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…

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The Mars: 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)…

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The Earth

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…

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The Venus

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…

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