Space Facts for Kids
Out-of-this-world facts about the universe
There are estimated to be more than one million asteroids in our solar system larger than 1 kilometre, most of them orbiting in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Shooting stars are not actually stars — they are tiny pieces of rock and dust called meteors burning up in Earth's atmosphere at speeds of up to 70 kilometres per second.
Space is not completely empty — even in the most remote areas of the universe, there is about one hydrogen atom per cubic metre, known as the intergalactic medium.
Neptune has the fastest winds of any planet in the solar system, reaching up to 2,100 kilometres per hour — nearly nine times faster than the most powerful hurricane on Earth.
The Apollo 11 mission that landed on the Moon in 1969 used computers with less processing power than a modern smartphone — yet it performed one of the greatest feats in human history.
Saturn's rings are made of billions of chunks of ice and rock, ranging from tiny grains to house-sized boulders. They are 282,000 kilometres wide but only about 100 metres thick.
Unlike Earth, the Moon has no significant magnetic field and no atmosphere, which means its surface is bombarded directly by radiation from the Sun and cosmic rays.
Many everyday inventions came from space research, including memory foam, scratch-resistant lenses, wireless headsets, and the camera found in most smartphones.
Astronomers have confirmed more than 5,000 exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than our Sun — with billions more estimated to exist across our galaxy alone.
Quasars are the brightest objects in the universe, powered by supermassive black holes consuming enormous amounts of matter. A single quasar can outshine an entire galaxy of billions of stars.