Interesting Space Facts.

Interesting Space Facts.

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Discussion

Chilli

Original Poster:

17,318 posts

235 months

Wednesday 10th October 2012
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Here's one.

Winds ten times stronger than a hurricane on Earth swirl around Saturn’s equator reaching up to 1100 km/h – and they never let up: even for a moment.

http://www.amazingspacefacts.50webs.com/index.html

This one of Don's still haunts me...
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) should be visible shortly after sunset. If you have dark skies, you might even be able to see it with the naked eye. It won't look very interesting until to consider that it consists of 1 trillion stars and is hurtling towards us at over 200,000 miles per hour. Nevertheless, it won't collide with the Milky Way for 4.5 billion years, by which time the Earth may have been gobbled up by our own Sun.

Eric Mc

121,777 posts

264 months

Wednesday 10th October 2012
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If you look elsewhere in the universe, you can see plenty of galactic collisions going on at this momemnt. They are like the slowest of slow motion car crashes.

This one's being going on for around 1 billion years.


don4l

10,058 posts

175 months

Thursday 11th October 2012
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Betelgeuse, in Orion, is a very interesting star.

It is a red supergiant, and it is really, really big. If it were at the centre of our Solar system, then its surface would lie beyond the orbit of Mars. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars would not exist.

As a Red Supergiant, it is in the final stages life. Soon, possibly within a million years, it will go Supernova. When it does, it will be a truely awesome sight - probably visible during the day. At night it will be by far the brightest star.

How do we know this? In 1054AD, a star went supernova in the constellation of Taurus. It was visible in the daytime. We now know that this formed the Crab Nebula, and it is about 6,500 light years away. Betelgeuse is 10 times closer, at only 560 ly distant, so when it goes bang it will probably be 100 times brighter.

Of course, Betelgeuse could have gone Supernova at any time in the last 560 years and we wouldn't know anything about it... yet.


Don
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AJI

5,180 posts

216 months

Friday 12th October 2012
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If you were to fart in outer-space would the resultant particles reform under gravity back in to a turd?


callyman

3,151 posts

211 months

Friday 12th October 2012
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AJI said:
If you were to fart in outer-space would the resultant particles reform under gravity back in to a turd?
rofl

RobbieKB

7,715 posts

182 months

Thursday 25th October 2012
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Chilli said:
Here's one.

Winds ten times stronger than a hurricane on Earth swirl around Saturn’s equator reaching up to 1100 km/h – and they never let up: even for a moment.

http://www.amazingspacefacts.50webs.com/index.html

This one of Don's still haunts me...
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) should be visible shortly after sunset. If you have dark skies, you might even be able to see it with the naked eye. It won't look very interesting until to consider that it consists of 1 trillion stars and is hurtling towards us at over 200,000 miles per hour. Nevertheless, it won't collide with the Milky Way for 4.5 billion years, by which time the Earth may have been gobbled up by our own Sun.
Some of them were very interesting!

The heart of a star reaches 16 million °C. A grain of sand this hot would kill someone 150 km away. eek



Edited by RobbieKB on Thursday 25th October 14:14

HD Adam

5,143 posts

183 months

Thursday 25th October 2012
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AJI said:
If you were to fart in outer-space would the resultant particles reform under gravity back in to a turd?
In space, no one can hear you fart biggrin

Terminator X

14,921 posts

203 months

Thursday 25th October 2012
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Chilli said:
This one of Don's still haunts me...
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) should be visible shortly after sunset. If you have dark skies, you might even be able to see it with the naked eye. It won't look very interesting until to consider that it consists of 1 trillion stars and is hurtling towards us at over 200,000 miles per hour. Nevertheless, it won't collide with the Milky Way for 4.5 billion years, by which time the Earth may have been gobbled up by our own Sun.
Not to worry as the next mega asteroid impact is overdue, we'll be killed off in millions of years not billions wink

TX.

callyman

3,151 posts

211 months

Thursday 25th October 2012
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Terminator X said:
Chilli said:
This one of Don's still haunts me...
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) should be visible shortly after sunset. If you have dark skies, you might even be able to see it with the naked eye. It won't look very interesting until to consider that it consists of 1 trillion stars and is hurtling towards us at over 200,000 miles per hour. Nevertheless, it won't collide with the Milky Way for 4.5 billion years, by which time the Earth may have been gobbled up by our own Sun.
Not to worry as the next mega asteroid impact is overdue, we'll be killed off in millions of years not billions wink

TX.
Could be 10's of years...........

NDA

21,488 posts

224 months

Thursday 25th October 2012
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Eric Mc said:
If you look elsewhere in the universe, you can see plenty of galactic collisions going on at this momemnt. They are like the slowest of slow motion car crashes.

This one's being going on for around 1 billion years.

]
Really numpty question......

If you were on a planet that was part of a galactic collision, and ignoring gravitational and atmospheric questions, it would be fast wouldn't it? A planet crashing into you wouldn't be gently nudging your planet I assume? I've often wondered.

callyman

3,151 posts

211 months

Thursday 25th October 2012
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Depends alot on how fast it's travelling towards us and whether it glances us, hits us head on or whacks us from behind (ooo er)


Mr Sparkle

1,921 posts

169 months

Thursday 25th October 2012
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I would have thought it would be one hell of a collision. Last time it created the moon.

Eric Mc

121,777 posts

264 months

Friday 26th October 2012
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Alhough galactic collisions look spectacular from a distance, galaxies are still mostly empty space.

So the dangers brought about by these collisions is not so much the risk of stars and planets bumping into each - but the interruption of their stable orbits by gravitational interactions.
For instance, if our galaxy was undergoing such a collision, the disruption of the fairly stable Milky Way galaxy could cause our sun and its planetary retinue to start migrating towards the centre of the galaxy - or it could caue the solar system to be ejected from the galaxy altogether.
Of course, these events would take place over millions or even huundreds of millions of years.

The Black Flash

13,735 posts

197 months

Friday 26th October 2012
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Eric Mc said:
Alhough galactic collisions look spectacular from a distance, galaxies are still mostly empty space.

So the dangers brought about by these collisions is not so much the risk of stars and planets bumping into each - but the interruption of their stable orbits by gravitational interactions.
For instance, if our galaxy was undergoing such a collision, the disruption of the fairly stable Milky Way galaxy could cause our sun and its planetary retinue to start migrating towards the centre of the galaxy - or it could caue the solar system to be ejected from the galaxy altogether.
Of course, these events would take place over millions or even huundreds of millions of years.
Yup. Very few things would actually collide as such, but lots of orbits get thrown out. The chances of two planets or stars from different galaxies colliding would be miniscule.

Not sure what the effects would be within the solar system itself, but you can imagine that the orbits of commets etc may get disturbed and cause more collisions that way.


Chilli

Original Poster:

17,318 posts

235 months

Tuesday 30th October 2012
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RobbieKB said:
Some of them were very interesting!

The heart of a star reaches 16 million °C. A grain of sand this hot would kill someone 150 km away. eek



Edited by RobbieKB on Thursday 25th October 14:14
Absolutely mental! It just doesn't compute!

Galileo

3,145 posts

217 months

Tuesday 30th October 2012
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I love to entertain the kids with facts that they can understand, such as;

If you shrank the solar system down so that the sun was the size of a large orange, the Earth would be the size of a pin-head nearly 11 meters away.

Jupiter would be the size of a small marble over 55 meters away.

The nearest star would be nearly 7 miles away. The next nearest would be slightly more than that, more or less in the opposite direction.

The sums are rough, but it gives a good sense of how small we really are.


annodomini2

6,860 posts

250 months

Tuesday 30th October 2012
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The surface of Venus has an atmospheric pressure 93 times that of the Earth, the equivalent of being 930m (3069ft) under the sea.

It has a surface temperature of 462degC, which is hot enough to melt lead.

Ozone

3,039 posts

186 months

Tuesday 30th October 2012
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Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

/Hitchikers Guide

NDA

21,488 posts

224 months

Tuesday 30th October 2012
quotequote all
Eric Mc said:
Alhough galactic collisions look spectacular from a distance, galaxies are still mostly empty space.

So the dangers brought about by these collisions is not so much the risk of stars and planets bumping into each - but the interruption of their stable orbits by gravitational interactions.
For instance, if our galaxy was undergoing such a collision, the disruption of the fairly stable Milky Way galaxy could cause our sun and its planetary retinue to start migrating towards the centre of the galaxy - or it could caue the solar system to be ejected from the galaxy altogether.
Of course, these events would take place over millions or even huundreds of millions of years.
Interesting and mind boggling.

I did spend one one evening this summer in the Med gazing at the stars. 'Awsome' is over used these days, but is appropriate when trying to comprehend what we can see..... And that's with the naked eye.

Nom de ploom

4,890 posts

173 months

Wednesday 31st October 2012
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next summer - all being well my honeymoon will be an arctic cruise.

I cannot wait for perfectly clear skies just o be able to sit there and well... look up basically.

I've got a Nikon D40 so I hope (with a bit of learning beforehand) to be able to use it to capture some nice images.