25 mind-blowing facts about space that sound made up but are totally 100 real part 2. think you've
heard it all the vastness of space is only compounded by the endless questions we have
about it astrophysicists spend their entire careers looking for answers to the mysteries
of the universe they are just the curious the observers the space wanderers welcome the fact
nominal and in today's video we are going to blow your mind with more insane facts about space that
sound made up but are totally 100 real don't jump ship we're just getting started number 25
you already know that pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006 but did you know we have a
dwarf planet closer to earth ceres is located in the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter
and is about 13 times smaller than earth and was once considered a missing planet until astronomers
agreed to redefine what makes up a planet in 2015 the dawn spacecraft arrived to check it out
making it the first dwarf planet to receive a visit from us number 24 there's a giant cloud
of alcohol floating around in space is it time to belly up to the bar not quite but they're
on sagittarius b about 26 000 light years away there is a vast cloud that contains 10 billion
billion billion liters of vinyl alcohol this is no single malt scotch but it is an important organic
molecule that offers clues on how the building blocks of life-forming substances are produced
number 23 we know a lot about our orbit around the sun and the orbits of our other
planets in the solar system but do you ever wonder about our sun itself and its orbit
it takes 225 million years for our sun to travel its own orbit around the center of the milky way
that means that the last time the sun was in its current position in space
dinosaurs were still roaming the earth and pangaea was about to break apart
number 22 any mountain climbers out there here on earth humans are often in awe over the greatest of
our mountain chains and climbing above the clouds but did you know that the largest mountain range
in our solar system is not here on earth it's on mars olympus mons is a gigantic shield volcano
like those in hawaii but is three times the height of mount everest or 60 empire state
buildings standing 16 miles tall and over 325 miles across olympic mons is approximately the
same size as the state of arizona number 21 when we think of gravity we often think of pulling
like pulling our feet towards the ground however most of the universe operates on repulsive gravity
or gravity that pushes instead of pulls in 1998 astronomers found that the universe is speeding up
and to explain this phenomenon they formulated the concept of dark energy
and it is this energy that has repulsive gravity that pushes and accelerates our cosmic expansion
number 20 mercury is shrinking in 2016 we evaluated the data from the messenger or
the mercury surface space environment geochemistry and ranging spacecraft
this data helped us map the entire planet in high definition and get a good look at
the surface of the closest planet to the sun we now know that mercury is similar to
earth by being tectonically active and the data suggests that landforms known as fault scarps
which are cliff-like land formations we were able to deduce that due to their size that
the planet is still contracting or shrinking 4.5 billion years after the solar system was formed
number 19 speaking of spacecraft our satellites and space probes have been quite busy over the
last 60 years did you know we have officially visited every planet in our solar system
including the two dwarf planets of ceres and pluto the busiest craft being nasa's twin voyager
spacecrafts which launched in 1977 over 40 years later and they are still transmitting data to us
number 18 how long would it take to get to the moon we know that it only takes about three
days for a spacecraft to get to the moon which is pretty fast in the big scheme of things but what
if we could use other modes of transportation to get there astronomer fred hoyle was the first to
point out that if you could drive a car upwards at 60 miles per hour it would only take about an hour
to get into space while space is only about an hour drive up into the atmosphere by car
it would take 239 000 miles of road to drive to the moon that would take the average driver
six months to get to their lunar destination walking there would take a whopping nine years
number 17 we all know that jupiter is our largest planet but just how big is it you could fit all of
the other planets inside of it and still have 30 percent more space to fill that's right the whole
solar system could fit inside just 70 percent of jupiter's mass feeling small yet yeah us too
number 16 planets look heavy don't they when considering the mass and weight of our planets we
often think of our own and its dense core however the second largest planet in our solar system
saturn is actually the lightest due to its gassy makeup of hydrogen and helium
it's actually less dense than water which means if you had a tub large enough to contain it
it would float just like your favorite rubber ducky number 15 our solar system is special
scientists have discovered other planets around stars of course there are more than 3 500 on
record but none of them is like our own most have a very compact grouping of planets that
orbit much closer to their star even the giant-sized planets have pulled in close
they also often have comet-like orbits that are more elliptical in shape then some systems work
in retrograde or backward from a typical orbit we have yet to understand if there is a correlation
between our uniqueness and life itself time will tell number 14 100 years ago einstein predicted
ripples in the fabric of space and time and in 2015 gravitational waves were detected
for the first time on earth they came from the merging of two black holes in a distant galaxy
that kind of power sent out more than 50 times the energy of all the stars in the universe combined
what because black holes formed from supernovas the stars that imploded would have weighed at
least 300 solar masses this rare event has scientists thinking the black holes could
have been leftovers from the origins of the universe itself born from the big bang
number 13. ever feel a little off center welcome to uranus the only planet in the solar system that
spins a little off kilter most of the planets spin in harmony with the sun on a similar axis
but not uranus its difference in motion makes for very long seasons each pole gets around 42
earth years worth of straight summertime sunlight followed by a balancing 42 years of darkness the
northern hemisphere of uranus celebrated its last summer solstice in 1944 during world war ii
and will see its next winter solstice in seven years in 2028 merry christmas uranus
number 12 some years go by in the blink of an eye
and some days drag on forever no we are not talking about your life but about life on venus
this inhospitable and dangerous planet has the slowest rotation in the solar system
it takes longer for venus to fully rotate on its axis than it does to orbit the sun
this makes its day longer than its year mind blown number 11 in our never-ending search for
other life-forms scientists have theorized that over 300 million planets in our galaxy may be
able to support life experts are hunting down what they call goldilocks planets or planets that have
the just right conditions it takes to support life as we know it here on earth they consider
impacts of size sunlight and chemical compositions of the planet and atmosphere if we have that many
potentially habitable planets in the milky way imagine the possibilities for the entire universe
number 10 how many galaxies are actually out there in space while different calculations
offer different results the hubble telescope has provided some insight into the observable universe
on average scientists believe there could be as many as 200 billion galaxies out there there
could very well be more as some have suggested two trillion we just don't have the capabilities
to see them at their distance number nine building off of our last fact some theories
suggest we could be living in one universe of many which scientists call a multiverse
this theory is supported by mathematics quantum mechanics and astrophysics
there could be parallel universes and different dimensional universes
these concepts may seem out of this world but opening our minds up to this possibility may
unlock some key questions and answers we seek out of the universe as a whole number eight as humans
we haven't physically made it very far out into space at this point however some of our best tools
and machines have traveled astounding distances on our behalf nasa's voyager 1 is now the furthest
man-made object floating out in space it is now 153 astronomical units away and has left our solar
system completely having crossed into interstellar space in august of two thousand twelve
number seven tibet's yar lung senpo grand canyon in the himalayas is an incredible sight at over
300 miles long and 19 thousand feet deep but it's not the largest canyon in the solar system
that award goes to valles marineris on mars it's more than eighteen hundred miles long
and five miles deep by comparison it is four times larger than north america's grand canyon
number six we haven't talked about neptune yet our last inline of gassy giants this planet offers up
the fastest wind speeds in the entire solar system ever been out in a hurricane or seen
the force of a tornado these are nothing compared to the 1200 mile per hour winds found in neptune's
great dark spot that's faster than the speed of sound here on earth number five our moon is pretty
boring while it contributes quite a bit to life here on earth there's not a lot happening up there
one of jupiter's moon's io however is chaotic and incredibly interesting
io has hundreds of volcanoes on its surface and is the most active moon in
the solar system the new horizons craft caught a glimpse of this activity on its way to pluto
io's eruptions seem to come from the immense gravity the moon is exposed to
being nestled in jupiter's gravitational well we still have much to learn and discover about io
number four what is the fastest spinning object in the universe it is currently believed that
pulsar neutron stars hold this grand title we can track the speed based on the radiation beam given
off by pulsars so we can gauge their rotations our current gold medal winner is psrj1748-250
whose equator spins 24 faster than the speed of light or about 70 000 kilometers per second
number three need to deep freeze something while we know space is all the same temperature we all
know that temperatures vary greatly throughout the different planets and moons we discover and study
the coldest known spot in our solar system happens to be on triton one of neptune's 14 moons the
temperature here is on average minus 391 degrees fahrenheit it's gonna take a long time to defrost
anything at that temperature number two while we look for equality here on earth
we should take into consideration that we are all literally made of stardust
each and every living being on earth is comprised of the same materials we are all connected calcium
carbon iron it is all found in the composition and fallout from the burning core of a star
therefore as carl sagan once said we are all made of star stuff number one
the top mind-blowing fact about space is that out of everything out there in the entirety
of the universe our human brains are the most complex and complicated system ever discovered
with its hundred billion neurons and quadrillion connections we still know very little about
something we use every day from everything science has discovered and it's a lot they have yet to
find anything quite as unique or mind-blowing as our human imagination albert einstein once said
imagination is more important than knowledge for knowledge is limited to all we know and understand
while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand
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