
55. In the time since Pluto was discovered approximately 75 years ago, it has only travelled one third of its way around the sun.
56. If you were to stack all the viruses in the world on top of each other, this would result in a tower that would extend far beyond the moon, even further than our sun, further than Alpha Centauri and further than the edge of the Milky Way and into the next galaxy, with a total height of about 200 million light years.
57. Mae C. Jemison was the first female African-American astronaut in the history of space travel. In 1992 she flew into space with the space shuttle Endeavour.
58. On 13 February 2019, NASA officially lost contact with its Mars rover “Opportunity”. Originally, the rover was planned to be used for only 90 days, but instead it would continue to send data to Earth for more than 15 years. Contact was ultimately lost when the rover got caught in a sandstorm.
59. In the 1880s, Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard Observatory, was constantly complaining about his male colleagues. One day he supposedly said that even his Scottish maid would be able to perform better. He decided to hire his housekeeper Williamina Fleming, who then went on to successfully lead a team for several decades, helping to classify thousands of stars. She even discovered a white dwarf and was the first human to find the Horsehead Nebula.
60. The planet Uranus was discovered in 1781, while the Antarctic was not discovered until 1820.
61. NASA has special wristwatches produced for some of its employees that show the time of day on Mars.
62. The “Fallen Astronaut Sculpture” is the only work of art on the moon so far. It was created by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck and brought to the moon during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971. It commemorates the 14 astronauts who died prior to the Apollo 15 mission.
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63. The last time all living human beings were on Earth was on 2 November 2000. Since then, the International Space Station has been continuously occupied.
64. Buzz Aldrin was the first person to have a bowel movement on the moon.
65. Since 1987, the Chinese government has been sending plant seeds into space on a regular basis in order to deliberately cause mutations in the plants due to the increased radiation in space. The objective is to create improved and more productive plants. This project has already yielded giant eggplants, a 1.6 feet long cucumber and higher yielding pepper plants.
66. The Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral is located at exactly 28 degrees north latitude, as the moon’s orbit is also rotated by 28 degrees relative to the equator. When flying to the moon, you therefore receive maximum momentum from the earth’s rotation.
67. NASA has two identical satellites orbiting the Earth and repeatedly measuring the distance between each other to detect gravitational deviations. They are nicknamed “Tom” and “Jerry” because one satellite is always “chasing” the other.
68. It takes eight minutes and 17 seconds until the light from the sun reaches the earth.
69. Asia has a larger surface area than the moon. While the surface of the moon measures only 14,645,698 square miles, Asia covers a total of 17,212,368 square miles.
70. Halley’s comet won’t orbit past earth again until 2061.
71. On the 18th of October 1963 French scientists launched a rocket to move the first cat into space. The feline’s name was Félicette and she landed safely on the ground after a parachute descent. Are you interested in even more facts about cats? Just read our dedicated article about kittens here.
72. Despite its low mass, Pluto has five known moons.
73. In 2014 India launched a spacecraft to Mars at a total cost of only 75 million dollars. This was even cheaper than the production of the movie “Gravity”.
74. In 2015, the rotational speed of a planet outside our solar system was calculated for the first time. The exoplanet Beta Pictoris b, which could have up to 13 Jupiter masses, rotates around its own axis at a speed of 62,000 miles per hour (100,000 kilometers per hour). Scientists therefore assume that the more mass a planet has, the faster it rotates – with a few exceptions.
75. The International Space Station ISS is in orbit about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the earth.
76. Throughout its career, the British rock band Pink Floyd has released so many songs with astronomical allusions that scientists have named an asteroid after the band. “19367 Pink Floyd” was discovered in 1997 and has a diameter of over 4,100 miles.
77. Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Possibly the planet got this name because the Babylonians called it the “bright Queen of the sky”.
78. The largest known diamond in our galaxy is located 50 light years away from earth. At a diameter of 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) BPM 37093 is larger than the earth and got its nickname “Lucy” because of the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.
79. The New Horizons spacecraft was launched on Earth in 2006 and reached Pluto in 2015, reaching top speeds of over 52,000 miles per hour (84,000 kilometers per hour) over this distance.
80. Man has already left over 200 tons of garbage on the moon, including 70 spaceships, backpacks, 96 bags with urine and vomit as well as old boots.
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81. Jupiter is named after the Roman king of the gods.
82. The gravitational pull of Jupiter is so strong that a rocket would have to travel 135,000 miles per hour (215,000 kilometers per hour) to leave the planet. We have many more facts about Jupiter in store.
83. Even though Mars has only 15 percent of the Earth’s volume Mars and Earth have approximately the same land surface area due to the fact that the largest part of Earth’s surface is covered with water.
84. The fastest neutron star rotates with 24 percent speed of light. PSR J1748-2446ad thus reaches a rotational speed of 44,000 miles per second (70,000 kilometers per second).
85. The ashes of the deceased Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh were on board the space probe New Horizons.
86. Venus can be seen with the naked eye. That is why the first written mention of Venus was in ancient Babylon in 1600 BC.
87. It is not known where the “Great Red Spot” on Jupiter gets its red color from.
88. It is estimated that there are about 400 billion stars in our galaxy.
89. The human circadian rhythm is better suited to life on Mars than on Earth.
90. When Galileo Galilei discovered the rings of Saturn, he could not see them so well, so he thought they were moons. We made a fantastic video to tell you more facts about Galileo Galilei.
91. On its first anniversary NASA’s Curiosity Rover sang “Happy Birthday” to itself on Mars.
92. Saturn is the most distant planet that can still be seen with the naked eye.
93. The four largest moons of Jupiter are also called Galilean moons, since Galileo Galilei was the first to describe them. He mentioned Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa already in 1610.
94. The Russians were the first on Venus, because in 1966 the Soviet Venera 3 was the first spacecraft landed on Venus, although both the USA and the Soviet Union had already made attempts to do so.
95. So far there have been eight space probes that have examined Jupiter.
96. On Pluto there is a heart-shaped patch of frozen nitrogen that extends over 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) and is called “Sputnik Planitia”. If you would like to know more about the dwarf planet, we recommend our article containing very intersting facts about Pluto.
97. The dwarf planet Pluto was named after the Roman god of the underworld after the eleven-year-old Venetia Burney suggested the name to discoverer Clyde Tombaugh.
98. Astronomers estimate that there are probably more than a trillion galaxies in the universe.
99. During the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 astronaut Stuart Roosa took 500 seeds into orbit. Later, the seeds were germinated on Earth, and were planted at various sites around the US. Although the seeds orbited the Moon, but were not landed on it these trees are now called “moon trees”.
100. Both Saturn and Saturday are named after the Roman god of sowing.
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101. The largest Pluto moon Charon is about half the size of Pluto itself.
102. Some 26,000 light-years from Earth, near the center of the Milky Way is the gigantic molecular cloud Sagittarius B, which contains trillions of liters of alcohol.
103. Pluto is only one-third the size of the Earth’s moon and even only one-sixth its mass.
104. Approximately every 11 years, the sun reverses its overall magnetic polarity: its south magnetic pole becomes a north pole, and vice versa.
105. Coca-Cola was the first soft drink to be consumed in space, when astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger tested the “Coca-Cola Space Can” on July 12, 1985. Want to read more about the softdrink company? Check out our Facts about Coca–Cola.
106. Although neutron stars with diameters of up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) are really small astronomical objects, they weigh more than our Sun. One teaspoon of the material of a neutron star would already weigh a billion tons.
107. The Disney character Pluto was actually named after the former planet because it was discovered in the year the comic figure was created.
108. The “Voyager 2” spacecraft was the only one that has ever flown to Neptune. It approached the planet up to 1,864 miles (3,000 kilometers).
109. The blue color of Neptune is due to the methane in the atmosphere, which mainly consists of hydrogen and helium.
110. Uranium was discovered in 1789 by Martin Heinrich Klaproth who named the new element after the recently discovered planet Uranus.
111. Mars has its own flag which was designed by NASA engineer Thomas O. Paine in 1984.
We are sure that space is a weird but also wonderful thing for most people. Mankind was always looking at the stars and asking so many questions about it and we hope that we did provide some answers with our unbelievable space facts. However, due to the sheer vastness of space it’s almost impossible to cover all objects so please let us know about any other fact you are aware of. And you can have a look at our planet facts. If you enjoyed these incredible facts about space, we have plenty of more facts for you. Just follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Pinterest or visit our Fun Facts section for more amazing stuff.
FAQ
The ISS has cost 150 billion dollars so far.
Halley’s comet will orbit past earth again in 2061.
There are a lot of interesting space fun facts but our most favourite one is that the last time all living human beings were on Earth was on 2 November 2000. Since then, the International Space Station has been continuously occupied.
Between 1781 and 1850 Uranus was named George.