1. The Universe is probably about 15 billion years old.
2. The brightest star in each constellation is called the Alpha Star, the next brightest Beta.
3. All the stars, galaxies, and black holes in the universe only compose about 5% of its mass. The other 95% is unaccounted for. Scientists are still not sure of the nature of both the dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter, a mysterious form of matter that has been unidentified, accounts for 26.8%
of the contents.
Dark energy, which is the energy of empty space and that is causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate,
accounts for the remaining 68.3% of the contents.
4. We are made up of same atom and molecules which are once part of stars and galaxies billions of years ago. We are star dust!
5.In 2004, scientists discovered the largest diamond ever. In fact it’s a star -- a collapsing star. Measuring 4000 km across and having a core composed of 10 billion trillion trillion carats it’s roughly 50 light years from the Earth.
6. The Andromeda galaxy is our closest galactic neighbour, roughly 2.5 million light-years away. It is 140,000 light-years across, it isn’t bright enough to be seen in the night sky by our eyes.
7. The size of the whole universe is unknown and maybe either limited or unlimited.
8. The diameter of a typical galaxy is around 30,000 light-years, and the typical distance between two neighboring galaxies is 3 million light-years .
9. In accordance with the general theory of relativity, some regions of space may never interact with ours even in the lifetime of the Universe due to the limited speed of light and the ongoing expansion of space .
10. Astronauts grow up to 2 inches in height after a trip to space. Due to lack of gravity, the spine of an astronaut stretches by 3 percent when he/she is in space.
11. Objects in space such as a group of galaxies, stars, black
holes etc are so massive that through their gravitational effect they
can bend light rays. This effect is called gravitational lensing
12. Big Bang theory is currently the prevailing cosmological model describing
the development of the Universe. Space and time were created in the Big Bang, and these were imbued with a fixed amount of energy and matter; as space expands, the density of that matter and energy
decreases.
13. According to NASA, scientists have discovered that there is a huge
reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12
billion light-years away.
14. There's water vapor in the Milky Way, although most of the Milky Way’s water is frozen in ice.
15. In a PNAS study, suggests that there’s a potentially- habitable Earth-like planet orbiting at least 1% of the total stars in the universe—a total of 100 billion billion Earth-like planets. In essence, there are 100 billion earth like planets scattered around the universe.
16. One of the most mysterious objects in outer space is a black hole. black holes have extreme gravitational pull, letting nothing escape from them. They are formed when a star dies.
17. Out of the four forces we discovered, gravity is the dominant force of the universe at interstellar distances.
18. Our Solar System has nine planets including Pluto, but Pluto may be an escaped moon or an asteroid not a planet.
19. The brightest stars in the night sky are not actually stars, but the planets Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Mercury.
20. A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases. They are believed to form stars, planets and other planetary objects.
Notes
1. Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula), last accessed 19 February 2016.
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe#Rindler), last accessed 15 February 2016.
2. NASA ( http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe20110722.html), last accessed 19 February 2016.
3. IFL Science
( http://www.iflscience.com/space/space-oddities-unbelievable-facts-about-our-universe), last accessed 19 February 2016.
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