88 Interesting Facts about Space


  1. The first person to look into space with a telescope was Galileo, nearly 400 years ago.
  2. There is no sound in space.
  3. The first Earthling in space was Laika, a dog that was launched into space on the Soviet ship Sputnik 2 in 1957. After a week in space, the air in the capsule ran out and she died. After its orbit deteriorated, the craft left space and burned up, along with Laika’s body, as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.
  4. The Big Bang theory rests on an idea called inflation theory, which holds that at a fraction of a moment after the dawn of creation, the universe underwent a sudden dramatic expansion. It inflated, or ran away with itself, doubling in size every 10-34 seconds. The whole “bang” may have lasted no more than 10-30 seconds (one million million million million millionths of a second), but it changed the universe from something that could fit into a hand into something at least 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times bigger.
  5. Most of the atoms in our bodies were created in stars through fusion.
  6. The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut who flew aboard the Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963.
  7. Because there is no gravity in space, there is no natural convection, which means body heat won’t rise off the skin. Because of this, the body will constantly perspire to cool itself but, unfortunately, the sweat won’t drip or evaporate—it will just build up.
  8. Some bacterial colonies grow much faster in space. For example, astro E-coli colonies grow almost twice as fast as E-coli on Earth. Additionally, salmonella grows much deadlier while on a space shuttle than on Earth.
  9. The ISS effort involves more than 100,000 people in space agencies, at 500 contractor facilities, and in 37 U.S. states. That’s almost half of the entire population of the U.S. state of North Dakota.
  10.   The 38 Russian flights include 3 modules (Zarya, Zvezda, and Pirs), 13 Soyuz crew vehicles, and 22 Progress resupply ships.
  11. As of June 2006, the number of crewmembers and visitors who have traveled to the ISS included 116 different people representing 10 countries.
  12.  Living and working on the ISS is like building one room of a house, moving in a family of three, and asking them to finish building the house while working full time from home.
  13. Theorists believe that if you tune a television to any channel it doesn’t receive, about 1% of the static on it is an ancient remnant of the Big Bang.
  14. Spacewalks (EVAs): 69 (28 Shuttlebased, 41 ISS-based) totaling 410 hours.
  15. ISS full form is International Space Station .
  16. The mass of the ISS currently is 186,000 kg (410,000 lb) (equivalent to about 132 automobiles).
  17.  At Assembly Complete, the ISS will have a mass of almost 419,600 kg (925,000 lb). That’s the equivalent of more than 330 automobiles.
  18. The entire 16.4-m(55-ft) robot arm assembly will be able to lift 99,790 kg (220,000 lb), which is the mass of a Space Shuttle orbiter.
  19. The ISS has about 425 m^3 (15,000 ft^3 ) of habitable volume—more room than a conventional three-bedroom house. There are 9 research racks on board plus 16 system racks and 10 stowage racks.
  20. When completely assembled, the ISS will have an internal pressurized volume of 935 m^3 (33,023 ft^3 ), or about 1.5 Boeing 747s, and will be larger than a five-bedroom house.
  21.   The ISS solar array surface will be large enough to cover the U.S. Senate Chamber more than three times over at Assembly Complete.
  22.   A solar array’s wingspan of 73 m (240 ft) is longer than that of a Boeing 777, which is 65 m (212 ft).
  23. At Assembly Complete, the ISS will measure 110 m (361 ft) end to end. That’s equivalent to the length of a U.S. football field, including the end zones.
  24. The solar array surface area currently on orbit is 892 m^2 (9,600 ft^2 ), which is large enough to cover 75% of the U.S. House of Representatives Chamber (42 m x 28 m= 1,176 m^2 ) (139 ft * 93 ft = 12,927 ft^2 ).
  25. At Assembly Complete, the solar array surface area is 2,500 m^2 (27,000 ft^2 ), an acre of solar panels.
  26. Fifty-two computers will control the systems on the ISS.
  27. The data transmission rate is 150 Mb per second downlink with simultaneous uplink.
  28. Currently, 2.8 million lines of software code on the ground will support 1.5 million lines of flight software code, which will double by Assembly Complete.
  29.  The ISS travels an equivalent distance to the Moon and back in about a day. That’s equivalent to crossing the North American continent about 135 times every day.
  30.   In the International Space Station’s U.S. segment alone, 1.5 million lines of flight software code will run on 44 computers communicating via 100 data networks transferring 400,000 signals (e.g., pressure or temperature measurements, valve positions, etc.).
  31. The ISS provides an excellent viewing platform for Earth; its range covers more than 90% of the populated areas of the planet. Station crews have taken more than 200,000 images of Earth—almost a third of the total number of images taken from orbit by astronauts.
  32.   Research topics have been diverse— from protein crystal growth to physics to telemedicine. New scientific results from early Space Station research, in fields from basic science to exploration research, are being published every month.
  33.   As of June 2006, 90 science investigations have been conducted on the ISS over 64 months of continuous research. Nine research racks are on board. More than 7,700 kg (17,000 lb) of research equipment and facilities have been brought to the ISS.
  34.   About 700,000 NASA digital photographs of Earth are downloaded by scientists, educators, and the public each month from the “Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth” (http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov).
  35. Some 100 scientists, from as many institutions, have been principal investigators on ISS research, either completed or ongoing. NASA research has involved lead investigators from the U.S., Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and Spain. On some experiments, these principal investigators represent dozens of scientists who share data to maximize research.
  36.   Educational activities relating to the ISS include student-developed experiments; educational demonstrations and activities; and student participation in classroom versions of ISS experiments, NASA investigator experiments, and ISS engineering activities.
  37. From early 2000 through April 2006, 24 unique types of educational programs involved 31.8 million students, and over 12,500 teachers participated in ISSbased education workshops.
  38. In the EarthKAM experiment, nearly 1,000 schools and 66,000 middle school students have controlled a digital camera on board the ISS to photograph features of Earth. The students have investigated a wide range of topics such as deforestation, urbanization, volcanoes, river deltas, and pollution.
  39. Information from biomedical research on ISS is designed to develop countermeasures to the negative effects of longduration space flight on the human body so that future astronauts will be able to explore more safely.
  40. Medical ultrasound will be used as a diagnostic tool should a crewmember be hurt, even if the rest of the crew has not been previously trained in how to do a specific type of scan. The same telemedicine techniques benefit patients in rural areas and may eventually allow ultrasound images taken on ambulances to be sent ahead to the hospital. 
  41. Because there is no gravity in space, there is no buoyant force, which means nothing pushes bubbles up and out of carbonated drinks in space. Therefore, it is impossible to burp out the gas of, say, a root beer.
  42. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, who was aboard the space shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983. She was also the youngest American in space.
  43. Some scientists believe that we can look back to 10-43 seconds after the Big Bang, when the universe was so small that it could be seen only under a microscope. The number 10-43 is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001, or one 10 million trillion trillion trillionths of a second.
  44. According to some astronomers, at one ten-trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, gravity emerged, which was soon joined by electromagnetism as well as strong and weak nuclear forces. These were joined an instant later by elementary particles.
  45. A person could never get to the edge of the universe. If someone traveled outward in a straight line indefinitely, he would come back to where he began. The reason for this is that the universe bends, in a way that astronomers can’t adequately imagine.
  46. A black hole is created when a large star explodes and the leftover core collapses into an object so small and dense that its gravity becomes too strong for even the fastest thing in the universe—light—to escape. The first confirmed black hole to be discovered was Cygnus X-1 in 1964.
  47. Dark matter (which is linked to dark energy) is the “glue” that holds the universe together. However, it has not been directly measured, though scientists believe it has a better chance of being detected than dark energy.
  48. Theorists believe that around 98% of all the matter that exists was created with the Big Bang (helium, hydrogen, and lithium). Heavier matter such carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen emerged later.
  49. Cosmic rays are highly energetic particles that flow throughout our solar system from deep in outer space, but astronomers are unsure of their origins.
  50. On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with Earth about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over 1,000 feet away from Earth and Pluto would be a mile and a half distant—and about the size of a bacterium. Our nearest star, Proxima Centauri, would be almost 10,000 miles away.
  51. Our nearest neighbor in space, Proxima Centauri (which is part of the three-star cluster known as Alpha Centauri), is 4.3 light years away—which is about a hundred million times farther than a trip to the Earth’s moon. To reach it by spaceship would take at least 25,000 years. To reach the next neighbor, Sirius (“the dog star”), would take another 4.6 light years of travel.
  52. In the Milky Way, the average distance between stars is about 5 light years, or 30 trillion miles.
  53. Nobody knows how many stars there are in the Milky Way. Estimates range from 100 billion to 400 billion. And the Milky Way is just one of 140 billion galaxies, many of them larger than ours. Some astronomers argue that with such a large number of stars, it is very likely that the number of advanced civilizations in the Milky Way is probably in the millions.
  54. While Big Bang theorists believe the universe is about 13.7 billion years old, they also estimated it to be 156 billion years across. They explain that its diameter is larger than its age because it has been expanding since the Big Bang.
  55. NASA officials have maintained that astronauts have never had sex on the International Space Station or during any space shuttle missions. Scientists speculate, however, that while sex in space might pose some mechanical problems, conceiving a child could be dangerous. Low gravity could raise the risk of an ectopic pregnancy, and radiation could raise the risk of birth defects.
  56. The first space observatory may have been Stonehenge. Around 2600 B.C., Britons constructed stones that marked critical positions of the sun and moon throughout the year.
  57. The temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation that permeates the entire universe is 2.7° K (-270.45° C, -454.81° F).
  58. The oldest known star is the red giant HE 1523-0901. At 13.2 billion years old, it is almost as old as the universe itself.
  59. The core of a neutron star is so dense that a single spoonful of matter from it would weigh 200 billion pounds.
  60. Space is so dark because we can see light only when it hits an object and bounces off of it.
  61. Without gravity, food does not settle on taste buds like we are accustomed to on earth. Additionally, fluids tend to rise and gather in the sinuses, giving astronauts a stuffed up feeling, leading to a diminished sense of taste.
  62. After Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returned to Earth from the moon, they were quarantined for 21 days until it was determined that they did not bring back some space plague. It was later determined that the moon was devoid of life.
  63. Astronauts can grow up to 3% taller during the six months they spend on the International Space Station. Without gravity, their spines are free to expand. It takes a couple of months of being back on Earth for them to return to their preflight height.
  64. Astronauts in space would lose about 1% of their muscle mass each month if they didn’t exercise at least 2 hours a day.
  65. Over 100 ashes of human beings have been launched into space, including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and psychologist/writer Timothy Leary. The first human ashes to leave the solar system will be Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto. His ashes are aboard the New Horizons spacecraft, which is scheduled to pass Pluto in 2015.
  66. Black holes about 10,000 to 18 billion times heavier than the sun are thought to exist at the center of galaxies.
  67. The full cost of a spacesuit is about $11 million. Almost 70% of this is for the control module and the backpack.
  68. Sixteenth-century English admiral and explorer Sir Francis Drake proposed the Drake Equation, which estimated that there could be millions of civilizations in our universe.
  69. While scientists can describe and predict gravity, its source within matter is still unknown. Some scientists believe that infinitesimal particles called gravitons create the force. Scientists are also searching for gravitational waves, which would ground Albert Einstein’s theory that the universe has a space-time “fabric.”
  70. About 20 light years from Earth is star BPM 37093 (a.k.a. Lucy, after the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”). This white dwarf is actually one huge diamond that weighs in at 10 billion trillion trillion carats and is about the size of our moon.
  71. White holes are theorized time reversals of black holes. While the event horizon of a black hole attracts matter, the event horizon of a white hole ejects matter, even though the white hole itself still attracts matter. The difference is the action of the event horizon.
  72. Over 100 artificial satellites are launched into space each year.
  73. Scientists estimate that there may be as many as 20 trillion galaxies in our universe.
  74. The sun is not actually yellow. Because the temperature of the sun is 6,000° K (5,726.85° C, 10,340.33° F), it can be only one color: white. It appears yellow from Earth because of our atmosphere, which tints it yellow.
  75. If the sun were replaced by a black hole of the same mass, it would not suck the Earth in. Its gravitational pull can be only as powerful as its mass allows it to be. If its mass were the same as the sun’s, then the pull would be the same as the sun’s pull.
  76. Every year, as much as 400,000 tons of cosmic material heads toward Earth. Fortunately, most of it burns up in our atmosphere. Scientists call objects “meteoroids” before they reach Earth’s atmosphere. If they burn up in the atmosphere, they are called “meteors.” Objects that reach Earth’s surface are called “meteorites.”
  77. Small stars live longer than larger stars. A tiny star may live for hundreds of billions of year, while a huge star may live just a few million years. Our sun is a medium-sized star and will shine for 5 billion more years.
  78. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy and contains about 200–400 billion stars. It is approximately 100,000–120,000 light years in diameter.
  79. Winds on Neptune are the fastest in our solar system at about 1,450 mph (2,400 km/h).
  80. To the ancient Norse, the Milky Way was the road to Valhalla, home of slain warriors. In China and Japan, it was the “river of heaven” or the “silver river.” The ancient Greeks thought it was milk spilled by the goddess Hera, hence the name we call it today.
  81. The abbreviation for pound, "lb.," comes from the astrological sign Libra, meaning "balance."
  82. The U.S. space exploration program helped create the TV satellite dish, MRIs, vision screening computer systems, ear thermometers, firefighter suits made of fire-resistant fabrics, smoke detectors, cordless tools, shock absorbing helmets, invisible braces for teeth, joystick controllers, and much more.
  83. Moons can have moons, and they are called "moonmoons."
  84. Coca-Cola was the first drink that was ever consumed in space.

  87. The furthest away galaxy from Earth , that has been discovered , is GRB 090423,which is 13.6 billion light years away ! This means that the light we see from it began its journey only 600,000 years after the Universe was created!  
86. Mercury has no atmosphare which means there is no wind or weather.
87. It's impossible to whistle in a spacesuit. 
88. Our moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of 1.6 invh (4cm) per year!


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