1. Our home, Earth is the third planet from the Sun.

2. Because of the lower gravity, a person weighing 100kg on Earth would weigh only 38kg on the surface of Mars.

3. Mercury and Venus are the only two planets in our solar system that have no satellites.

4. Because of its unique angle of inclination, one night on Uranus lasts 21 years.

5. Neptune takes 60,190 days to complete one revolution around the Sun. This means that since its discovery in 1846, the planet has made only one revolution around the Sun.

6. There are about 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way.

7. The Greeks proposed heliocentrism 2,000 years before Copernicus. Aristarchus of Samos placed the planets in order of distance from the Sun, stating that they could not revolve around the Earth because such large planets could not revolve around such a small body.

8. Earth is one of the four planets of the Earth group: like Mercury, Venus, and Mars, it is rocky.

9. Astronomers have a good idea of how other planets smell based on the composition of their atmospheres. Venus and Mars smell like rotten eggs, while Uranus has no odour at all.

10. The warmest planet in our solar system is Venus. Most people often think it is Mercury because it is closest to the Sun. However, Venus has many gases in its atmosphere that cause the «greenhouse effect».

11. Asteroids in close proximity to the Earth contain iron with a total estimated value of $9,508,595,996,292,862, or 923,379,757,200,000,000 rubles.

12. The most fabulous potential treasure in space may be the «diamond planet,» whose technical name is 55-Cancrie. This planet is twice the size of Earth and could be one-third diamond. This diamond planet could cost 90 nonillion rubles (that’s a figure with 30 zeros). To put the $26.9 million figure in perspective, think about Earth’s GDP: the World Bank has estimated global GDP at around $70 trillion in 2021. The Diamond Planet is worth 384 quadrillion times the GDP of Earth. Just 0.182% of Planet 55-Cancrie’s diamonds will cover the $49 quintillion debt of world governments.

13. It takes light 8 minutes to reach Earth from the Sun.

14. NASA is building an «interstellar Internet» called the Disruption Tolerant Network (DTN). It can transmit information through solar storms, solar flares, and even past planets without losing the original data. They will successfully send the data to a spacecraft 25 million kilometres from Earth.

15. The solar system is about 4.6 billion years old. Scientists estimate that it will probably last another 5 billion years.

16. If a star passes too close to a black hole, it could be torn apart.

17. Enceladus, one of Saturn’s smallest satellites, reflects about 90% of sunlight, making it lighter and brighter than snow.

18. The highest alien mountain known to mankind is Mount Olympus, located on Mars. The summit is 25 kilometres high, which is almost 3 times higher than Everest.

19. The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) was the first celestial object to be identified as a spiral object.

20. A light year is the length of light in one year, which is equivalent to 9.5 trillion kilometres.

21. The Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light years wide.

22. The Sun is more than 300,000 times larger than the Earth.

23. Between 1975 and 1982, the Soviet Union sent six probes to the surface of Venus, which endured temperatures of 457 degrees Celsius and successfully took pictures.

24. Venus has metallic precipitation instead of snowfall.

25. Humanity has discovered 43 potentially habitable planets in the last 7 years.

26. On 1 April 1976, the BBC convinced many listeners that the special arrangement of the planets would temporarily reduce gravity on Earth. Phone lines were flooded with callers who said they felt the effects.

27. The Mariner-1 spacecraft, intended to orbit Venus, malfunctioned due to a missing hyphen (-) in a line of application code, making it the most expensive typo in history.

28. At the birth of the solar system, it was a dense cloud of gas and dust that swirled in all directions around the new star. Sometimes particles of the cloud crashed into each other. Over time, this caused the cloud to flatten into a disc, from the particles of which the planets formed.

29. Some of the Earth-type planets have the potential to be much more hospitable than Earth.

30. In 2012, the White House responded to a petition to build a Death Star by stating that «the administration does not support blowing up planets» and that it would not fund weapons «with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a single-seat spacecraft.»

31. Astronomers have discovered a planet called HD189733b that produces sideways glassy (silicate) rain with winds blowing at 7,000 kilometres per hour. This gives the planet a blue hue. It is 63 light years away from us.

32. NASA has discovered a «Waterworld» planet called GJ1214b 40 light years away, which may contain exotic materials such as «hot ice» and «super liquid water».

33. 51 Pegasus B is a gas giant 440 light years away, with temperatures between 1,000 and 2,000 degrees centigrade.

34. If Ganymede were not a satellite of Jupiter, it would have to be considered a planet because it is larger than Mercury.

35. Jupiter is shrinking at a rate of about 2 cm per year because the planet radiates more heat than the Sun.

36. The first man-made spacecraft to land on another planet and send data was the Soviet Venera 7 in 1970. After landing on Venus, the craft sent data back for only 23 minutes, presumably because it landed on its side.

37. Scientists have estimated that there are nearly 2 billion Earth-type planets in the Milky Way alone.

38. A Catholic bishop named Robert Grosseteste described the birth of the universe by the explosion and crystallisation of matter with the formation of stars and planets in a set of nested spheres around the Earth in 1225 AD, about four centuries before Newton described gravity.

39. The tracks and tyre prints left by astronauts on the Moon will remain there until someone changes or removes them because there is no wind there.

40. Two satellites in our solar system (Ganymede and Titan) are actually larger than the planet Mercury.

41. Scientists believe there are 67 satellites orbiting Jupiter, but only 53 of them have been given names.

42. A day on Mars lasts 24 hours 39 minutes and 35 seconds.

43. In 2013, the Indian Army halted its exercises for six months while watching for «Chinese spy planes» violating its airspace. They later learnt that they were actually observing Jupiter and Venus.

44. NASA’s Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) stated that evidence of significant amounts of water on the Moon had been found.

45. The Sun makes a complete revolution once every 25-35 days.

46. Europe is building an extremely large European telescope that will produce images fifteen times clearer than the Hubble Space Telescope, possibly allowing the observation of Earth-like exoplanets. The first pictures are scheduled for 2024.

47. Our Moon is about 4.5 billion years old.

48. Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet in our solar system.

49. The blue glow of Uranus is due to the presence of methane in the atmosphere, which filters out all red light.

50. John Couch Adams calculated the existence of Neptune using mathematics before he began observing the planet.

51. There’s an exoplanet called COROT-7b that gets rockfalls instead of rain. Its surface temperature is high enough that the rocks evaporate, condense back into air, and fall back down again.

52. It has been confirmed that the meteorites that fell to Earth in Morocco came from Mars. They were probably ejected from the planet’s surface during the impact of an ancient asteroid.

53. There are planets that move through space completely alone, not revolving around any stars. It is also possible that there may be life on some of these planets.

54. Scientists have discovered a planet the size of Neptune (GLIESE 436 B) that is fifteen times closer to its star than Mercury is to our Sun. It is full of water, but because of its high gravity, the water is densely packed, attracted to the core as ice with a temperature of 439 degrees centigrade. This state is known as «burning ice».

55. Saturn has the satellite Mimas and a crater that makes it look like the Death Star.

56. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft discovered a giant planet 750 light years from Jupiter that is blacker than coal. It is the darkest planet discovered by scientists. It reflects less than 1 per cent of the sunlight falling on it.

57. Neptune holds the record for the strongest winds in our solar system, with winds of up to 2,200 km/h occurring on its surface.

58. The four planets in our solar system known as gas giants are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus.

59. Uranus has 27 satellites discovered to date.

60. A day on Pluto lasts 6 Earth days and 9 hours.

61. On Mars there is a large hole 150 metres wide, the bottom of which has not yet been recorded.

62. Venus rotates around its axis so slowly (6 kilometres per hour) that an ordinary person could easily overtake it.

63. Technically, our planet is in the atmosphere of the Sun.

64. Triton, one of Neptune’s satellites, is gradually approaching the planet around it. Scientists say that eventually Triton will be so close to Neptune that it will be torn apart by gravity, and Neptune may have more rings than Saturn currently has.

65. The only large moon in our solar system that orbits in the opposite direction from our planet is Neptune’s satellite Triton.

66. Charon is one of Pluto’s satellites and is only slightly smaller than Pluto itself.

67. If our planet were 50% larger in diameter, we would not be able to go into space, at least using current rocket technology, because of the scale of the large rocket fuel requirements.

68. The planet Venus is almost identical in size to Earth. Their radius ‘differs in size by only 323 kilometres, with Earth being larger.

69. The ISS space station is the largest object ever sent into space.

70. Venus is the only planet that rotates backwards relative to the other planets.

71. Scientists practice a mission to Mars by living in the heart of Antarctica to experience the effects of extreme isolation.

72. The force of gravity can sometimes cause a comet to break apart.

73. Saturn’s satellite Tian has such a dense atmosphere (1.5 Atm) and such a low gravity (0.138 Gs) that if you attach wings to your arms, you can fly easily.

74. Pluto is smaller than Earth’s Moon.

75. Mars has a huge crater in the shape of a big smile.

76. According to mathematics, white holes are possible, although scientists have not yet discovered them.

77. The first man on the Moon was Neil Armstrong. He stepped on the moon with his left foot.

78. Jupiter is the fastest rotating planet in our solar system. Because of the intensity of its rotation, the planet is flat at the poles and convex at the equator. A complete revolution around its axis takes less than 10 Earth hours.

79. The ISS space station orbits the Earth every 90 minutes.

80. On Mars, a dust storm can develop in a matter of hours and cover the entire planet in a matter of days. These are the largest and most violent dust storms in our solar system.

81. There is a huge tornado the size of Europa over the south pole of Venus.

82. Some scientists believe that about 4 billion years ago, Neptune and Uranus probably switched their places in the solar system.

83. Stars twinkling in the night sky is an optical deception because the light in the Earth’s atmosphere is disturbed.

84. There are three basic types of galaxies in space — spiral, elliptical, and irregular galaxies.

85. Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth satellite, has a warm ocean at its south pole with ongoing hydrothermal activity. It is the most life-friendly habitat ever discovered outside of Earth.

86. The planet Venus has no tilt, hence it has no seasons, and is the only planet in our solar system that rotates clockwise.

87. Humans may one day be able to colonise other planets with gravity two or even three times that of Earth. However, with four times Earth’s gravity, we will no longer be able to maintain adequate blood flow to the brain.

88. Astronomer Percival Lowell believed he was the first to observe canals on Venus, but due to a misadjustment of his telescope eyepiece, he was looking at the blood vessels of his own eye.

89. Saturn is the second largest planet in our solar system.

90. In 2011, scientists discovered a galaxy called Tatooine. Its name comes from Star Wars. It is a double star system, that is, a system of two stars revolving around each other under the influence of mutual gravity.

91. Scientists believe that if all the ice on the polar extremities of Mars were to melt, the entire planet would be covered with up to 30 metres of water.

92. Saturn’s satellite Titan is the only body in our solar system other than Earth that has liquid on its surface.

93. Any free-moving liquid in space becomes a ball due to surface tension.

94. Earth, Mars, Mercury, and Venus are called the inner planets because they are closest to the Sun.

95. We know more about space than we do about our oceans.

96. The only satellite launched by Great Britain was called the Black Arrow. «Black Arrow» was developed in the 1960s and was used for four launches between 1969 and 1971.

97. Scientists believe there is a ninth planet in our solar system that is about 10 times larger than Earth. They have not yet been able to observe it, but they know the planet exists because of its gravitational influence on other objects.

98. The chance of dying from space debris in space is 1 in 5 billion.

99. In 1997, three men from Yemen tried to sue NASA for invading Mars, claiming they inherited it from their ancestors 3,000 years ago.

100. If you were travelling at 75 miles per hour, it would take you 258 days to circle one of Saturn’s rings.

101. Uranus is the coldest planet in our solar system, although Neptune is farther from the Sun.

102. The asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars is not the remnant of a destroyed planet, as previously thought. It is actually the remains of an uncreated planet that never formed due to the impact of Jupiter’s mass.