15 Facts about Pluto: The Demoted Dwarf
Pluto ( ♇ , प्लूटो ) was once a planet but thanks to the discovery of Eris, it was demoted to the status of a dwarf planet. This tiny ball in space was just recently pictured from a short distance for the first time. This Flyby mission revealed many characteristics of this demoted planet. Here are some interesting facts about the ex-planet with a heart, Pluto: Pluto is the largest known Plutoid Tombaugh’s task was to systematically image the night sky in pairs of photographs, then examine each pair and determine whether any objects had shifted position. After the observatory obtained confirmatory photographs, news of the discovery was telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory on March 13, 1930 The final choice of name was helped in part by the fact that the first two letters of Pluto. These are the initials of Percival Lowell, a wealthy Bostonian…
15 Facts about Uranus: The Icy Misfit
Uranus ( ⛢ , अरुण ) is the Solar System‘s weirdo. Let it be its featureless look, mysteriously low temperature or excessive tilt, it is unlike any other planet. This far from home icy planet has its own amazing set of quirks. Here are some interesting facts about Uranus, the icy misfit: Uranus is the Latinized version of Ouranos Sir William Herschel announced its discovery on 13th March 1781, but he assumed it was a comet. By 1783, he acknowledges that his discovery is, in fact, a planet Appendix: Classical Planets The interior of Uranus is mainly composed of ices and rock. Uranus and Neptune are known as the Ice Giants This could be because of the low heat generated by the planet Neptune, which is Uranus’ near twin in size and composition, radiates 2.61 times as much energy into space as it receives from the Sun.…
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)…