29 Space Facts That Prove Earth Is Boring

Published December 8, 2014
Updated November 7, 2023

These interesting space facts about the Sun, Mars, and the universe at large that will make you stand in awe of the grandness of space.

As residents of the Milky Way galaxy, we live in a galaxy that is over 100,000 light years in diameter with over 800 billion stars and planets. And that’s just the Milky Way — scientists have calculated that there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Meaning, we inhabit 1 of over 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe.

There is plenty for us to learn about — and see– with regard to space. Enjoy these twenty-nine intriguing and interesting space facts from All That Is Interesting that will make your problems feel infinitesimal:

Video Thumbnail For Youtube Video 2r2tx Lanqe

Interesting Space Facts Andromeda Galaxy
You can see another galaxy with the naked eye: the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 2.2 million light years away.

Space Facts Cloud On Saturn
There's a 30,000 kilometer hexagonal cloud at Saturn’s north pole.

Space Facts Core Of A Star
The core of a star reaches 16 million degrees Celsius. A grain of sand this hot would kill someone from 150 kilometers away.

Fascinating Space Facts
The sun accounts for 99.86% of the mass of our entire solar system.

Giant Red Spot
The 40,000 kilometer wide Great Red Spot on Jupiter is a persistent storm estimated to be between 200 and 300 years old. To put this in perspective, Earth could fit inside the Great Red Spot 3 times over.

Footprints On The Moon
The moon is the only other world humans have ever set foot on. Because the moon has no atmosphere or wind, the footprints planted on it's dusty surface in 1969 by the Apollo astronauts are still there today, perfectly preserved.

Olympus Mons Volcano
Mars is home to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in our solar system. At 21 kilometers high and 60 kilometers wide, Olympus Mons is roughly the same size as Ireland.

Humans Who Have Died Outside Of Earth's Atmosphere
Only three people have ever died outside of the bounds of Earth's atmosphere.

Jupiter Facts
Jupiter is two and a half times bigger than all the other solar system planets combined.

Photon Sun Core To Surface
It takes the average photon 170,000 years to travel from the Sun’s core to its surface.

Photon Sun Surface To Earth
It takes that same photon only 8 minutes to travel from the Sun’s surface to Earth.

Planet Discoveries
In the last 20 years, we’ve discovered more than a thousand planets outside our solar system.

Contrary to popular belief, the Earth has more than one moon. Cruithne (“the Earth’s second moon”) is one of six "quasi-satellite" asteroids that rotate in a near identical orbit to the Earth.

Planet Sizes
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune could all fit in the space between Earth and the Moon.

Size Of Jupiter
More than 1,300 Earths could fit inside of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

Interesting Facts About Space
More solar energy reaches Earth’s surface in an hour and a half than we used in all of 2001.

Space Facts
Astronomer Frank Drake proposed the Drake Equation to estimate how many civilizations could exist in our galaxy. The figure is in the millions!

Calculating The Distance To The Moon
Astronauts left a mirror on the Moon’s surface during the Moon landing. Scientists used this mirror to reflect a laser beam which measured the distance between the Moon and the Earth with amazing accuracy.

Lost Star Space Facts
Scientists recently discovered a star that had been lost in the glare of a supernova for 21 years.

Space Facts Sun
The Sun is more than 300,000 times bigger than the Earth.

Space Facts About The Suns Temperature
The Sun’s surface temperature is around 5,500 degrees Celsius (9,941 degrees Fahrenheit).

Mars Sized Object
An object the size of Mars crashed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago.

Moon Temperature Facts About Space
The Moon is very hot during the day but very cold at night: the average surface temperature of the Moon is 107 degrees Celsius during the day and -153 degrees Celsius at night.

Sun Facts
The Sun travels around the galaxy--a journey of 100,000 light years--once every 200 million years.

Tablespoon Of Neutron Star
A tablespoon of neutron star would weigh about ten billion tons.

Black Hole Facts
If you fell into a black hole, you would get stretched out like spaghetti.

Interesting Space Facts
Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system with an average surface temperature of over 450 degrees Celsius.

Weight Of The Sun
The Sun weighs 2,000 trillion trillion tons – about 300,000 times as much as the Earth – even though it is made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the lightest gases in the universe.

Winds On Saturns
Winds reaching up to 1,100 kilometers per hour--ten times stronger than the fastest recorded on Earth--swirl around Saturn’s equator.

And After You Enjoy These Facts About Space, We Recommend These Fascinating Videos On Space


Enjoy our collection of mindblowing space facts? Then be sure to check out our other posts on interesting facts about the world, sun facts, and amazing facts about life!

author
Alec
author
Alexander is a Brooklyn-based cofounder of All That's Interesting with an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in History and Economics and an MSc from the School of Oriental and African Studies in Economics. He specializes in American history, the Cold War, and true crime.
editor
Savannah Cox
editor
Savannah Cox holds a Master's in International Affairs from The New School as well as a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield. Her work as a writer has also appeared on DNAinfo.