Fact:  The oldest star yet discovered is 13.2 billion years old.

The oldest star yet discovered is HE 1523-0901, HE 1523-0901 is the designation given to a red giant star in the Milky Way galaxy approximately 7500 light years from Earth. It is thought to be a second generation Population II, or metal-poor, star ([Fe/H] = −2.95). The star was found in the sample of bright metal-poor halo stars from the Hamburg/ESO Survey by Anna Frebel and collaborators. The group’s research was published in the May 10 2007 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. The star’s age, as measured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope, is 13.2 billion years. This makes it the oldest object yet discovered in the galaxy, and nearly as old as the estimated age of the universe itself (13.7 billion years as measured by WMAP). HE 1523-0901 is the first star whose age was determined using the decay of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium in tandem with measurements of several neutron capture elements. It is believed to have formed directly from the remnants of the first-generation stars that reached the end of their longevity and exploded as supernovae early in the history of known matter.

Saturn’s Rings in Ultraviolet Light

Fact: Saturn got a nickname because of it’s beauty.

Many astronomers consider Saturn the most beautiful planet in the solar system Primarily because of its distinctive, amazing rings. In fact, Saturn’s nickname is “the jewel of the solar system.” Most gas giants have rings made of dust and other particles, but they’re typically hard to see and are not a prominent feature of the planets. Rings like the ones Saturn has, which are large and very visible through a telescope, are incredibly rare among planets in our galaxy. The solar system is an amazing place because it boasts not just the only known life-sustaining planet Earth, but also a beautiful gas giant like Saturn, which would likely be the first planet noticed by extraterrestrial life forms if they happened upon our system (gas giants are much easier to detect from distance than rocky planets like Earth).

Dust Disk Around a Black Hole in Galaxy NGC 7052

Fact: The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.

The earth is a closed system and as such does not gain or lose any weight. However, around 100 tons of space dust falls to earth every day, and when shuttles or satellites are launched, technically the earth is losing some weight from it. But this is negligible and as such should be disregarded. The most weight the earth has ever lost is when the moon was formed by a collision with another proto-planet.

Fact: There are two golf balls sitting on the moon.

On the first moon landing, US astronaut Alan Shepard swung a six iron four times. His first swing moved the ball less than a meter; his second swing missed and kicked up some dust. The third swing hit that same first ball about 200 yards - a slice. Then he dropped a second ball, and his fourth swing hit the ball about 400 yards. 

Fact: Shooting stars exist!

If you’ve ever gazed at the night sky, you’ve probably wished upon a shooting star (which are really meteors). But shooting stars do exist, Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) and they’re stars with a velocity so great that they are able to escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy. They’re extremely rare, currently, sixteen are known, one of which is believed to originate from the Large Magellanic Cloud rather than the Milky Way. All of the currently known HVSs are over 50,000 parsecs away and are unbound from the galaxy. It is believed that about 1000 HVSs exist in our Galaxy. Considering that there are around 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, this is a minuscule fraction (~0.000001%).

The existence of HVSs was first predicted in 1988,and their existence confirmed In 2005, astronomers discovered the first “hypervelocity” star careening out of a galaxy at nearly 530 miles per second (10 times faster than ordinary star movement). Ordinary stars in the galaxy have velocities on the order of 100 km/s, while hypervelocity stars (especially those near the center of the galaxy, which is where most are thought to be produced), have velocities on the order of 1000 km/s.

We have ideas about what flings these rare stars into deep space, but aren’t certain; anything from off-kilter supernova explosions to supermassive black holes might be responsible.

Fact: If two pieces of metal touch in space, they become permanently stuck together

This may sound unbelievable, but it is true. Two pieces of metal without any coating on them will form in to one piece in the vacuum of space. This doesn’t happen on earth because the atmosphere puts a layer of oxidized material between the surfaces. This might seem like it would be a big problem on the space station but as most tools used there have come from earth, they are already coated with material. In fact, the only evidence of this seen so far has been in experiments designed to provoke the reaction. This process is called cold welding. For those who still don’t believe it, here is the Wikipedia article on Cold Welding.

Fact: Earth has at least 4 moons

Okay – that is not actually true – but it is very close. In 1986, Duncan Waldron discovered a asteroid (5km across) that is in an elliptic orbit around the sun with a period of revolution virtually identical to that of Earth. For this reason the planetoid and earth appear to be following each other. The periodic planetoid is named Cruithne (pronounced krin-yə) after an ancient group of Scottish people (also known as the Picts). Because of its unusual relationship with Earth, it is sometimes referred to as Earth’s second moon. Cruithne, is fainter than Pluto and would require at least a 12.5 inch reflecting telescope to attempt to be seen. Since its discovery, at least three other similar asteroids have been discovered. These types of objects are also found in similar relationships to other planets in our Solar System.

Fact: Uranus was originally called George’s Star

When Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he was given the honor of naming it. He chose to name it Georgium Sidus (George’s Star) after his new patron, King George III (Mad King George). This is what he said:

In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were given to the Planets, as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method and call it Juno, Pallas, Apollo or Minerva, for a name to our new heavenly body. The first consideration of any particular event, or remarkable incident, seems to be its chronology: if in any future age it should be asked, when this last-found Planet was discovered? It would be a very satisfactory answer to say, ‘In the reign of King George the Third.’

Uranus was also the first planet to be discovered with the use of a telescope.

Fact: The Big Dipper is not a constellation, it is an asterism 

Many people consider the big dipper to be a constellation but, in fact, it is an asterism. An asterism is a pattern of stars in the sky which is not one of the official 88 constellations; they are also composed of stars which are not physically related to each other and can be vast distances apart. An asterism can be composed of stars from one or more constellations – in the case of the Big Dipper, it is composed entirely of the seven brightest stars in the Ursa Major (Great Bear) constellation.

Fact: The Sun loses up to a billion kilograms a second due to solar winds

Solar winds are charged particles that are ejected from the upper surface of the sun due to the high temperature of the corona and the high kinetic energy particles gain through a process that is not well understood at this time. Also, did you know that 1 pinhead of the sun’s energy is enough to kill a person at a distance of 160 kilometers? [Sourced from Planet Science]

Fact: The light hitting the earth right now is 30 thousand years old

The energy in the sunlight we see today started out in the core of the Sun 30,000 years ago – it spent most of this time passing through the dense atoms that make the sun and just 8 minutes to reach us once it had left the Sun! The temperature at the core of the sun is 13,600,000 kelvins. All of the energy produced by fusion in the core must travel through many successive layers to the solar photosphere before it escapes into space as sunlight or kinetic energy of particles.

Fact: The moon is drifting away from Earth

Every year the moon moves about 3.8cm further away from the Earth. This is caused by tidal effects. Consequently, the earth is slowing in rotation by about 0.002 seconds per day per century. Scientists do not know how the moon was created, but the generally accepted theory suggests that a large Mars sized object hit the earth causing the Moon to splinter off.