Found yourself ~spacing out~ recently? Or just generally a fan of astronomy and fun facts? We've rounded up a bunch of interesting facts about space that are truly out of this world. We might all just be tiny specks in a vast universe, but what a fascinating universe it is! Check out our out-of-this-world space facts below.
But wait, there’s more! Yes, space is cool, but there’s also a lot to learn about our very own planet and the beings that inhabit it — like these truly *fascinating* facts about the animal kingdom. (If you want to get more specific, we've also got dog facts, cat facts, and even shark facts!) Plus, we rounded up the most interesting facts we could find for anyone who wants to know a little more about, well, everything. Take your pick!
1. Undisturbed, footprints would last forever on the Moon.
2. If you fell into a black hole, you'd get stretched out like spaghetti.
3. It would take Usain Bolt — running at his highest recorded speed — a little over 262 days to trek the distance of Saturn's rings.
4. There are over 500,000 pieces of "space junk" floating above the Earth, and they're moving at speeds up to 17,500 mph.
5. All of the stars, galaxies, and planets only make up 4% of the universe.
6. The biggest star known to man is UY Scuti, which has a radius about 1,700 times larger than the Sun.
7. While Pluto isn't considered a planet anymore, there may be another planet in our solar system: "Planet Nine."
8. Anytime you look up at the sky, you are seeing the universe as it was in the past.
9. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the Earth.
10. Scientists have found a void in space 1 billion miles wide that could be a parallel universe.
11. There might be another planet on the rim of our solar system.
12. Some nebulae have night lights made of new stars.
13. The height of the nebula below is the same distance as 23 million trips to the moon.
14. A black hole the size of one atom has the mass of a large mountain.
15. It's also true that, on average, a bit of debris crashes back to Earth about once a week.
16. It's true that in space, no one can hear you scream.
17. Do you still think you're all that? Jupiter's Great Red Spot in the center left of the photo above is roughly the size of Earth.
18. To match the energy the Sun produces, you would need to light 100 billion tons of dynamite every second.
19. If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 1/100 of one pound on a comet, meaning you could just jump and you'd start floating off into space.
20. It would take 100,000 years to travel across our galaxy if you were going the speed of light.
21. There's a gold-plated Earth soundtrack almost 11 billion miles away.
22. The picture below covers a distance of 50 light-years.
23. Scientists predict our Sun has 5 billion years left to live. However, humans most likely only have 1 billion years.
24. If you put your finger over a star in the sky, you are preventing photons that have travelled to Earth undisturbed for millions of years from finally entering your eye.
25. Do you know where the coldest place in the known universe is? How about the hottest? Well, they're both right here on Earth!
26. And in around 4.5 billion years, the Milky Way is expected to collide with the Andromeda galaxy, our closest galactic neighbor, to form a giant elliptical galaxy.
27. Did you know that all of the planets in our solar system can fit in between the Earth and the Moon, with about 2,729 miles to spare?
28. There is a planet in our galaxy where the temperature during the day can reach over 1,000 degrees Celsius, and it possibly rains molten glass horizontally at around 4,500 mph!
29. So we know that light takes a long time to travel through space, right? Well, there are actually some parts of the universe we can't see because the light from there hasn't reached us yet.
30. Although, soon the James Webb Space Telescope will allow us to explore galaxies that were formed at the very beginning of the universe, and observe stars forming planetary systems.
31. But here's the thing: There is such a phenomenon as the Kessler Effect, in which a single destructive event in Earth's low orbit could cause all satellites to break up into smaller and smaller fragments until the planet is surrounded by a massive cloud of shrapnel.
32. There's a rogue supermassive black hole speeding through space at around 5 million miles per hour.
33. The Voyager 1 spacecraft will likely outlive planet Earth itself.
34. Venus looked pretty much exactly like Earth does now around 2 billion years ago.
35. It's possible for two pieces of the same metal to actually fuse together if they touch in outer space.
36. There are rogue planets that have been knocked out of orbit just chilling out in the universe, and they could do the same to another planet.
37. Dark matter is believed to be responsible for 85% of gravity in the universe, and no one knows what it is or how it works.
38. According to quantum mechanics, there's a small chance the entire universe could spontaneously disappear and never come back.
39. This isn't a fact per se, but have you considered the possibility that we've already sent a message to an alien race in the distant past and it's still making its way to them?
40. The Sun makes up 99.8% of the mass of the solar system.
41. There’s a gas cloud in the constellation of Aquila that holds enough alcohol to make 400 trillion trillion pints of beer.
42. We’ve found over a thousand planets outside our solar system just in the last 20 years.
43. It takes a photon, on average, 170,000 years to travel from the core of the Sun to the surface.
44. Interstellar space sounds kind of eerie.
View this video on YouTube
45. Saturn's rings sort of vanish every now and then.
46. Saturn has a huge extra ring that was only discovered in 2009.
47. There's an asteroid called Chariklo in our solar system that has rings, like Saturn.
48. More solar energy reaches Earth's surface in an hour and a half than we used in the whole of 2001.
49. There's a hexagonal cloud at Saturn's north pole.
50. A star was recently discovered that had been lost in the glare of a supernova for 21 years.
51. Dung beetles can use the Milky Way to navigate.
52. A Mars-sized object probably crashed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago.
53. And finally, we are all made of stardust.
What's the coolest fact you've ever learned about space? Feel free to drop it in the comments below!
This article contains content from Audrey Engvalson, Sam Cleal, and Kelly Oakes. It was compiled by Salimah McCullough.