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 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 Mercury: The Messenger of God
Mercury ( ☿ , बुध ), the closest planet to the Sun is the one which faces its maximum fury. This tiny piece of rock has its own fascinating features. Here are some interesting facts about the mighty Mercury: Both moons individually only have a mass equal to 40% of Mercury The Roman god Mercury serves as the guide of souls to the underworld An observer on Mercury would see only one day every two Mercurian years The polar region is constantly below -93° C Mercury is too small and hot for its gravity to retain any significant atmosphere over long periods of time Appendix: Exosphere This Exosphere contains Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen, Sodium, Calcium, Potassium and others. Mercury’s gravity is double that of our Moon Mercury’s magnetic field is much weaker than Earth‘s magnetic field. It is still strong enough to deflect…
15 Facts about Sun: The Star that Owns it All
Our Sun ( ☉ , सूर्य ) is not just a star at the centre of our Solar System but also the engine that powers everything around it. It’s gigantic, hot and its gravitational force is what keeping everything in place. Here are some interesting facts about our very own star Sun: Sun’s radius is 1700 times smaller than the radius of the biggest known star UY Scuti (Pronunciation: U Y Scu-taai) which is a red supergiant in the constellation Scutum It’s 109 times the diameter of the Earth The diameter of the Earth at the equator is about 43 km larger than the pole-to-pole diameter. Earth has an equatorial diameter of 12,756 km Other elements present on the Sun are Oxygen: 1%, Carbon: 0.3%, Neon: 0.2% and Iron 0.2% And the Sun will continue to do so for another few billion years This…
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…