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Space facts that are out of this world!

Christian Green, Writer

November 8, 2024

Have any of you been interested in space? Have you wondered about what happens there? If so then you’ve come to the right place.

Another pretty cool fact is that our sun isn’t even that hot. K (Kelvin) 5,800 K is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Kelvins are the international heat measurement. The surface of our Sun is 5,772 K. With the hottest Star we know, WR 102, being a whopping, 377,540 Fahrenheit! Or 210,000 Kelvin. Our sun is only 1/36 heat of the hottest star we know. (The image on the left is WR 102 compared to our sun).

Here’s another space fact for you: did you know if a Black Hole the size of a coin appeared it would have the gravity of our Earth? If it were to appear, all of Earth would be sucked up. Black holes are INSANELY tightly packed balls of matter. As a “matter” of fact, anything could become a black hole. A table, your phone, even your dog! If the sun were to turn into a Black hole it would only be about 2.5 kilometers wide or about 1.5 miles. The same sun that is almost 109 times the diameter of the Earth!

Did you know that if you traveled at the speed of light, which is impossible, it would still take 2 million light years to reach the nearest galaxy? Light travels at around 300 Million meters per second or about 984,251,969 feet a second. A light year is how far light travels in a year. So if you traveled at the speed of light for a constant time of 2 Million years you would finally reach the nearest galaxy, The Andromeda Galaxy. But since the Universe is constantly expanding it might be even longer.

What if the sun exploded right now? Well if it did we wouldn’t know for about 8 minutes. This is because the sun is about 93 million miles away from Earth. Which is how far sunlight needs to travel to Earth. Though light is very fast it still travels at a speed. So it takes a while for it to travel between large spaces. In this case, the Sun and Earth. So every day you see the sun, you see it how it was 8 minutes ago.

Artist’s impression of how Type Ia supernovae may look like as revealed by spectro-polarimetry observations. The outer regions of the blast cloud is asymmetric, with different materials found in ‘clumps’, while the inner regions are smooth. Using observations of 17 supernovae made over more than 10 years with ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the McDonald Observatory’s Otto Struve Telescope, astronomers inferred the shape and structure of the debris cloud thrown out from Type Ia supernovae. Such supernovae are thought to be the result of the explosion of a small and dense star Ñ a white dwarf Ñ inside a binary system. As its companion continuously spills matter onto the white dwarf, the white dwarf reaches a critical mass, leading to a fatal instability and the supernova. But what sparks the initial explosion, and how the blast travels through the star have long been thorny issues. The study shows that the outer regions of the blast cloud is asymmetric, with different materials found in ‘clumps’, while the inner regions are smooth. (ESO)

About the Contributor

Christian Green, Writer

My name is Christian Green. I’m 12 years old and I’m in 7th grade. I like food in general and I’m pretty lazy.

Space facts that are out of this world!

TMS PRESS

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