In the world of astronomy I have always been fascinated by the numbers and distances, mostly because I didn’t understand them and as the saying goes, “I want to know!” I wanted to understand what the astronomers, physicists and scientists were talking about. And after reading books on the subject of astrophysics, well.. I still don’t know! It lets me understand but then it leads to more questions; it seems to have the domino effect on me. I always wished I could have had coffee with Einstein, Galileo, Kepler or Copernicus, but then I realize I would leave with more questions than I asked. But then that is what humans have done for thousands of years; they had a sense of wonder. It is an amazing fact that your grade school child has more scientific knowledge than Galileo.

(1) Galileo is incorrectly credited with inventing the telescope. Historians believe that Dutchmen Johannas Lippershey, an eyeglass maker, invented it, but that Galileo was the first to use it for night sky observations.

(2) Shooting stars are really just tiny pebbles falling through our atmosphere and burning up as our planet flies through space. As comets traverse thru our solar system, they leave trails of rock and dust behind them like a long dusty cloud. Then our planet travels through these dusty clouds at 67,250 mph as we spin around our sun.

(3) We are rotating at this moment at approximately 1,000 mph.

(4) We are approximately 23 million miles from where we were in space yesterday at this time.

(5) Neutron stars are so dense, that a soup can sample of its material would have more mass than our moon.

(6) Polaris, the North Star, is the only star in the sky that does not appear to move. “It moves in a
tiny circle as its location just happens to be at our polar axis.”

(7) Venus is the only planet that rotates in reverse.
(8) Earth is 93 million miles from the sun and it takes approximately 16 million horsepower to break its gravitational pull.

(9) On a clear night the eye can only perceive approximately 3,000 stars at one time. But a telescope will let you see more than a billion.

(10) The sun at this moment is producing 383 “Billion Trillion” kilowatts.

(11) The closest star to us is Proxima Centauri. It is 4 lg (light years) away.

(12) Sun spots are areas of the sun that are 3,000 degrees cooler than the rest of the sun.

(13) The rings of Saturn are made of ice and rocks.

(14) Pluto was in part demoted as a planet and is called a “Dwarf Planet” because it does not have a fixed orbit and sometimes even crosses the orbit of another planet (Neptune).

(15) The fastest speed for the space shuttle is recorded at 18,000 mph.

(16) At 30 years old, You are 1 billion seconds old. You cannot count to a trillion in your lifetime or your children or great grand children’s lifetime.

(17) Jupiter is the solar systems vacuum cleaner; its gravitational pull is so strong that it draws most of the meteors and comets. Physicists believe that if it were not for Jupiter, earth impacts would be 10,000 times greater.

(18) Jupiter has more mass than all other planets in the solar system combined.

(19) In space, astronauts gain two inches in height because of the lack of gravity.

(20) The largest number that can be used in astrophysics is “Googleplex” and there has never been enough paper printed on earth to hold the Zeros, 000,000,000,000,000,000,etc.

Wesley J Hunt
wes81461@yahoo.com

Crossroads Astronomy Club meets every third Monday at 7:00 p.m at University of Houston at Victoria, West Building, room 223. Call KB Hallmark at 361-648-0089.