Science is cool! I love hearing about all the discoveries that prove how amazing our universe is. Sometimes I hear a science fact that seems so implausible, it seems like it must be from one of the sci-fi movies I love — but often times, it's actually true. When that happens, it just grows my love of science.
Turns out, others have also felt the same way as me, including Threads user ravinderpelia, who asked, "What's a fact about the universe that sounds like science fiction but is actually 100% real?" Here are the 29 most mind-blowing facts people shared, along with my explanation:
The Appalachian Mountains are about 1.2 billion years old; Saturn's rings are only about 400 million years old.
Using this math, there could be up to 30 times more trees on planet Earth than stars in our galaxy. It is worth noting, though, that once you travel out of our home galaxy, the stars would then outnumber the trees on Earth.
In the vast cosmic sense, this is true. To have wood, life needs to be present. The base elements in wood are present in other parts of the universe, but the life required for wood only occurs on Earth (as far as we know).
Unfortunately, this one doesn't have to do with pasta. Instead, it is a term that is associated with black holes. Spaghettification is basically a tidal effect that is caused by gravitational fields of extreme power. If something were to be sucked into a black hole, it would become long, thin, and stretched out, resembling a spaghetti noodle, hence the name spaghettification.
There are approximately 93 million miles between Earth and the Sun. To travel that distance, it takes the Sun's light rays about eight minutes to get to Earth.
Similar to the wood fact from above, open flames, as we know, require life. Fire was created on Earth through billions of years of photosynthesis occurring. Other planets that have things like magma do not have the same fiery magma as Earth does, as they do not possess the life required for open flames.
This one is a classic thought experiment. A cat is placed in the box with a deadly substance, and then the lid is shut. The observer can see the box but not its contents. Without opening the lid, the cat is both alive and dead simultaneously unless and until the lid is removed and the viewer can look inside to observe the cat.
We are entirely made up of star particles or bits of the Big Bang that were formed before the birth of our planet. Once the elements were created in the cosmos, they have taken many shapes, and right now, they are making up your body.
This is wild, but true! Earth orbits the sun, and the solar system does orbit the center point of our galaxy, the Milky Way. All of this travels at about the speed of 515,000 miles per hour, meaning that an hour ago we were 515,000 miles from where you are as you read this, and 12,360,000 miles from where you were 24 hours before. Despite this speed, a full rotation for our solar system takes about 230–250 million years.
The moon is about 238,855 miles away from Earth. When the moon is at apogee, 30 Earths could fit between the Earth and the Moon. If you add up all the planets' diameters, you would see that you could fit them all in the space between the Earth and the Moon (and even squeeze in another Earth).
This is true using general relativity. If you were to cross the event horizon of a black hole, the roles of space and time would be reversed for you. This is due to the extreme curvature of gravity within the hole.
This is because of the massive energy required to make those heavy elements; a supernova provides vast energy, allowing for their synthesis.
This pattern is not visible when an iron meteorite is found, but when it is cut and polished, it becomes visible. It has extremely niche specifications for this creation, which is why it cannot be replicated on Earth. It only forms as the iron-nickel alloy deep within the meteorite cools down at temperatures between one and one hundred degrees celcius over the course of millions of years.
Black holes create very loud sounds (resembling low rumbling and moaning). It is caused by pressure waves that move through the gas around the black hole, which are created due to the hole's activity. NASA has since been able to capture what the hole would sound like, but in the vacuum of space, it seems silent, even if there is sound being emitted.
Uranus' volume is nearly 63 times that of Earth on the dot, meaning exactly 63 Uranuses could fit into Earth.
Without stars, it would be much darker in the night sky. Things like early navigation and calendars would also never have been possible in the way we know them today.
Not just gold — most heavy elements (including gold) are created when collisions occur between two neutron stars. The collisions release a whole lot of elements that are required for life.
While many believe the sun is a ball of lava or fire, it is actually made of plasma. It exists at approximately 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
This is explained by a functional concept in quantum mechanics. When traveling through space, photons act as waves. When they interact with matter, however, they behave like individual chunks of energy rather than waves.
This is partially correct. The universe is always expanding very slowly. However, the rate is slower than 8.3% growth. Using the Hubble constant, the actual rate of expansion can be found and is considerably less than 8.3%. Instead, it is about 70 km/s per megaparsec.
According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), there are 88 official constellations in our galaxy.
There are many more stars in the sky than grains of sand on Earth. While this is impossible to calculate definitively, as it is impossible to know how many stars are truly out there and impossible to count grains of sand everywhere on the planet, scientists have come up with extremely probable guesstimates for both values. One estimation says there are 200 sextillion stars, and 7.5 quintillion grains of sand.
23.
And, lastly:
This is due to a phenomenon known as cold welding. This will occur naturally in space when clean and pure metals touch one another, and the atoms within the two objects bond. These bonds effectively fuse the two objects, making them one.
Do you have a favourite space fun fact? If so, please share it in the comments!
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SpaceX
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NASA