The universe is vast, unexplored and, in my opinion, a little scary. Let’s take a look at some little-known facts about the universe we are part of.
Table of Contents
Sand vs. Stars
In the universe, there are more stars than there are grains of sand on our home planet of Earth.
I’m not quite sure who has managed to count every grain of sand on the planet but all credit to them.
In reality, there are at least a billion trillion stars in the universe- that’s a lot of stars! Other estimates reckon there could be 10,000 stars for every grain of sand on Earth.
It’s off-topic but does anyone else think that sand vs. stars sounds like the most glitter-filled boxing fight ever?
To infinity and beyond
This one isn’t a huge fact and won’t change your opinion of the universe. This one is more for the Toy Story fans out there. An actual Buzz Lightyear figure was on the International Space Station for 15 months. He may be just a toy but that figure lived my dream of going to space.
In space, nobody can hear you… write!?
Let’s first start and talk about how most pens work. When you take off the lid and put pen to paper to write we have gravity to thank for the ink making its way onto the page so we can write books (did you know I write books? Check out my authors page here), love letters and even our Christmas lists.
In space… this becomes more difficult as gravity isn’t a thing. This means you couldn’t take your pen to space and write a letter home. In space you need to use a space pen… no really, that’s what they’re called. You could call them a zero-gravity pen if you’d prefer though.
These pens use pressurised ink which helps you write in space … they even work underwater!
Spinning the ‘wrong’ way
Venus, a planet in our Solar System, is spinning the opposite way round to the other planets in the Solar System. Scientists say this means that Venus is spinning the wrong way round… but how do we know that all the other planets aren’t spinning the wrong way and Venus is the only one getting it right?
In any case, what do you think caused Venus to spin in the opposite direction? Was it crashed into by a large object which caused it to spin around in the other direction?
Nobody knows the answer… but I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
It’s cold out there
I often feel like we spend a lot of time talking about Venus and how it is the warmest planet in our Solar System and we don’t spend enough time talking about Uranus… the planet, I’m talking about the planet.
Uranus is the coldest planet in the Solar System- which is also true whenever we sit on a cold toilet seat. Though is a cold toilet seat better than a warm one?
On a good day, the temperature might be as high as -224 degrees on the distant planet.
It’s kinda strange that Uranus is the coldest planet in the Solar System as Neptune is further away from the sun than it. Neptune is a good 10 degrees warmer than Uranus… I didn’t need to say Uranus there- I honestly just enjoy writing it because I’m ten years old apparently.
Just one or two…
At the time of writing, there have been 5,572 planets discovered outside our Solar System. I’ll be honest, they all have rubbish names and not one is made out of jelly.
Check out NASA’s Exoplanet catalogue to see the rubbish names for yourself.
Let me know what you would call a planet in the comments below!
Megacomets
Comets are scary but they don’t really bother us here on Earth. A car-sized comet enters our atmosphere nearly every year, but our powerful atmosphere burns it up. But there are more comets out there… megacomets!
In 2021 an 85-mile wide megacomet was discovered. It has a mass 100,000 times greater than an average comet- I don’t really know what it means but I think in summary it’s a big comet.
It’s scheduled to be closest to Earth in 2031, but there’s no need to panic. It’s predicted to not get closer than 1 billion miles away. We may dodge this one… but who knows how many megacomets are out there.
Well, I think that will do for today. A short and sweet one. Those were my little-known facts about the universe, please do share your own in the comments below!
What to read next
If you have enjoyed this Not-So-Romantic Blog (which I hope you have) here are some more on a similar theme I think you’d enjoy if you want to keep reading!