We all know astronomy is cool, Astronomy magazine writes in its March issue the 500th since the magazine was launched in August 1973. To demonstrate and celebrate, the magazine compiled a wide-ranging, colorfully illustrated list of 500 facts ranging over every aspect of the cosmos and how we perceive it. Heres a sampling: <\/p>\n
1. Exactly 88 constellations cover the sky, with no gaps and no overlaps. <\/p>\n
2. The solar systems largest moon, Ganymede,which orbits Jupiter, contains 25 percent more volume than Mercury. <\/p>\n
10. The most luminous star visible to the naked eye, 34 Cygni, outshines the sun by 610,000 times. <\/p>\n
22. If you drilled a tunnel through Earth and jumped in, you would reach the other side in 42 minutes and 12 seconds, and your top speed would be 17,670 mph. <\/p>\n
44. As your eyes adapt to darkness, their sensitivity increases 10,000-fold in the first 30 minutes, with little gain after that. <\/p>\n
71. The odds are greater than 7-to-1 that on your birthday, the sun was not in what you think is your zodiacal constellation. <\/p>\n
107. The 60-ton Hoba iron meteorite in Namibia is the worlds largest intact meteorite. <\/p>\n
198. Of the 12 traditional constellations of the zodiac, Capricorn is the smallest. <\/p>\n
251. When the universe was 14 million years old, its background temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit, about the same as a summer day on Earth. <\/p>\n
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Everything you wanted to know about the stars and more, from Astronomy magazine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We all know astronomy is cool, Astronomy magazine writes in its March issue the 500th since the magazine was launched in August 1973. To demonstrate and celebrate, the magazine compiled a wide-ranging, colorfully illustrated list of 500 facts ranging over every aspect of the cosmos and how we perceive it. Heres a sampling: 1 Continue reading