Hi guys because it's world space week we thought we'd put together a few of the most mind blowing
space facts that have popped up on head squeeze are you ready?
Let's count down, 10, 9, 8, oh let's just skip to it.
The Universe came into existence around 14 billion years ago.
Look at something which is sufficiently far away it takes all of those 14 billion years
for the light to reach you so you see things as they were at the start of time itself.
Our nearest star is Proxima Centauri, I say our nearest, I say it's 39,900, 000, 000,
000 km away or 4.22 light years.
So called because it would take light, travelling at the speed of light at 186,000 miles per
second, 4.22 years to reach us.
Which means if aliens were orbiting Proxima Centauri and listening for our radio signals
they would hear what we were broadcasting 4.22 years ago back in 2009 so let's hope
they like Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas.
Space officially begins at the Carmen line at 100 kilmoeters above the earth here the
earth is too thin to support conventional aircraft so above the Carmen line aeronautics
become astronautics, and pilots become astronauts.
So where are you going on your holidays?
Well mars?
That sounds nice.
It's not a reality yet but it in 10years time we could be taking the ultimate gap-yah to
mars.
One company plans to send manned missions there in 2023.
How do you get up to the International Space Station?
Well I'm sure you know the answer to that you take a rocket.
Currently the only was astronauts and cosmonauts can get up there is on board a Soyuz capsule
which is launched by a Soyuz rocket.
I'm just going to tell you something, do you know that when the astronauts on the Soyuz
they go up the ramp there is a little stair, do you know that the head designer kick them
in the butt?
You get a kick in your butt like come on go!
This is traditional.
Space is of course is the final frontier or is it?
Could we not think about it as something like the 4000th floor instead?
Because the thing is rockets for all their style and fury and their ability to deliver
bond villains to the moon are actually a bit silly.
Using fuel to blast themselves and their payloads through the earth's atmosphere and into space
is spectacularly inefficient.
At launch about 90% of a rocket's weight is the fuel it will use to power itself and most
of that is used up in the first few minutes.
Space elevators would actually work much better on other planets mars for example has only
38% of the gravitational pull of earth which means the space elevator could be shorter
and made from conventional materials.
Black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape not even
light.
That's why they're called black holes.
Now as an experimental physicist naturally my first instinct is to go up to a black hole
and observe the light not coming out.
Or more usefully Tom could throw himself into a black hole to find out what lurked inside.
But once he passed the entrance to the black hole he'd never be able to return.
On top of that the tidal forces would rip him to shreds.
Now the sun produces quite a lot of energy and in 1 second is produces about 500,000
years of energy and in one hour it uses and loses 15, 000, 000, 000 metric tonnes of energy.
In that hour it gives us enough energy around the earth we would use in a whole year.
I have farted in a spacesuit.
A lot of people say they want to know what it's like farting in a spacesuit and I know
what it's like.
Those are pretty cool, if you have any other space facts drop them below, and don't forget
to look at all our space videos this week.