1) For years, people believed Earth was the only planet in our solar system with liquid water. Recently, NASA revealed its strongest evidence yet that water sometimes flows on Mars too!
2) About a million Earths could fit inside the Sun – and the Sun is only an average-sized star! Many stars are much bigger.
3) Even if we really wanted to, we couldn’t walk on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune, because they don’t have a solid surface. These planets are made mostly of gas, which is why they’re called “gas giants.”
4) If we could fly to Pluto in an airplane, the trip would take more than 800 years. Amazing!
5) Believe it or not, there’s trash in space too! Space junk is any human-made object orbiting Earth that isn’t useful anymore. Scientists estimate there are about 500,000 pieces of it, including bits of rockets and satellites – and even everyday things like wrenches dropped while building the International Space Station!
6) About once a year, an asteroid the size of a car enters Earth’s atmosphere. Luckily, it burns up before it reaches us.
7) The tallest mountain we know of is on an asteroid called Vesta. At a massive 22 km high, it’s about three times taller than Mount Everest!
8) It’s hard to believe, but there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all of Earth’s beaches. That’s at least a billion trillion!
9) If we could stand on Mars, we’d see an amazing and unusual sunset. The air on Mars is much thinner than on Earth – only about 1% as thick – and its sunsets look blue! During the day, the dusty Martian sky looks pinkish-tan. Only near sunset, when the sunlight passes through more air, does a blue glow spread around the Sun.
10) Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. It’s so big that all the other planets could fit inside it! It also spins faster than any other planet – a day there lasts only 9 hours and 55 minutes. Compared to Earth, you could say that by the time the day starts, it’s already over 😃
