The Solar System for the Curious: Everything You Always Wanted to Know

If you think you already know everything, you’re wrong: Here are 10 things you didn’t know about the solar system until now.

You can often hear us talking about the solar system in our articles. Help yourself 10 things you didn’t know yet in our cosmic neighborhood.

10 curiosities about the solar system

1. You can’t be on Uranus

If we could travel to the gaseous planets, we might be a little shocked to learn that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune They do not have solid surfacesIt has a rocky core, but it’s mostly big balls of hydrogen and helium.

2. All of Mars is as cold as the south pole

When we get to Mars, we’ll need to make sure we bring something to keep us warm. In fact, its average temperature is around -60 degrees Celsius, which is the same temperature as Earth’s South Pole. Some scientists, hoping to make it more habitable, have suggested ways we can make Mars hotter. One of these plans is to build giant mirrors capable of reflecting sunlight and starting a rapid global warming on Mars.

3. Saturn’s rings are made up of 90% water

Saturn is home to the coolest ice rink in our solar system. Being farther from the Sun, the water in its rings is in frozen form. However, the rest wasn’t discovered until the 1970s when probes went to explore it. Saturn’s rings were the first to be seen by Earth’s telescopes.

4. The largest moon of Jupiter has a salty ocean that contains more water than Earth

Forget holidays in the Mediterranean. If you want a great view of the ocean, Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede is the place to be. It is larger than Mercury and would be a planet if it orbited the Sun instead of Jupiter.

5. It takes only three months for Mercury to revolve around the sun

In three months you can write a book, pass a driver’s license test, or learn the basics of guitar. It is also the time it takes Mercury to complete one revolution around the Sun. It is the shortest orbit in our solar system, because Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.

6. It would take 100 times longer to make a complete revolution around the Sun than it would take the Earth to revolutionize

Long flights halfway around the world can be exhausting, but it’s nothing compared to the time it would take to fly around the sun. To embark on this journey, you must prepare yourself psychologically for a voyage of 206 days. Hopefully, there will be refueling stops along the way.

7. Today is longer than a year on Venus

One day is the time it takes a planet to rotate on itself and one year is the time it takes a planet to orbit the sun. Venus is one of only two planets in the solar system that rotate clockwise and rotate much more slowly compared to Venus. other celestial bodies. Some believe it was because it was slammed in a different direction by another planet, in the distant past, or simply gradually slowed until it stopped and then started spinning in the other direction. Venus takes 243 Earth days to make a complete revolution and 225 Earth days to revolve around the Sun. Therefore, one day is longer than one year on Venus.

8. Pluto is not the only dwarf planet in the solar system

There are six of them. Perhaps the first time I read the phrase “dwarf planet” was when Pluto was downgraded in 2006. We actually have six of them in our solar system: Pluto, Ceres, Makemake, Haumea and Eris were the only five we knew of until recently. A new dwarf planet was recently discovered, officially named 2015 TG387, but nicknamed “elf”.

9. The solar system is about 4.5 billion years old

Yes, it is very old. For your understanding, if the solar system was one year old, humans would appear on Earth just before the New Year countdown.

10. The solar system may not end with Pluto

The Oort Cloud is the so-called Terra Australis for the solar system. It’s a blob of frozen debris that scientists have identified as the outer edge of our solar system, but it’s still to be discovered. If the Earth were one centimeter from the Sun, the Oort Cloud would be half a kilometer away.

References: BBC