01
A day on Venus is longer than its year
Venus turns on its axis very slowly. One rotation takes about 243 Earth days, while one trip around the Sun takes about 225 days.
TEO KOSMOS FOR YOUNG EXPLORERS
Space Facts
Twenty discoveries to make the Universe feel closer.
Planets
02
Mars has the Solar System’s largest volcano
Olympus Mons is about 22 kilometres high. It is nearly three times taller than Mount Everest.
03
A giant storm rages on Jupiter
The Great Red Spot is a huge atmospheric storm that astronomers have watched for centuries. It is so large that its size can be compared with Earth.
04
Saturn is less dense than water
Saturn’s average density is lower than the density of water.
Stars
05
The Sun holds almost all the mass in the Solar System
About 99.8% of all the Solar System’s mass belongs to the Sun. Planets, asteroids and comets together make up only a small fraction.
06
A star’s colour tells us about its temperature
Red stars are usually cooler, while blue stars are much hotter. A blue star is actually hotter than a red one.
07
Sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth
Even light needs time to travel the distance between the Sun and Earth.
08
Stars are born in vast clouds of gas
New stars form inside cold clouds of gas and dust called nebulae.
Black holes
09
Not even light can escape a black hole
Once something crosses a black hole’s event horizon, it cannot come back out.
10
Black holes do not vacuum up everything around them
If you are far enough away, you can orbit a black hole just as a planet orbits a star.
11
Black holes can bend light
Their enormous gravity changes the path of light rays. This can give astronomers strange, distorted views of distant objects.
12
Many galaxy centres contain supermassive black holes
Their masses can be millions or even billions of times greater than the Sun’s mass.
Galaxies
13
The Milky Way contains hundreds of billions of stars
Our Sun is only one star among the enormous number of stars in our galaxy.
14
We live inside the Milky Way
That is why we cannot photograph our own galaxy from the outside the way we photograph other galaxies.
15
Galaxies come in different shapes
There are spiral, elliptical and irregular galaxies. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy.
16
Looking at distant galaxies means looking into the past
Light from very distant galaxies can take millions or even billions of years to reach Earth.
Space missions
17
Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made spacecraft
Voyager 1 launched in 1977 and is still travelling far beyond the planets of the Solar System.
18
Perseverance collects samples of Martian rock
NASA’s rover explores the surface of Mars and stores rock samples in special sealed tubes.
19
James Webb works about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth
The James Webb Space Telescope observes distant stars, galaxies and planets mainly in infrared light.
20
People first stepped onto the Moon in 1969
During the Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on the Moon.