Space Trivia

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The planet Jupiter is named after the supreme god of the Romans. He was the god of the sky, the bringer of light, hurling lightning bolts down on the world when displeased.

Quasars are amazingly bright objects. A quasar generates 100 times as much light as the whole of our galaxy in a space not much larger than our solar system.

When we look at the farthest visible star, we are looking 4 billion years into the past – the light from that star, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, has taken many years to reach us.

The planet Mercury rotates three times in two of its years.

Saturn does not enjoy a climate conducive to fishermen or kite fliers. Wind speeds at the planet's equatorial cloud tops approach 1,000 miles per hour.

The planet Pluto takes 248 Earth years to orbit the Sun. For 20 of those years, it is closer to the Sun than the planet Neptune. The nature of its orbit, however, always prevents it from colliding with Neptune.

Saturn has the greatest number of known moons of any planet in the solar system. Its largest moon is named Titan.

The planet Pluto was discovered in 1930, by Clyde Tombaugh.

Saturn is much farther away from the Sun than Earth is. It takes Saturn approximately 29.48 Earth years to circle the Sun. Three spacecraft have visited Saturn: Pioneer 11 (1979), Voyager 1 (1980), and Voyager 2 (1981).

Winds ten times stronger than a hurricane on Earth blow around Saturn's equator. Wind speeds can reach 1,100 mph.

The planet Saturn is named after the Roman god of seedtime and harvest.

Saturn would float on water if there was an ocean large enough to accommodate it because of its density. However, Saturn is 95 times heavier than Earth.

With the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, a huge crater has been discovered on the asteroid Vesta. The crater is 285 miles across, which is massive when compared to the Vesta's 330-mile diameter. If Earth had a crater of proportional size, it would fill most of the Pacific Ocean basin.

The planet Uranus has fifteen known satellites.

Scientists are still finding new planets, but not in our solar system. Recently, a new planet was discovered orbiting the star Epsilon Eridani which is only 10.5 light years from Earth.