Whoa! 46 Facts About Space That Are Truly Out of This World

We are made of stardust, because the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in our bodies come from long-lost stars created 4.5 billion years ago.

The universe contains at least 100 billion galaxies.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains at least 100 billion stars, including our sun.

The Milky Way is located in The Local Group of 30 other galaxies.

Our neighbor galaxy is Andromeda, which is 2.5 million light years away. There could be life there looking out at the Milky Way!

The universe is 68 percent dark energy and 27 percent dark matter, none of which has been observed by us. Normal matter, including everything on Earth, only makes up 5 percent of the universe.

The universe is getting larger. Only 14 billion years ago, it could be compressed into a single point in space.

The sun accounts for 99.8 percent of the mass of our entire solar system.

To scale: the sun is the size of a front door and Earth is the size of a nickel.

The sun rotates at different rates since it's not solid. In the center, it rotates every 25 Earth days and at the poles every 36 days.

The sun is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit at its core.

Our solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.

During an equinox, both the Northern and Southern hemispheres on Earth receive the same amount of sunlight because the sun is above the equator. Equinox means "equal night."

On Venus, the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.

Surface temperatures on Venus can rise past 800 degrees Fahrenheit, and space probes are destroyed by the planet's temperatures in hours.

About 275 million stars are born and die each day, and in about 5 billion years, our star — the sun — will die.

The moon is the only celestial body visited by a human — besides Earth, of course.

Uranus rotates horizontally.

Many of Uranus's 27 moons are named for Shakespearean characters, like Oberon and Titania.

Saturn's rings aren't solid, and the particles range from the size of a grain of sand to the size of a skyscraper.

Saturn is pastel-colored.

Saturn gets 1/80th of the sunlight Earth gets. Brrr.

Snoopy is the official safety mascot of NASA astronauts.

We're lucky to have such a nice star. Planet WASP-12b is being eaten by its sun-like star and only has 10 million more years to live.

A Venus day is roughly 243 Earth days long.

Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system.

The gravity on Mars is one-third that of Earth's.

Mercury is the fastest planet in our solar system. One year is equal to 88 Earth days.

Neptune has the fastest winds in the solar system.

Venus has an average temperature of 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pluto is only half the width of the United States at 1,400 miles wide.

Because of Uranus's unusual rotational pattern — rotating horizontally — it's nicknamed the "sideways planet."

Uranus is a ringed planet, alongside Saturn, Jupiter, and Neptune.

Earth's moon is the fifth largest moon in the solar system.

Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system.

One day on Pluto is equivalent to six Earth days.

Mercury is a rocky planet with a cratered surface, much like Earth's moon.

Standing on Mercury's surface, the sun would appear three times larger than it does on Earth.

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.

Jupiter has more than 75 moons.