amazingfacts...timewarp
night sky
size
Size isn’t everything when it comes to planets. Seven moons in the solar system are larger than the planet Pluto. These are Jupiter's moons, Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa; Saturn's moon, Titan; Neptune's moon, Triton; and our own Moon.
sun
The Sun loses up to a billion kilograms every second because of the solar wind that blasts out from its surface.
plough
When is a constellation not a constellation? When it’s an asterism.
An asterism is a sub-pattern within a constellation and perhaps the most famous asterism is the Plough. The Plough consists of just seven of the 16 named stars of the constellation Ursa Major.
space
tides
The Moon is gradually moving away from the Earth and the tides are to blame.
Every year, the Moon moves a further 3.82cm from the Earth.
volcanoes
Jupiter's moon Io has the most spectacular volcanoes in the solar system. Io's low gravity means that its volcanoes can eject material 75 kilometres above the surface, with lighter material reaching hundreds of kilometres.
cds
Some neutron stars can spin up to 1000 times a second. More earthly objects such as CD-ROMs can spin up to 100 times a second whereas music CDs spin a meagre 10 times a second.
scifi
star trek
The first space shuttle was given the name 'Enterprise' because of a campaign by Star Trek fans. The shuttle was originally going to be called 'Constitution’.
space flight
In the 1970s, Pan American World Airways accepted reservations for flights to the Moon in the year 2000. Former president Ronald Reagan was one of the many who signed up.
little green men
When pulsars were discovered in 1968, astronomers designated them "LGM" or "Little Green Men" because they were unsure of their actual nature. However, no one seriously believed that these were alien signals.
technology
electric chair
The electric chair was invented by a dentist, Alfred Southwick.
supercomputer
IBM's ASCI white supercomputer, the fastest computer in the world, weighs as much as 17 elephants and can do in one second what a calculator would take 10 million years to do.
hubble telescope
The Wide Field and Planetary Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, could resolve the finprint on a newspaper one mile away.
microwave oven
The microwave oven was invented by accident, when Percy Spencer found that his chocolate bar had been melted by an experiment he was running on radar systems. He immediately started experimenting successfully on microwaved popcorn.
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