Facts About Space • History in Numbers

10 Facts About Space

99.8% – the amount of the solar system’s total mass that is contained within the sun alone.

88 days – the length of a year on Mercury, the fastest orbiting of all the planets.

118 days – the length of time between one sunrise on Venus and the next.

5,500°C – the average temperature of Earth’s core, as hot as the surface of the sun.

14 miles – the height of the martian volcano Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain in the solar system, around 3 times taller than Mount Everest.

5,268 km – the diameter of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, bigger even than the planet Mercury.

270,000 km – the diameter of the outer rings of Saturn, the largest in the solar system.

-224°C – the temperature to which Uranus can plunge, making it the coldest planet in our solar system even though Neptune is further from the sun.

1,300 mph – the approximate speed that winds can reach on Neptune, the fastest in our solar system and faster than the speed of sound.

200 million – the estimated number of objects in the asteroid belt with a diameter greater than 1 km.