10 Most BEAUTIFUL Solar System Facts

 

at first it was just enough for mankind  to glance up at the night sky  and marvel at the sea of stars  containing constellations of far away  twinkling lights  modern technology has allowed us to  witness the solar system  in all of its beauty showing off our  nearby neighbors with stunning detail  it's hard not to get inspired by the  landscapes on these alien worlds  so here are some of the more beautiful  facts about our solar system  number 10. blue skies  mars is a desolate dusty ball of rock  barren of any obvious forms of life  it's called the red planet for a reason  good old-fashioned  rust the iron oxide molecules and the  dusty soil corrode  just the same as it does here on earth  but bizarrely the crimson hue of the  landscape  changes when it comes to the twilight  hours of the day  the martian sunsets cast an eerily blue  twinge over  everything once again it all comes down  to  dust airborne particles caused the red  light to scatter  giving the sky a red appearance however  during sunset  blue light has to travel a longer  distance and align closer to the sun's  rays than the other colors in the  spectrum  it's the exact opposite of the blue  skies and red sunsets on earth  number nine icy eruptions  mention volcanoes and everyone  immediately thinks of plumes of ash  blisteringly hot rivers of lava and  fiery fragments of molten rock  shooting out and landing miles away but  just because this happens on earth  doesn't mean it's the same for  everywhere else when you break it down a  volcano is in its basic form a release  of an underground reservoir of  pressurized fluids or gas  the pent-up material then erupts onto  the surface of the planet  the material shot into the atmosphere  can be wildly different  on jupiter's moon io the volcanoes shoot  out sulfur dioxide  otherwise known as rotten egg gas on  saturn's moon enceladus good  old-fashioned h2o is the driving force  water expands when it freezes and  enormous pressure builds up  shooting out a jet of ice skywards  otherwise known as a cryovolcano  number eight glassy eruptions  jupiter has four moons referred to as  the galilean satellites  as an homage to their discoverer galileo  who first documented them in 1610.  the closest is io which experiences  weird geological phenomena from the  gravitational and tidal forces exerted  on it by its mother planet  the interior of io is squeezed like a  rubber ball  forcing its shape into something  slightly resembling an egg  this compression force causes a huge  buildup of heat in its core  eventually pressure proves too much and  volcanoes shower the atmosphere and  surface in explosions of silicate  compounds  in other words it rains glass  the volcanic activity is so commonplace  that the surface of io is completely  resurfaced every few thousand years its  white crust is modeled with orange and  yellow from sulfur compounds brought up  from beneath the crust  number seven the big daddy of volcanoes  the largest volcano on planet earth is  mauna loa in hawaii  75 miles across and nine miles high the  majority of which is hidden beneath the  azure waves of the pacific ocean  this is child's play when compared to  the biggest of the bunch  on mars there is the appropriately named  olympus mons  paying homage to the greek gods who  lived atop the mythical mount olympus  here on earth  this behemoth dwarfs mauna loa and is a  whopping 435 miles across  and 14 miles high taking out the title  of the biggest in the solar system  the top of the pinnacle isn't a crater  but rather a flat top with sheer  cliffs on all sides six miles high  it's a shield type volcano built up from  eruptions of molten basalt  its titanic size comes courtesy of a  billion years of accumulated material  with the structure itself stabilizing  the martian crust  number six the big daddy of oceans  little known fact jupiter has the  biggest ocean of  any planet in our solar system this may  seem strange as the only place to hold  liquid water is earth  and quite possibly on mars in deep  underground saltwater reservoirs  but it's true the oceans of jupiter are  made up of something entirely different  metallic hydrogen the planet orbits five  times further from the sun than earth in  a very cold section of the solar system  it's made up of mostly hydrogen and  helium retaining more of the gas when it  was formed than compared to earth  using jupiter's mass chemical makeup and  with the help of physics  it's clear that there should be a vast  ocean comprised of liquid metal hydrogen  it's over 25 000 miles deep as deep as  the earth is round  number five life  inside the sun we all think of the sun  as that big hot ball of nuclear fusion  burning in the sky  93 million miles away but really that's  only a small part of the sun's true  nature the heliosphere is the extent of  the sun's outer atmosphere  extending out 100 astronomical units  remember 1au  is the distant from the sun's surface to  the earth  this puts the edge of the sun well past  pluto meaning we  technically live inside of the sun  where aurora borealis and astralis are  evidence of this  as the sun's radiation interacts with  our magnetosphere  the electrically charged atmosphere  emits a breathtaking green swirling  patterns in the sky  auroras have been observed on jupiter  saturn uranus and even neptune  this solar atmosphere is shaped like a  teardrop with the tail caused by the  sun's movement through space  number four where does it stop  so we bet you've always thought that the  edge of the solar system stops at  was a planet but now isn't a planet  pluto  now you know it's at least a bit further  out at the edge of the heliosphere  but neither of these are correct with  the actual boundary extending out 1 000  times the orbit of pluto or around half  a light year from the center  pluto sits 40 au from the sun but there  are trans-neptunian objects or tnos  and kuiper belt objects or kbos that  exist  considerably farther out than pluto 50  to 60 au  these bodies travel through space  following a solar orbit  making them technically part of our  solar system  then there's the orc comet cloud 50 000  au from the sun that are influenced by  the sun's gravitational pull  and make up the absolute limit of the  furthest reaches of the solar system  number three one chunky monkey  the sun is a big beautiful orb that  rains down life bringing warmth and  light to the plants on earth that form  the foundation of every ecosystem on the  planet  we know the sun is dense enough to fuse  its hydrogen fuel into helium to create  this energy  but what does it tip the scales at when  compared to other celestial bodies in  our solar system  as it turns out 99.8 percent of the mass  in the solar system  is contained within the sun no that  isn't an error and yes  the decimal point is in the right place  the core of the sun is one part helium  in three parts hydrogen  and is the equivalent to around 330 000  earths all of the other planets moons  comets asteroids dust gas and other  assorted stuff  account for an abysmal 0.14  of everything around us number two  the eye of the storm in ancient times  the great red spot on the surface of  jupiter was thought to be the eye of an  angry god  in fact it's a huge atmospheric storm  over twice the size of the earth  first observed in 1878 and showing no  signs of slowing down the storm system  takes about a week to perform a 360  degree rotation  and although we know it floats above  jupiter's many cloud layers we have no  idea how deep it extends the wind speed  on its edges  exceeds 250 miles per hour  the color changes according to the cloud  composition varying from orange to red  to gray and a mixture of all three at  times the eye is covered by white clouds  in the very  upper atmosphere it's thought that  sulfur and phosphorus compounds give the  great red spot its characteristic color  and it's unknown how long the storm has  been raging or when it will subside  number one the rock your wife deserves  the constellation of cancer has a star  40 light years away that's visible from  earth  55 canceri it's not the star itself but  the planet in the fifth orbit that's  interesting  55 cancer e is composed almost entirely  of graphite carbon  but more importantly geological  processes hot temperatures and immense  pressure  deep beneath the crust have formed  diamonds  it has a size double of that of earth  and eight times the mass  with a molten iron core it's the layer  of diamond between the core and the  crust that draws attention  contributing to a third of the planet's  mass  the mind-bogglingly rich deposit of  precious gems is thought to be worth  26 new million dollars that's not a made  up word by the way  it's a one with 30 zeros behind it