10 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Space

People peer into the endless depths of space, wondering how many mind-blowing things are going on there that are still unknown. Here are ten space facts that will help lift the space mystery shroud.

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Mercury has a tail

Many people know comets have tails. But have you heard about a planet that has one? Mercury has a cometlike tail produced by the solar wind that pushes off sodium atoms from the planet&#;s surface. It&#;s not easy to see: you&#;ll have to take a long-exposure photo using a telescope and a special filter.

Time is also essential: the tail is brightest within 16 days of the planet&#;s perihelion. If you decide to try your luck (and will find the equipment needed), the Sky Tonight app will help you choose a good day. First, find Mercury using Search (magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen). After tapping on the corresponding result, go to the Events tab. You will find a list of all upcoming Mercury events, including perihelion.

There is a man buried on the Moon

Eugene Shoemaker, a co-discoverer of the famous Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet, was the founder of astrogeology and was set to be the first geologist to walk on the Moon. Unfortunately, health issues prevented him from flying to the Moon during his lifetime. Instead, he trained Neil Armstrong and other astronauts for the Apollo missions. In , searching for undiscovered impact craters, he went to Australia, where he died in a car accident. In honor of his contributions to planetary science, his ashes were carried to the Moon aboard NASA&#;s Lunar Prospector Orbiter. For now, he remains the only human buried on the Moon.

Lunar burial is not the only mind-blowing thing associated with our natural satellite. Check our infographic to learn even more mysterious Moon facts.

Is lunar dust dangerous? Has anyone been buried on the Moon? Read this infographic to learn amazing facts about our natural satellite.

See Infographic

There is a planet likely made of diamonds

An exoplanet 55 Cancri e, located 40 light-years away from us, might be covered in diamonds. Sounds nice, but you wouldn't want to visit it anyway &#; unless you like to sunbathe at °C (°F) and breathe hydrocyanic acid. As scientists assumed, 55 Cancri e is bound to a star with a high carbon-to-oxygen ratio, which led to the formation of a carbon-rich planet (and diamond is a solid form of carbon). The research team suggests that at least a third of the planet&#;s mass (about three Earth masses) could be diamond. Further studies are needed to support the theory. If it proves to be true, it would mean 55 Cancri e hosts diamonds worth about $26.9 nonillion ($26,900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).

Saturn has a hexagonal-shaped storm

Saturn&#;s north pole hosts a multilayer storm with an unusual hexagon shape. It was first discovered in by the NASA Voyager spacecraft. Later, in , the Cassini spacecraft provided more detailed images and data. It revealed that the storm is about 300 km (190 mi) tall, 29,000 km (18,000 mi) wide, and is possibly composed of atmospheric gases moving at about 320 km/h (200 mph). The hexagon's sides are about 14,500 km (9,000 mi) long &#; 2,000 km (1,200 mi) longer than the Earth's diameter! It also changes color over Saturnian seasons &#; it is golden in summer and blue in winter.

There is a huge cloud of floating water in space

We know the Earth may not be the only space object with water. For example, Europa (one of Jupiter&#;s moons) is thought to have an ocean that may contain twice the volume of water found on our planet. However, the largest reservoir of water in space is floating around a quasar &#; a luminous supermassive black hole &#; 12 billion light-years away from us. It is a cloud of water vapor that covers hundreds of light-years and contains 140 trillion times more water than the world's oceans.

LEGO figures were sent to orbit Jupiter

To get kids interested in science and space exploration, LEGO made three minifigures that were placed on the Juno space probe sent by NASA to explore Jupiter. The LEGO &#;crew&#; includes Galileo Galilei, who discovered the four biggest Jovian moons, the god Jupiter himself, and his wife Juno after which the mission was named. The minifigures have no moving parts; they were cast of spacecraft-grade aluminum designed to withstand the harsh conditions of space flight. By the way, they are still orbiting the planet &#; the Juno mission was extended to September .

Neptune has only completed one orbit around the Sun since its discovery

Neptune is the outermost major planet that was discovered in . It was the first planet to be found with the use of mathematics: astronomers noticed that Uranus deviated from the predicted orbit, which allowed them to assume the existence of another planet and then find it. Keep this fact in mind: you&#;ll need it to ace our Firsts in Space quiz.

What was the first planet discovered using math? Take this quiz to learn about major milestones in astronomy and space exploration!

For more information, please visit Space Capsule House.

Take the quiz!

Neptune is so far that it can only be observed with optics. As it&#;s farthest from the Sun, it also has the longest orbital period: a year on Neptune lasts 164.8 Earth years. That&#;s why it only completed one post-discovery circle (it was in ).

A wedding ring was lost &#; and then found! &#; in space

On the second day of the Apollo 16 lunar mission, command module pilot Ken Mattingly realized he had lost his wedding ring. The whole crew tried to find it all over the spacecraft. On day nine, it was finally spotted floating out the hatch door while Mattingly was in the middle of a spacewalk. Another astronaut, Charles Duke Jr., noticed the ring and tried to grab it but failed. Fortunately, it bounced off Mattingly's helmet, and Duke caught it. Just imagine: a small ring was nearly lost in the endless cosmic depths. By the way, people have already left many things in space &#; there&#;s even a toothbrush floating out there.

Spacecraft have visited every Solar System planet

Humanity has been exploring space for more than 60 years. That&#;s not so long (in terms of the universe). Over this period, our spacecraft have visited all of our Solar System's planets, including the dwarf planets. Our probes have landed on Mars and Venus and orbited Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and Ceres. NASA&#;s Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune, and the New Horizons probe approached Pluto.

Besides important scientific data, spacecraft provided us with many photos of other planets and their moons. Can you guess which planet's landscape is on your screen? Test both your knowledge and intuition with our quiz!

Guess the object from a unique feature on its surface. Let&#;s test your knowledge about planets, dwarf planets, and planetary moons.

Take the quiz!

There are more trees on the Earth than stars in the Milky Way

You must&#;ve heard that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on the Earth. We know that the cosmos is large, so it doesn&#;t sound surprising. But it&#;s hard for us to believe that space can be inferior to the Earth in some way. Strange as it may seem, it is true, at least if we take not the entire universe, but only our Milky Way galaxy. At a rough estimate, the advantage is obvious: there are from 100 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way and more than 3 trillion trees on our planet.

Bottom line

Now you know a little more about the universe. Keep on exploring space: watch the video about the 15 most mind-blowing Moon facts and the most amazing things in the Solar System. Also, learn your cosmic address and see how the entire history of the universe would look compressed into a 1 Earth year.

How old is the Universe? Take a look at our cosmic calendar to realize how brief human history is compared to the age of the Universe.

See Infographic

Where are we in the Milky Way? And where is the Milky Way in the Universe? How many galaxies are in the observable Universe? Find answers in this infographic.

See Infographic

So, the matter is complicated a bit.

I'll use bar and millibar (mbar) units because it's easiest to mentally relate to sea level air which is 1.0 bar

First of all 0.2bar pure oxygen atmosphere is somewhat hypoxic (it's breathable but it's not sea level oxygen level equivalent for breathing, it's ratter close to the m asl or ~ft). That's because one must look not at the ambient air but the air in lungs, where body's gas exchange actually occurs. And there are 2 other gasses which sum to ~0.1bar pp: water vapor at ~0.062 and CO2 at ~0.04. Let's call them physiological gasses (phg). They will be there regardless of the air you breathe. So in 0.2bar ambient pressure in your lungs you'd get 0.1bar ppO2, and approximately fixed 0.1bar ppphg.

So that's why you have space suits use about 0.3bar or more not 0.2bar (0.2 bar was used once in emergency, when Leonov had trouble reentering his vehicle during the first spacewalk ever).

And that the ambient pressure passenger jet are regularly certified (with the exception of  A380 which is allowed to fly ft higher), i.e. the perssure at FL400 i.e. ft / m. This is the altidtude at which oxygen mask without positive pressure is effective.

NOTE 1: the above is a simplification as after entering lungs oxygen level gets lower and CO2 level grows, but it's kinda average case and will do here.

NOTE 2: in the regular air at 1.0 bar the air in the lungs is the following:  0.1bar ppphg, ~0.18 ppO2 and the rest would be ~0.72 bar pp.

NOTE 3: the absolute minimum short term oxygen level for well acclimated humans is 0.17bar pure O2. It's as breathable as the air on the peak of Mt Everest. So if you're well trained, well acclimated, healthy, etc... you could keep up for a few hours, maybe.

Then, there's research indicating that pure oxygen may be damaging to lungs in the long time, so often 80% O2 20% N2 was used as safer. Then you want to have at least 0.33bar pressure to have ~normal oxygen levels in the lungs (America uses 5 psi which is about 0.344, likely because 5 is nice and round and 4.79 is not; doesn't matter much at all).

But then, there's the whole fire risk thing. Combustion, unlike breathing, doesn't work on partial pressure! For example if you increased ambient pressure to 1.3bar, but kept O2 at 0.21bar pp, you couldn't light a candle in such air anymore (while you could breathe it perfectly normally). But it goes the other way too. You could light that candle not just at a 1 bar normal air, or even 0.2bar normal air. In pure oxygen it would burn happily down to about 0.05 bar. And at 0.2bar pure O2 it would burn vigorously and would likely melt in seconds into a burning puddle -- it'd burn more like a kerosene spill rather than your regular candle. Moreover, materials normally not burnable in standard air burn happily in pure oxygen at 0.2bar.

Of course 0.2 or even 0.344 bar of pure O2 is less hazardous than ~1.1bar O2 in Apollo 1 cabin air, but it is still hazardous.

But I'm also not convinced that 1bar air is optimal for human space ops outside of medical research (which likes to remove confounding variables). You want no more ambient pressure drop than to about 0.3bar below original ppN2 (0.78bar in standard air), if you want to be able to do non emergency EVAs without multiple hours prebreathing.

So, IMO, something like 0.7bar 24% O2 air would be a decent compromise. It's like normal air at m or ft breathing wise, fire hazard is only mildly elevated (less than 25% oxygen concentration) and nitrogen-wise you could drop to ambient to 0.23bar which is plenty enough.
 

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