Beth L. Blair - The Everything KIDS Book of Outrageous Facts: Explore the most fantastic, extraordinary, and unbelievable truths about your world!

Explore the most fantastic, extraordinary,
and unbelievable truths about your world!

Beth L. Blair and Jennifer A. Ericsson

O ur universe contains stars, galaxies, planets, space, and us! Although the universe has been around for a long time, scientists think it probably formed very quickly. Because it keeps growing and growing, even the best experts can only guess how big the universe is or what shape it may be. Some people believe there are many different universes. Our universe is a big, big place in outer space!

Countless Galaxies

Have you ever seen the Milky Way? This collection of stars can be seen all over the world. The Milky Way looks like a ring of milk spilled across the sky. It is a small part of Earths own Milky Way Galaxy, which contains billions of stars. If you could see the Milky Way from another galaxy, it would look like a pinwheel that spins around every couple of hundred million years. Other galaxies may look like a racetrack or a splatter of paint. Did you know that if someone gave you a penny and then doubled that amount each day, so that you had 1 penny the first day, 2 the next day, 4 the next day, and so on and so on, you would soon have more money than you could ever spend? The same is true for our galaxies! There are just too many to be counted.

FUN FACT

A REALLY LONG NIGHT

One night on Venus lasts almost as long as a year here on Earth. And because it turns so slowly and it is closer to the sun, Venuss temperature can reach almost 900 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale! Not a good place for a Popsicle.

Round and Round They Go

Do you ever say the sun is coming up? It really does seem like the sun is traveling around our earth. The Egyptian astronomer, Ptolemy, thought the same thing almost 2,000 years ago. But the truth was discovered many centuries later, when a stargazer named Copernicus suggested that our planet really circles around the sun! A famous astronomer called Galileo proved it about 400 years ago.

Did you know that while the earth is busy circling around our sun, the sun circles around the center of our galaxy? Yikes! With so many stars and moons and planets moving around in the universe, it is amazing so few things collide.

FUN FACT

STEADY STAR

The North Star is the only star in the Northern Hemisphere that does not move. On a clear, dark night see if you can find it!

Youll Get a Bang out of This

Some scientists spend a lot of time trying to figure out how the universe was formed. Have you ever played with a magic grow sponge? You add a drop of water to a little capsule and quick as a wink, quite a large foam animal appears. Well, some scientists believe the creation of the universe grew quickly and quietly like that, except the capsule was a particle of matter smaller than a grain of sand and the foam was really a type of super-hot material that grew thousands maybe millions or billionsof times larger within seconds.

Other scientists believe that there was a big bang like fireworksonly louderwhen it happened. Thats why the creation of the universe is often called the Big Bang. Some scientists even believe that they know when the Big Bang happened because they have learned how to measure the age of the galaxies. Just imagine! If we were having a birthday party for the universe, we would need around 15 billion candles for the cake!

DID YOU KNOW?

The risk of being struck by a falling meteorite for a human is one occurrence every 9,300 years.

The Sun: Too Hot to Handle

Have grown-ups ever told you never to look directly at the bright sun? Theyre right; it can hurt your eyes. But maybe you have watched the sun as it was setting in the sky. Sometimes it looks as though it is on fire, especially when it is shining through the clouds. The reason it looks that way is because the sun is on fire. Can you guess how hot the fire at the center of the sun is? It is more than 25 million degrees on the Fahrenheit scale! Thats 250,000 times hotter than the hottest summer day at your favorite amusement park. More bad news for Popsicles! But what may surprise you even more is there are many stars in the universe that are thousands of times hotter than the sun.

Have you ever wished things were a little hotter or cooler here on Earth? Well, scientists believe that our suns temperature is just right for us. And they think that the sun will keep burning for many billions of years.

Sun-sational Things

Have you ever seen a rainbow in the sky? Sometimes you can spot one if it rains right after a sunrise, or just before a sunset, and then the sun comes back out. Do you know what causes the brilliant colors? Its the sun shining through the moisture in the air after the rain has stopped.

Another fun thing to watch for is sundogs. Sundogs look like colored lines that curve around the sun. The best time to spot them is when the sun is not too far above the horizon. Sundogs get their color from ice particles that are floating in the air.

What other sun-sational things might you see? What if you stood on top of a mountain? Well, if the sun shined from behind you, and the clouds filled with rain below you, you might see a silhouette of your head on those clouds! Your heads shadow might even have a halo surrounding it, just like the moon does at times.

Of course, these strange sightings, which are called the glory, are very rare. But maybe you could try it on a plane! If you sit in a window seat away from the sun and then watch closely, you may see the silhouette of your plane on the clouds below, with colored rings around it!

Earth Is Juuuuust Right!

Do you remember the story about the three bears? Goldilocks kept looking until she found a place that was just right for her. Well, you dont have to search very far to find the perfect place for you, because you and all your friends live on it. From space, our planet looks like a big blue-and-white marble. Astronauts are always dazzled to see just how lucky we are to have all those white, fluffy clouds and all that water!

People use water every day for all kinds of things, like taking a bath or watering their lawn. Water can also be used for fun. You can take a trip to the beach, canoe down a river, or ski down a mountain. And of course we need it to grow the fruits and veggies we eat!