Space facts

Explore 9 curated space facts on ScienceCards. Discover surprising, well-sourced science one card at a time.

• Flying nonstop to the Moon on a commercial airliner at 900… — Flying nonstop to the Moon on a commercial airliner at 900 km/h would take about 18 days! The 384,400 km distance means you could line up about 30 Earths side-by-side between Earth and the Moon.
• An astronomical unit (AU) is the average Earth-Sun distance… — An astronomical unit (AU) is the average Earth-Sun distance of about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers), which light travels in approximately 8 minutes and 20 seconds.
• The Milky Way contains an estimated 100 to 200 billion… — The Milky Way contains an estimated 100 to 200 billion stars and at least 100 billion planets, possibly up to a trillion planets.
• The Moon is moving away from Earth at 3.8 cm per year … — The Moon is moving away from Earth at 3.8 cm per year - ancient days were shorter because the closer Moon created stronger tidal forces that slowed Earth's rotation.
• The closer you are to a black hole, the slower time passes… — The closer you are to a black hole, the slower time passes relative to observers far away—one hour near the event horizon could equal decades or centuries on Earth.
• A neutron star is so incredibly dense that a single… — A neutron star is so incredibly dense that a single teaspoon of its material would weigh about 6 billion tons - roughly the weight of Mount Everest compressed into something the size of a sugar cube.
• About 1.4 million Earths could fit in a line from the Sun… — About 1.4 million Earths could fit in a line from the Sun to the heliopause—the boundary where interstellar space begins. Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012 after 35 years of travel.
• The largest black hole we know of is TON 618, with a mass… — The largest black hole we know of is TON 618, with a mass estimated at around 66 billion times the mass of our Sun, or roughly 22 trillion Earths.
• Neutron stars can spin 600 times per second - some pulsars… — Neutron stars can spin 600 times per second - some pulsars rotate so rapidly that their equators move at about 20% the speed of light.