Although the light is the fastest thing ever known to man, it seems that it’s not as fast as we thought. The sunlight that’s enlightening the world today is about 30 000 years old. That’s how long it needed to travel from the core of the Sun to its surface. After that it needs only eight minutes to reach the Earth.
Silence in space is endless, just like the space itself. On Earth the sound travels in waves that vibrate air molecules. But in the vacuum space there aren’t any molecules to conduct it, so the sound doesn’t exist out there. Even if a space ship explodes there will be just – silence.
When a man is in space he gains some extra height. When on Earth, the spine is compressed by gravity. But, when it’s in vacuum space, the spine could elongate as much as longer. Every astronaut could gain approximately two inches in space.
It’s well known that the Earth rotate on its axis for a day, and for 365 days it orbits the Sun. Every single planet needs different time to do so. The weird fact is that Venus needs 243 Earth days to rotate on its axis, but it takes only 225 days to orbit around the Sun. Before the new day has come, the year has already gone.
The now-dwarf-planet Pluto is, of course, the coldest planet in Solar system due to its distance from the Sun. The temperature might go down to amazing -390 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s needless to say that the surface is all icy, but it’s little bit different than the ice on Earth. Because of the extreme temperature it becomes harder. In fact it’s harder than steel.
Earth’s weight is not constant. Although scientists are not united in opinions about the exact weight, they all agree that the Earth gain some weight every day, due to meteorites, meteoric dust and comet’s dust. It’s believed that the total amount of weight gain is from 10 000 – 100 000 tons per year.
There are some myths about what happens when body is exposed directly to space. The official scientific theory is that a lot of things will hurt the body after 90 seconds. First, the gases expand in the lunges and form air bubbles that could kill a man immediately. The water in body will convert to vapor, the moisture in mouth and eyes will boil and the moisture in muscles and soft tissues will evaporate, causing swelling. Loss of vision, freezing nose, blue skin and sunburns follow. Interestingly, the heart and the brain will continue their work for another 90 seconds. Theoretically, treating pressurized oxygen before these 90 seconds could lead to complete recovery with only minor injuries.
Aside from the spine and human’s heart could be changed in space, too. According to astro-biologists, it shrinks and pumps less blood. When an astronaut is exposed to microgravity, the blood travels from the lower body to the heart and the head, making the heart larger temporarily. The body interprets this change as an increase of blood volume and tries to expel the excess of fluid through urination, but also the heart shrinks in order to pump less blood. That’s the reason why astronauts feel dizziness when return to Earth.
Silence in space is endless, just like the space itself. On Earth the sound travels in waves that vibrate air molecules. But in the vacuum space there aren’t any molecules to conduct it, so the sound doesn’t exist out there. Even if a space ship explodes there will be just – silence.
Although the light is the fastest thing ever known to man, it seems that it’s not as fast as we thought. The sunlight that’s enlightening the world today is about 30 000 years old. That’s how long it needed to travel from the core of the Sun to its surface. After that it needs only eight minutes to reach the Earth.
There’s a process called tidal acceleration, an effect of competing between a planet and its satellite. Due to this process the Earth is slowing down the rotation approximately 0.002 seconds a century. But the Moon is some kind of faster. It goes away from Earth about 3.8 centimeters every year.
Metals in space can be easily fused. The Earth’s atmosphere coats metals with oxidized material, but in oxygen-less space it barely exists. So, if two pieces of metal are pressed one to each other, they could be well welded. That’s the reason why NASA coats the metal surface of its spaceships when they’re sent to outer space.
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