Space Facts

Only 55% of Americans know that the sun is a star.

There are two golf balls sitting on the moon.

If two pieces of the same pure metal touch in the vacuum of space, they can permanently fuse together through a process called cold welding.

Every day, approximately 100 tons of extraterrestrial material, mostly in the form of tiny space dust particles, enters Earth's atmosphere, contributing to our planet's ever-so-slight increase in mass.

Sound can't travel through the vacuum of space because there are no molecules to carry the vibrations.

Astronauts cannot burp in space.

The heart of an astronaut actually gets smaller when in outer space.

The sun is 330,000 times more massive than Earth

In space, astronauts can cry, but their tears don't flow down their faces. Without gravity, tears form a liquid ball that sticks to the eye, gradually growing larger until it spreads across the nose to the other eye or needs to be wiped away with a towel.

Saturn's rings stretch about 550,000 miles in circumference but are only 30 feet to half a mile thick—incredibly thin for their vast size.

The Earth gets heavier each day by tons, as meteoric dust settles on it.

More than 20 million meteoroids enter Earth's atmosphere every day.

Some asteroids have other asteroids orbiting them.

An unprotected human can survive approximately 90 seconds of space vacuum exposure without permanent injury, as long as they exhale to prevent lung rupture.

41% of the moon is not visible from earth at any time.

The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.

Near the center of the Milky Way exists a gigantic cloud of gas and dust called Sagittarius B2 that contains enough ethyl alcohol to produce 400 trillion trillion pints of beer.

In the “Forrest Gump” novel that the movie is based on, Forrest goes into space with NASA. Upon return, he crash lands on an island full of cannibals. He only survives because he beats the head cannibal at chess everyday.

In 1977, researchers detected a strong and unusual radio signal from space that lasted 72 seconds. It hasn't been detected since.

In 1963, the US Military created an artificial ring around Earth, similar to that of the planet Saturn. The ring was made of copper needles and was used for worldwide communications in the case that the Soviets disabled all other methods of communication.

In zero gravity, a candle's flame is round and blue.

Not only are there rogue planets floating through space completely alone, not orbiting any stars, but it’s possible that these pitch-black lonely planets support life.

There is a mysterious and loud radio signal known as 'the space roar' that has yet to be explained.

Since 2017, astronomers have discovered dozens of potentially habitable exoplanets, bringing the total to over 60 worlds that might support life.