The Moon Has a Lemon Shape
When we look up at the moon at night, it looks like a perfect circle, and from our vantage point on Earth, it is. It wasn’t until we left Earth and explored the Moon in space that we saw that it really has the lemon shape
We think that the moon got its shape shortly after its formation from the gravitational pull of the Earth. In short, Earth’s gravity stretched the moon out, but since it was pulled directly toward Earth, it still appears like a perfect circle to us!
Aurora
Nature has its own special light display called Aurora. Aurora is a natural light display named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora. You can learn about the science behind this phenomenon. Also, you can see it in Iceland
Galaxies
There Are Around 2 Trillion Galaxies in the Universe. The universe is big — really big. In fact, a new study indicates that there are around 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.
However, many scientists think that many of these galaxies have merged into other galaxies over time, so the current number is likely smaller, though the galaxies themselves are larger.
But while there are many galaxies in the universe, you can’t see hardly any of them from your backyard.
There Are 100 Billion Stars in the Milky Way
The European Space Agency estimates that there are around 100 billion stars in the Milky Way alone!
That number is constantly in flux, though. As old stars die, new ones are born, so the exact number of stars is constantly changing. Since nobody counts them all out individually, it’s more of an estimate.
Diamond star
There’s a star that literally shines bright like a diamond because it is one.Astronomers discovered a star made entirely of diamonds in 2004. They named it Lucy, a nod to The Beatles. It’s more than 2,400 miles across and is composed of 10 billion trillion trillion carats. I can't even fathom that. Unfortunately, it’s 50 light years from Earth.
past
When You Look at Stars, You’re Looking at the Past
Everything takes time to travel and light is no different. It takes about 8 minutes and 20 seconds for light from the sky. to reach us, and it’s right by our planet. The farther out in space, something is, the longer it takes its light to travel.
Light from Sirius takes 8.6 years to reach us, and if you spot the Andromeda galaxy, it took 2.5 million years for that light to reach us. That means when you’re looking at that galaxy, you’re looking at how it appeared 2.5 million years ago.
If there is life on a planet in that distant galaxy, if they’re looking at the Milky Way, they’ll see how things looked 2.5 million years ago, long before Homo sapiens even began to develop!
The Moon has dancing dust.
Dust tends to hover above the moon, especially during sunrise and sunset. Smarty pants aren’t 100% sure why this occurs, so I’d like to think the moon is just dancing up there and having a great time.
Clouds Are Heavy
When you look up at the sky, you often see large fluffy clouds, and because they’re floating around, they look lightweight. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
According to the United States Geological Survey, the average cumulus cloud weighs 1.1 million pounds! Clouds might not be dense, but they hold up a ton of weight.
Stars Don’t Twinkle
If you look up at the night sky, you might see a star blinking in and out of existence. We call this a twinkle, and it’s a common occurrence when you’re looking at stars. But despite what you’re seeing, stars don’t actually twinkle.
It has to do with the visible light passing through Earth’s atmosphere and the effect that this has on what you can see. If you ever get to head out to space and look at the stars, you won’t see any twinkling!
Light of star
Some Planets in Our Solar System Appear Brighter Than Stars. Stars are far brighter than planets, but when you look up at the night sky, it does not always appear that way. It all has to do with the distance between us and the planets compared to the distance between us and the stars.
Besides Jupiter and Saturn, planets in our solar system don’t produce their own light but rather reflect light from the Sun. However, even with reflected light, the planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars still outshine most stars.
With the light that they generate and reflect, Saturn and Jupiter outshine stars too. They might not actually be brighter, but they look that way to us because they’re closer!
Half sky
You Can Only See Half the Night Sky at Once. When you look up at the night sky, you see tons of stars, but what’s staggering is that you can only see about half of the night sky at one time.
There’s a great deal of math that goes into proving this, but if you consider that you’re standing on a sphere, it all makes sense. You can’t see through the Earth to see what’s on the other side, and even when we are facing that way, the Sun is so bright that it blocks out everything else that we could see.
You Can’t Take a Picture of the Entire Milky Way
Any pictures of the Milky Way are artists’ renderings. In order to get a picture of the entire galaxy, we’d have to leave the Milky Way.
No one has ever done that, so there are no photos of the entire Milky Way. Everything that we’ve seen only shows a portion at a time, and it all comes from the same perspective. This also makes it challenging to see what’s going on at the other side of the galaxy, especially considering the Earth sits near the outside.
You Can Only See Several Thousand Stars at Night
Even if you get some of the best viewing conditions to see the night sky, you’re not seeing millions of stars. In fact, the most that you’re going to see with just your eyes is around 6,000.
That’s still plenty of stars but considering that there are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way and 200 billion trillion in the universe, your eyes can’t even scratch the surface of what’s out there.
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