15 Facts about Saturn: The Crowned Giant
Saturn ( ♄ , शनि ) can be deemed as the most royal planet of the Solar System. With a huge set of rings, the distinctive look of Saturn makes it the most talked-about planet. This fascinating planet is even more interesting from the close. Here are some interesting facts about Saturn, the one with the rings: Saturn has only one-eighth of the average density of Earth Saturn’s astronomical symbol (♄) represents the god’s sickle An apparent oddity is that it does not have any known Trojan Asteroids. Trojans have been discovered for Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune Appendix: AU The equatorial diameter of Saturn is 11,808 km longer than the diameter measured through the poles while the diameter of Earth is only 12,742 km The outermost layer of Saturn spans 1,000 km and consists of gas Appendix: Metallic Hydrogen Saturn’s finer cloud…
15 Facts about Jupiter: The King of the Gods
Jupiter (♃ , बृहस्पति) is the giant of our Solar System. Not only Jupiter is very huge, its gravitational force also helped in sculpting the structure of the Solar system, as we see today. First of the giant planets, Jupiter is a mammoth ball of gas with many striking features. Here are some interesting facts about Jupiter, the giant of the giants: Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System Roman god Jupiter is also called Jove which is the reason behind the name Jovian planets. ‘Jovian planets’ is the other term used for ‘Giant planets’ Jupiter’s upper atmosphere is about 88–92% Hydrogen and 8–12% Helium by percent volume of gas molecules Jupiter’s rotation is the fastest of all the Solar System‘s planets But like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface Astronomers have…
15 Facts about Asteroid Belt: The Planet that Never Became One
Between tiny Mars and humongous Jupiter, lies a band of objects known as Asteroid Belt. This belt of ‘minor planets’ was supposed to be a planet but Jupiter’s gravity didn’t let that happen. So, it ended up as Sun‘s own ring system made up of asteroids and a dwarf planet. Here are some interesting facts about the Asteroid Belt: The Asteroid Belt is also termed the ‘Main Asteroid Belt’ or ‘Main Belt’ to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and Trojan Asteroids Collisions became too violent and instead of fusing together, the Planetesimals and most of the Protoplanets shattered and formed the Asteroid Belt Appendix: Accrete, Primordial Computer simulations suggest that the original Asteroid Belt may have contained the mass equivalent to the Earth Although some scientists refer to the asteroids as residual Planetesimals, other scientists consider them…
15 Facts about Mars: The Next Destination
Mars ( ♂︎ , मंगल ), the fourth planet of the Solar System can be called the most behaved planet after Earth. Unlike extreme conditions on Mercury and Venus and unavailability of a solid surface on the giant planets, Mars is the only nearby place we can think of having a colony. It sounds nice but in reality, Mars is still a very hostile planet. A colony may be a dream of far future but we may soon have few humans there. Here are some interesting facts about our friendly neighbour Mars: The Greeks named this planet as Ares, the Greek God of War. Then, Roman changed the name of the planet as their God of War: Mars Mars is the second smallest planet in the Solar System after Mercury The Maps by Christiaan Huygens contain terrain features of Mars The rotation on Axis (Solar Day)…
15 Facts about Earth: The Planet We Call Home
Earth ( ⊕ , पृथ्वी ), our very own blue planet is the only known celestial body known to have life. Call it the act of god or a series of favourable circumstances, our planet managed to hit the perfect balance. This balance took billions of years but in the end, we got our miracle planet. Here are some interesting facts about our home planet Earth: The age of Earth is deduced on the basis of radiometric dating and other sources of evidence Like all other astronomical objects in the universe, Earth was formed by Accretion Appendix: Primordial The material that was in orbit around the Earth quickly coalesced into the Moon, possibly within less than a month, but in no more than a century. Some of Theia’s mass merged with Earth The first atmosphere was captured from the solar nebula. A combination of the solar…
15 Facts about Venus: The Burning Queen
Venus ( ♀︎, शुक्र ), the only planet of our Solar System regarded as a female is the evil twin sister of our planet. This shiny morning star is a hell with a raging temperature, crushing pressure and acidic clouds. Venus is a perfect example to show what the greenhouse effect can do to a planet. Here are some interesting facts about the gruesome Venus: The two continents on the planet are also named after women. The Northern continent Ishtar Terra is named after the Babylonian goddess of love and southern continent Aphrodite Terra is named after the Greek goddess of love Due to its reverse rotation, Sun rises in the west and sets in the East The diameter of Venus is only 638.4 km less than Earth‘s and its mass is 81.5% of that of Earth’s mass This results in reduced heat loss from the…
15 Facts about Solar System: An Introduction to the Home of our Home
Billions of years ago, there was no Sun and there were no planets. All there was a big cloud full of gases. So, how it all turned into a balanced system of a star and planets orbiting around it? How a star and planetary bodies around it made it possible to have life? The story of the Solar System ( सौर मण्डल ). Here are some interesting facts about our Solar System which will give you some insights on this series covering our planetary system: The Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC) in Orion–Cygnus Arm, also known as the Local Fluff is roughly 30 light-years across ———————————— As is typical of molecular clouds, this one consisted mostly of hydrogen, with some helium. It also had small amounts of heavier elements fused by previous generations of stars Within 50 million years, the pressure and density of hydrogen in the centre…