crazy facts about the universe

Crazy Facts About The Universe

Crazy Facts about Space, Planets and Universe.
11. Cold Welding
This is a phenomenon used to describe the fact that whenever two pieces of metal in outerspace touch each other, they are more or less permanently stuck together. While welding usually requires heat, in this case the vacuum of space does the trick, hence the name. You might think then, how do space shuttles accomplish anything out there? Well, typically metals on Earth have a layer of oxidized material covering their surface that prevents this, so on shuttle missions the risk of accidentally welding the shuttle to itself is negligible.
12. Earth has more than 1 moon
Okay, not really, theyre more like moon wannabes but scientists have discovered several asteroids that are more or less following the Earth as it moves around the sun.
13. Space Junk
Earth does, however, have over 8,000 objects orbiting around it. Most of these would be classified as space junk or debris left over from spacecraft and missions in the past.
14. Lunar Drift
Each year scientists have determined that the moon moves about 3.8 cm further from the Earth. As a result, Earths spin has slowed by about .002 seconds every day over the course of the last century.
15. The Sun s rays on your skin are 30000 years old
While most of us know that the light hitting Earth took 8 minutes to cross the 93 million miles between our skin and the surface of the Sun, did you know that the energy in those rays started their life over 30,000 years ago deep within the core of the sun? They were formed by an intense fusion reaction and spent most of those thousands of years making their way to the Suns surface.
16. The Big Dipper is not a constellation
While its not our intention to burst your bubble, we thought we should inform you that it is actually an asterism. There are only 88 official constellations in the night sky and everything else, including the Big Dipper, falls into this other category. It is, however, composed of the 7 brightest stars in the Great Bear (Ursa Major) constellation.
17. Constant motion
You are standing on a planet that is spinning about its axis while rotating around a star that is revolving around the center of galaxy that is itself barreling through space. Sounds like enough to give you motion sickness right? Well, before you take your Dramamine lets visit our next point.
18. Galileo s Theory of Spacial Relativity
So how do you know that the bus you are taking to work is in fact moving? What if you are sitting in the only motionless object in the known universe and everything else, including the road beneath your tires, is moving instead? Well, the truth is that there is no way to prove what is moving and what isnt. Its all relative to your frame of reference. To you the person across the aisle is stationary because your frame of reference is the bus. To the person watching from the sidewalk, however, you are both speeding along at 60 km/hour through traffic because their frame of reference is the earth. Lets take this a step further though as we move on to.
19. The Speed of Light
Going back to the bus example. If you were to shoot an arrow out the window at a target down the road in front of you how fast would it be moving when it hit hit the bullseye? Well, essentially it would be going the speed of the bus about 60 km per hour plus however fast you shot the arrow. Now what if you shined a beam of light at it? Since the light travels at 186,000 miles per second, we would just add the 60 km per hour right? Wrong. Scientist found that no matter what, light travels the same speed. Which brings us to our next point.
20. The Universal Speed Limit
As a result of the aforementioned fact that light cannot exceed 186,000 miles per second, it would follow that nothing can, which is exactly why this has come to be known as the universal speed limit. This however, has some interesting consequences and leads directly into.