50 Surprising Facts About Space You Didn't Know

This video is brought to you by Skillshare. As you're about to learn, the universe is a big and wonderful place, and if you're interested in learning more about it, or perhaps weaving some space themes into your personal art, Skillshare's got your back. With classes in Nightscape Astrophotography, you can learn how to capture stunning images of the Milky Way, and with plenty of Photoshop classes to teach you how to make your own custom digital space assets, you'll learn how to make your own universe in no time. As has been famously said, space is the final frontier, the greatest of unknowns. Space is far more vast than we can comprehend, and filled with phenomenon we barely understand. While we've been watching the heavens in awe for millennia, space exploration and discovery only began in earnest in the mid-20th century. Yet even what are no doubt our primitive findings still point at a universe more incredible than we ever thought. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Infographics Show- today we're taking a look at 50 incredible facts about space. 50. Until 1923, scientists thought that the entire universe was just our Milky Way, until astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the astronomical feature known as Andromeda, a fuzzy spot in the night sky, was actually an entire other galaxy. Overnight the size of the universe was effectively doubled. 49. Hubble made his discovery from the Hooker Telescope, built atop a mountain in California. It was the first mountaintop telescope in the world, and at the time, an incredible feat of engineering. 48. To measure the distance between galaxies in space, astronomers used Cepheids, or stars that periodically dim and brighten. Henrietta Leavitt discovered that by monitoring the time it took these stars to dim and brighten, you could calculate how far away they were. 47. Leavitt's discovery of how to calculate the distance based on the cycling of Cepheid stars allowed Hubble to prove that Andromeda was located outside the Milky Way, and was thus its own galaxy. 46. Hubble scanned Andromeda for nights on end looking for Cepheid stars, until finally discovering one in October 1923. After monitoring it for a week, he used Leavitt's formula and discovered it was indeed located outside the Milky Way. 45. In 2011, the Hubble Space Telescope captured a picture of that star, called the Variable Number 1, or V1. It has been called the most important star in the history of cosmology. 44. Of all the planets in our solar system, only Mercury and Venus don't have moons. 43. The hottest planet in our solar system is not Mercury, as most would assume, but Venus. Due to runaway global warming, Venus's temperature is an incredible 863 degrees Fahrenheit. 42. Not only is Venus's atmosphere blazing hot, but it also has an atmospheric pressure 92 times greater than Earth's. That would crush you flat as a soda can if you walked on its surface. 41. In 1966, the Soviet Union's Venera 3 was the first man-made craft to land on Venus. Unfortunately, its communication systems had failed long before reaching Venus, and it was unable to relay back any data. 40. Although it crash-landed and didn't send any data back home, Venera 3 is the first human-made object to impact another planet's surface. 39. On the 18th of October, 1967, Venera 4 became the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet. The Soviets initially claimed the craft reached the surface intact, but when the American Mariner 5 spacecraft flew by Venus the very next day, it measured a surface pressure of 75 to 100 atmospheres, well out of the range of Venera 4's 25 atmosphere hull strength. The claim by the Soviet Union was quickly redacted. 38. Venus's atmosphere is so dense that parachutes are only necessary to slow down. The Soviet Union's Venera 9 released its parachutes at an atmospheric height of 31 miles and landed at a speed of only 15 miles per hour. It was also the first spacecraft to transmit photos from another planet. 37. Our solar system is about 4.6 billion years old, and scientists believe it will last another five billion years before our sun turns into a red giant. 36. The tallest mountain known to man is Olympus Mons, an extinct volcano on Mars. With a peak 15 miles high, it is nearly three times larger than Mount Everest. 35. A light year is the distance light travels in one year, or 5.88 trillion miles. 34. The width of our Milky Way galaxy, according to NASA, is about one quintillion kilometers, or 621,371,192,237,333,888 miles, or in astronomical terms, 100,000 light years. 33. Because most stars are so far away, when you look up into the night sky you're not seeing them as they currently are, but as they were thousands of years ago. That's how long their light takes to reach us. 32. Our sun is 300,000 times larger than the Earth, but in the universe it's a lightweight. 31. The largest star in the known universe is VY Canis Majoris. It's 1,400 times larger than our own sun. If you stuck it in our solar system, it would extend all the way past Jupiter. 30. Red giants are really old stars that form when stars ten times the mass of our sun runs out of hydrogen in its core. As it collapses, the hydrogen in the outer shells begin the process of fusion, and the entire star begins fusing hydrogen all at once. They will burn through all of their fuel in just a few million years, unlike the billions it takes our sun, and shine 100,000 times brighter than our own sun. 29. These stars often explode as a supernova, the most powerful explosion in the universe. 28. The original universe consisted solely of hydrogen and helium. Every other element on the periodic table and every single thing you see around you today was formed in the heart of exploding stars. 27. That's because when a star goes supernova, it releases huge amounts of energy and neutrons which produces heavier elements. The carbon in your body and the gold in the jewelry you wear were all made from exploding stars. 26. Only hydrogen and helium were formed in the Big Bang. The next time you suck down helium from a party balloon, you are sucking down a gas that probably formed just three minutes after the Big Bang. 25. Red giant Betelgeuse, 1,000 times larger than our sun, is a cosmic neighbor and expected to go supernova in the next 1,000 years. 24. Some scientists theorize that life is only possible in the outer edges of a galaxy where large stars are rare and thus supernovas don't routinely sterilize worlds of life. 23. We ourselves are between two arms of the Milky Way and in a relatively rural part of the galaxy. 22. Extending well past the orbit of Pluto is a massive sphere of icy objects known as the Oort Cloud. These are remnants from the formation of the solar system, held in place by the weak gravity of the very distant sun. 21. Every few million years as we orbit the center of the Milky Way, we enter a region of space full of cosmic debris. Some scientists theorize that this debris may disturb the fragile orbits of the objects in the Oort Cloud and send them hurtling into the solar system. The timing of our entry into this region of the Milky Way coincides with several mass extinction events here on Earth. 20. Panspermia is the theory that life is transmitted like a virus from planet to planet by asteroid and comet impacts. 19. A meteorite discovered in Antarctica was found to originate from Mars and after careful examination, some scientists believe it shows fossilized evidence of microscopic organisms. Giving serious credibility to the panspermia theory, we might all actually be Martians. 18. It's thought that this meteorite was launched into space from Mars when a massive asteroid struck the planet, sending debris hurtling out of the atmosphere. In time, its orbit intersected with the Earth and may have brought its Martian hitchhikers with it. 17. In 2008, an ESA mission sent tardigrades, tiny microscopic organisms, into space. After 10 days of exposure to the vacuum of space, ultraviolet radiation from the sun and cosmic rays, they were returned to Earth still alive. Before the tardigrades, only some lichen and bacteria were known to survive exposure to space, meaning panspermia may be a valid theory for the origin of life on Earth. 15. Because there is no atmosphere on the moon, the footprints and tire prints left on the moon by American astronauts will never disappear unless an asteroid impact wipes them out. 14. Not only does Jupiter have the most moons in our solar system, with 79, but as of right now it has the most moons of any known planet in our galaxy. 13. Many scientists think that without Jupiter, life on Earth would be impossible. That's because the giant of our solar system exerts such a strong gravity that it pulls in many comets and asteroids that might have impacted Earth. Jupiter is like our personal bodyguard. 12. Once thought rare outside of the Earth, water has been found practically everywhere in the solar system, even on Mercury where scientists never dreamed it would be possible. In 2011, NASA's MESSENGER probe discovered water ice and craters on Mercury's North Pole. That's despite a surface temperature of 800 degrees Fahrenheit on the day side. 11. Not only does Earth rotate as it orbits the sun, but the sun itself also rotates at a rate of once every 25 to 35 days. 10. Earth is the only solar system planet not named after a god. 9. Pluto is smaller in diameter than the United States. 8. The first theory positing the existence of black holes was from an English clergyman named John Mitchell in November 1784. He even correctly noted that these features would not be visible to the naked eye, but that they could be detected by their gravitational effects on other bodies. 7. Despite proving through general relativity that black holes could form, Einstein himself did not believe they could form in the natural world. It wouldn't be until 1972 that Cygnus X-1 became the first observed black hole, taking them from the realm of theory to the realm of reality. 6. In 2002, astronomers presented evidence that a supermassive black hole lurks at the center of our own Milky Way. 5. In 2012, Suvi Jaisari and his team published the first visual evidence of a black hole. Using the Pan-STARRS-1 telescope in Hawaii, they photographed a supermassive black hole 2.7 million light years away, swallowing a red giant. 4. In 2015, gravity waves from the merging of a pair of black holes into one were detected. The violence of their merging created a ripple through spacetime that was detectable here on Earth, millions of light years away. 3. Not only did general relativity predict that black holes were possible, but it also predicted that white holes could also be possible. The polar opposite of a black hole, a white hole is a region of spacetime where matter cannot enter. 2. A growing theory suggests that white holes are the opposite ends of black holes, and that our own Big Bang was a supermassive white hole that existed for fractions of a second. 1. Afraid that returning astronauts might be carrying unknown and deadly lunar germs, the Apollo astronauts were quarantined immediately after their arrival on Earth. What other incredible facts about space are there? Are we really all Martians? Is our entire universe just the end of a black hole from another universe? Let us know in the comments! Also, be sure to check out our other show 50 Facts About The Cold War! Thanks for watching, and, as always, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. See you next time!