David Paliwoda has created a really great website with the help of which you can very clearly see how far the Red Planet is from us. If the Earth is 100 pixels wide, where would Mars be? For begging – The Moon is 3000 pixels (the satellite is wide 27 pixels). But what about Mars? The Red Planet is only 428,000 pixels. It takes ages to get to it. Even in pixels. Check it out HERE
The question why the Sun is circle, only seems to be simple one. And confirmation of this is the fact that the answer to the “childish” question, scientists have only been able to find in the twentieth century. The complexity comes from the fact that, as the Sun represents a huge globe of hot gases, in the sky above us, instead of the round light we are accustomed to seeing, we should observe a blurry, shining spot with no pronounced boundaries. And we see a circle. And this circle is quite limited, leaving even the impression of a solid surface...
The Solar System is full of many strange moons. Our own, however, is probably the most unusual. For example – the Moon is really huge. Virtually as a Planet. The Earth’s satellite is a quarter of the size of the Planet. With the exception of Pluto and Chiron, it is larger than any other moon in the Solar System located in the orbit of a Planet. What’s more – the Moon is so big it does not even orbit the Earth. Both space objects are in the orbit of a point located between them, called barycentre. It is located...
Exciting news astronomy fans: You can see one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System right now with the naked eye. Vesta, which is also sometimes classed as a protoplanet, is the second-largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter after the dwarf planet Ceres. Occasionally, it’s bright enough to see with the naked eye, including right now, as it just made its closest pass to Earth in two decades. Its previous close pass came in May 2007, when it was a little bit further away. As noted by Sky and Telescope, the object reached its closest point...
Astronomers got the most detailed (so far) view of Io’s largest volcanic lake – an impressive view of the Jupiter’s moon which is the most volcanic active place in the Solar System. In an article published in Nature, experts from Berkeley – University of California, describe how they were able to explore the largest volcanic lake not from images taken by spacecraft, but by observation in transit of Europa – other of Jupiter’s moon. They have been able to observe the movement of the waves in Loki Patera – the largest lake of lava in the lo’s volcanic caldera,...
Yes, Earth’s Magnetic Poles Shifts. Regularly. Actually the magnetic poles have switched places many times over the history of the Planet. Within the last 20 million years, the Earth follows a rhythm of that reversal, where in every 200,000 to 300,000 years the Erat’s Northern magnetic pole became southern and the southern – northern. Between every successful shift though, the poles sometimes try to swap again, but not successfully. About 40,000 years ago, poles are made the last failed attempt, and last successful change is about 780,000 years ago. So we’re probably about to switch the magnetic poles again, following...
I am sure that we all know a lot of interesting facts about the Solar System, but this does’t mean we should stop getting information for some more. Here I put 9 facts that I find really fascinating and hope some of them you will hear for first time! Enjoy reading! 1. The hottest Planet is not the closest to the Sun. Mercury is the closest Planet to the Sun and it’s logical to be the hottest, right? There is a small detail, however – an atmosphere, that you can’t find in Mercury. The atmosphere of Venus is 100 times more...
This is just great – a interactive map of the Solar System, where you can see how the Planets and the main objects move around the Sun, writes io9. The author of the project is Jeroen Gommers. You can click on any object and draw it manually to see how it all works. Of course, the map is not 100 percent accurate – orbits are compacted very close each other, and the size of the Planets is not very precise. However, it looks great, is’n it? YOU CAN SEE THE MAP HERE
