These Amazing Facts about these Planets Make Them Different
PLANETS – Here are some amazing facts about each of the planet in the solar system that many people don’t know about these celestial bodies.
There are eight planets in the solar system — Venus, Mercury, Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune. While the Earth, which is known as the only planet that is habitable by humans, is already popular to the people, there are a lot of surprising facts that many people are not aware about the other celestial bodies.
Neptune got supersonic winds
Hurricanes are among those that the people in the Earth are frightened of. Not many people known that the strength of these wind events is nothing compared to the supersonic winds in Neptune. According to NASA, the wind blow in the planet can be as fast as 1,100 miles per hour.
Venus does not have any moon
The Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune all have moons. The Saturn moons is bigger compared to the moons of the other planets combined. Aside from Mercury which is the planet closest to the sun, Venus also does not have any moon as per the recent records. It is unclear but there are also researches that suggest that the planet could have one moon in the past.
The age of Saturn’s rings remain unknown
Saturn is encircled with rings of ice and rock debris. The possibility that a single moon broke under the strong gravity of the gas giant occured and resulted to these rings. There are suspicions that the rings have been around for a few billion years already but their exact age remains unknown.
Mercury is closest to the sun but it actually has ice
Among the planets in the solar system, Mercury is the one that is closest to the sun but it is not too hot for ice not to be present in the celestial body. The ice is in the permanently shadowed craters of the planet or the part that never receives any sunlight.
The NASA‘s Messenger spacecraft found ice at the north pole of the planet. It also spotted organics which are considered building blocks for life. These are surprising revelations for the planet that is known as the hottest for being the closest to the blazing rays of the sun.
Jupiter often catches comets
Among the eight planets in the solar system, Jupiter is the most massive. It is 318 folds the mass of the Earth thus it is believed that any comet or asteroid that will pass has a huge chance of being caught.