This Sunday at Five Facts

Photo Credit: SteamCommunity

In this week’s edition of Five Facts, we’re going somewhere far, far away. Kudos if you know anything about our beloved Wheatley pictured above. Since this is the first Five Facts on space, you can most certainly consider this edition of Five Facts a “Space 101.”

If you missed the last Five Facts on San Francisco, make sure to read it here.

To submit regions, cities, events, cultures, or even planets you would like to know more about, contact us with your ideas at ggusocial@ggu.edu.
*You can also submit your photos to have them featured on GGU Social’s future posts.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia.org

1. There are currently 8 planets in our solar system. Pluto was considered as the 9th planet of the solar system until International Astronomical Union re-defined the term “planet” and introduced a new term, “dwarf planet” in 2006. Since then, Pluto has been labeled as a dwarf planet.

Photo Credit: NASA.gov

2. The hottest planet in our solar system is surprisingly not the planet that is closest to the Sun—Mercury. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system and has an average surface temperature of around 450° C which is roughly 842° F.

Photo Credit: SpaceAim

3. Our solar system is situated in Milky Way. The galaxy, that is. Not the chocolate bar. It is an ever-expanding galaxy that has been “feeding” off of smaller galaxies. It is said to contain somewhere between 200 to 400 billion stars, and just like most larger galaxies, it has a supermassive black hole at the center of it.

Photo Credit: Robert Richter

4. The term “astronaut” derives from the Greek word “astron” which means star and “nautes” which means sailor. Russian for astronaut, космонавт (kosmonavt), comes from the Greek words kosmos, which means “universe”, and nautes, meaning “sailor.” Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?!

Photo Credit: Space.com

5. Have you ever seen a meteor shower? NASA defines meteors as a space rocks that enter Earth’s atmosphere. As meteors fall towards Earth, the resistance of the air on them make them extremely hot which causes them to burn and turn into “meteoroids.” When Earth encounters many meteoroids at once, it is considered a “meteor shower.”

If you have yet to experience a meteor shower, American Meteor Society is here to help! They have a full list of expected meteor showers for both major and minor sized activities. Click here to see the full list for the year of 2016. The closest one is the annual Lyrid meteor shower that offers 10 to 20 meteors per hour. The best time to view this shower with bare eyes is speculated to be early in the morning on April 22nd. So keep an eye out, stargazers!

Wrapping up & Important notice

We hope you enjoyed reading this week’s #SmarterEverySunday post. If you missed last Sunday’s Pinpoint post on the Palace of Fine Arts, make sure to read it here.

Important notice

It has been slightly more than 3 months since GGU Social launched! We are really appreciating the amount of views we have been receiving since the launch, and your feedback means the world to us! Please contribute in this brand new 4 question survey to let us know a little bit about your thoughts. You can also let us know what you think of GGU Social so far, and submit the topics and features you would like us to include by e-mailing us at ggsocial@ggu.edu!

 

Until Wednesday,
Tarik A.