We're off to space! Let your kids explore the wonders of the great vast universe and launch their ideas to space. Here are some fascinating facts about space to kick off your child's dreams.
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Space Facts for Kids Infographic
1. The moon is farther away
than you think.
When the moon is at farthest point of orbit from earth, you could fit
all of the planets in our solar system in the distance between Earth
and the Moon.
We are off to space! Take your mind on a mission of discovery
through our solar system, to the furthest reaches of the Milky Way
with these out of this world facts about space!
Just how big is the Sun?
The diameter of the Sun is
1.391016 Million km
That’s just diameter... The total
volume of the sun is 1.4 x 1027
m3
Mercury
The Sun accounts for 99.86% of the
mass in the solar system.
It has a mass of around 330,000 times that of
Earth. It is three quarters hydrogen and most
of its remaining mass is helium.
The Sun is still growing.
The Sun will continue to burn for about 130 million
years after it burns through all of its hydrogen,
instead burning helium. During this time it will
expand to such a size that it will engulf Mercury,
Venus, and Earth. When it reaches this point, it will
have become a red giant star.
The Sun will eventually be about the
size of Earth.
Once the Sun has completed its red giant phase,
it will collapse. It’s huge mass will be retained, but
it will have a volume similar to that of Earth. When
that happens, it will be known as a white dwarf.
The Sun travels incredibly fast.
The Sun travels at about 220 km per second.
It is around 26,000 light-years from the galactic
centre and it takes the Sun approximately 250
million years to complete one orbit of the centre
of the Milky Way.
It takes eight minutes for light reach
Earth from the Sun.
The average distance from the Sun to the Earth is
about 150 million km. Light travels at 300,000 km
per second so dividing one by the other gives you
500 seconds – eight minutes and twenty seconds.
• Mercury is named after the Roman god of merchants
and travellers.
• Mercury does not have any moons or rings.
• Your weight on Mercury would be 38% of your weight
on Earth.
• A day on the surface of Mercury lasts 176 Earth days.
• A year on Mercury takes 88 Earth days.
• Mercury has a diameter of 4,879 km, making it the
smallest planet.
• It’s not known who discovered Mercury.
• Mercury is only the second hottest planet.
Total Average diameter of planets = 380,008 Km
(Excludes Earth)
Earth
12,742 Km
Mercury
4,879 Km
384,400 Km
Jupiter
139,822 Km
That’s a diameter 10 times
larger than that of Jupiter!
Or to put that in perspective, that’s about 110 times the
diameter of Earth!
That’s 1,4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic km!
The sun could fit around 985
planets the size of our largest
planet, Jupiter, inside of it.
Saturn
116,464 Km
Uranus
50,724 Km
Neptune
49,244 Km
Our moon
3,474 Km
Venus
12,104 Km
Mars
6,771 Km
Jupiter x 985
If you squashed them to ensure
there was no wasted space you
could fit about 1,300,000 Earths
inside of the Sun!
Earth x 1,300,000
And who could forget...
The red circle is our
Solar Neighbourhood
100,000 Light Years across
A light year is unit of measurement to measure distance. It is
equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year. Keep in
mind that it take light 8 minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth.
Now try and get your head around how big the Milky Way is!
100 - 400 Billion Stars
The Milky Way contains between 100 - 400 billion stars. Our Sun is
one such star. Just like our sun, many of these stars are orbited by
planets which form solar systems.
13.6 Billion Years
The Milky Way is approximately 13.6 billion years old and began life
as a series of dense regions not long after the Big Bang.
Galaxies come in many different shapes and sizes. These
formations are broken in to 4 main categories, Elliptical, Normal
Spiral, Barred Spiral and Irregular. These categories are then
divided into sub-classifications. Our Milky Way is classified as a
SBc Barred Spiral galaxy.
Many shapes and sizes
Everyone knows that the Sun is massive but let’s have a look at just
how big it is and few other interesting facts.
Planetary Facts
Let’s have a look at some interesting facts about the neighbours
in our solar system.
Venus
• Venus is named after the Roman god of love.
• Venus is nearly as big as the Earth with a diameter
of 12,104 km.
• Venus is thought to be made up of a central iron core, rocky
mantle and silicate crust.
• A day on the surface of Venus (solar day) would appear to
take 117 Earth days.
• A year on Venus takes 225 Earth days.
• The surface temperature on Venus can reach 471 °C.
• Venus rotates in the opposite direction to most
other planets.
• Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky.
Mars
• Mars is named after the Roman god of war.
• Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos
• Mars and Earth have approximately the same landmass.
• Mars is home to, Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain in the
solar system.
• Out of 40, only 18 missions to Mars have been successful.
• Often lasting months and covering the entire planet, Mars
has the largest dust storms in the solar system.
• On Mars the Sun appears about half the size as it does
on Earth.
• Pieces of Mars have fallen to Earth which has allowed
scientist to study the planet before launching space
missions.
• There are signs of liquid water on Mars.
Jupiter
• Jupiter is named after the Roman god of light, or the king of
all gods.
• Jupiter has 79 known moons, the largest of which,
Ganymede, is the largest moon in the solar system. Jupiter’s
moons are named are the Roman gods wives and lovers.
• Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the solar system.
• Jupiter has the shortest day of all the planets with a day
lasting only 9 hours and 55 minutes.
• Jupiter orbits the Sun once every 11.8 Earth years.
• Jupiter has unique clouds, made mostly out of ammonia
crystals and sulphur.
• Jupiter’s’ Great Red Spot is a huge storm that has raged
for at least 350 years. It’s so large that 3 Earths could fit
inside it.
• Jupiter has a thin ring system composed mainly of dust
particles ejected from some of Jupiter’s smaller worlds
during impacts from incoming comets and asteroids.
• Eight spacecraft have visited Jupiter.
Saturn
• Saturn is named after the Roman god of agriculture.
• Saturn has 150 moons and smaller moonlets, but only 13 of
which have diameters larger than 50km. The largest moons
are Titan and Rhea. Enceladus appears to have an ocean
below its frozen surface.
• Saturn can be seen with the naked eye.
• Saturn is the flattest planet.
• Saturn orbits the Sun once every 29.4 Earth years.
• Saturn has oval-shaped storms similar to Jupiter’s.
• Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen.
• Saturn has the most extensive rings in the solar system
made mostly of chunks of ice and small amounts of
carbonaceous dust. The rings stretch
out more than 120,700 km from the planet.
• Four spacecraft have visited Saturn.
Uranus
• Uranus is named after the Roman god of the sky.
• Uranus has 27 moons all of which are named after
characters from the works of William Shakespeare and
Alexander Pope.
• A day on Uranus lasts 17 hours and 14 minutes.
• Uranus makes one trip around the Sun every 84 Earth years.
• Uranus is often referred to as an “ice giant” planet.
• Uranus hits the coldest temperatures of any planet with
minimum recorded atmospheric temperatures dropping to
-224 degrees Celsius.
• Uranus has two sets of very thin dark coloured rings.
• Only one spacecraft, the Voyager 2, has ever flown by
Uranus. That was in 1986.
Neptune
• Neptune is named after the Roman god of the sea.
• Neptune has 14 moons all of which are named after minor
water gods from Greek mythology. Triton is by far the
largest.
• Neptune spins on its axis very rapidly. Its equatorial clouds
take 18 hours to make one rotation.
• Neptune is the smallest of the ice giants.
• Neptune’s’ atmosphere is mainly made of hydrogen and
helium, with some methane.
• Neptune has a very active climate with high-speed winds
whipping around the planet at up 600 meters per second.
• Neptune has a very thin collection of rings which are likely
made up of ice and dust particles.
• Only one spacecraft, the Voyager 2, has ever flown by
Uranus. That was in 1989.
Pluto
• Pluto is named after the Roman god of the underworld.
• Pluto was reclassified from a planet to a dwarf planet
in 2006.
• Pluto has five known moons, Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos,
and Hydra.
• Pluto is one third water
• Pluto is smaller than Earth’s moon.
• Pluto has an elliptical orbit and is at times closer to the sun
that Neptune.
• Pluto sometimes has an atmosphere. When it orbits closer
to the sun ice melts creating a thin atmosphere.
• Only one spacecraft, the New Horizons, has ever flown by
Uranus. That was on the 14th of July 2015.
The Milky Way
Our solar system existing inside of a collection of solar systems called
a “Solar Neighbourhood”. A galaxy is made up of millions of these
Solar Neighbourhoods. Ours is inside of the Milky Way galaxy which
is just one of hundreds of millions, possibly billions of galaxies that
make up the universe! Feeling small yet?
That tiny speck is
our solar system
Elliptical
E0 E3 E7
SBa
SBb
SBc
Sa
Sb
Sc
Barred Spiral
Normal Spiral
Irregular
MISSION
OUTER SPACE
SPACE FACTS FOR SMART KIDS!
INFOGRAPHIC PROVIDED BY
www.latitudegrouptravel.com.au
SOURCES:
www.universetoday.com
www.theplanets.org
www.space.com
www.space-facts.com