Fun to Know! A Collection of Space Trivia [Rec]
A sky full of twinkling stars… Space really is romantic, isn’t it?
When you think, “It stretches on forever, there are countless planets, and I’m living in that vast universe,” doesn’t it oddly make you feel excited?
What kind of world lies beyond this sky, I wonder?
In this article, I’ve put together intriguing mysteries and fun trivia about space!
It’s great for killing time, and also recommended as quiz material for school activity periods!
Enjoy yourself while picking up some knowledge about the cosmos!
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Fun to Know! A Collection of Space Trivia [Rec] (1–10)
Distance between planets
The Moon is about 380,000 km away from Earth, but did you know that the distance between Earth and the Moon can actually fit all the planets like Mercury and Venus in between? In simpler terms, you could line up the familiar planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and so on—right in the space between Earth and the Moon.
This is likely because the sizes of the planets vary greatly, and when you include the smaller ones, their total diameter isn’t as large as you might expect.
It’s a bit mind-bending when you try to picture this trivia, isn’t it?
Facilities of the ISS
Are you all familiar with the International Space Station, commonly known as the ISS? It’s a crewed artificial satellite orbiting the Earth, and it’s a facility where experiments that can only be done in space are conducted and research on the natural environment is carried out.
In recent years, it made headlines when a private spacecraft successfully docked with it.
Now, since the ISS is a place where people stay, it needs to be well equipped.
For example, just learning about how things like sleeping quarters, a galley, and toilets are set up is enough to make you keep saying, “Wow!”
Diamond planet
It has been determined through subsequent investigations that 55 Cancri e, discovered in 2004, is a planet containing a large amount of diamond.
While this hasn’t been confirmed with the naked eye, applying formulas and experimental results from specialized institutions suggests that diamond strata have formed within the planet.
The idea of an entire star—well, a whole world—made of diamond is truly dreamy.
And since there are countless stars in the universe, it’s believed that there are many other planets composed of diamond, just like 55 Cancri e.
Fun to Know! Space Trivia Collection [Rec] (11–20)
white hole
The black holes you often hear about are celestial objects that swallow matter—and even light.
And as the name suggests, a white hole is said to be the opposite of a black hole, a celestial body that emits everything.
I hedged a bit just now, though: in fact, it hasn’t been proven whether white holes really exist.
However, recent observational data has turned up something that might have been a white hole.
There are still so many things we don’t understand or don’t know about the universe.
That’s exactly what makes it so fascinating!
What is dark matter?
It almost sounds like a gaming term: dark matter.
In Japanese, it’s called “ankoku busshitsu,” or “dark substance,” but what exactly is it? The truth is, we don’t know at all what it actually is.
You might wonder, “Then why do we even have the term dark matter?” That’s the interesting part.
Our bodies and objects—on a larger scale, things like Earth—are made of “observable matter.” But with current technology, there’s matter we can’t observe.
That’s what we call dark matter.
It’s matter that clearly exists, yet we can’t detect it no matter what we do.
Thinking about that gives you a rather uncanny feeling, doesn’t it?
What is space debris?
In simple terms, “space debris” refers to trash drifting in space.
Humanity has launched many rockets and artificial satellites into space.
That inevitably means that equipment that no longer functions, as well as detached parts and components, are left in space.
As this debris keeps increasing in a shell around Earth, it has become a global problem.
You might think, “If it’s trash, just pick it up,” but because it’s zipping around space at high speeds, even an object about 10 cm across can have enough power to severely damage a spacecraft.
It might be worth stepping beyond mere trivia and taking some time to think seriously about this issue.
Space Elevator Development
The history of space elevator development is fascinating! There was a time when it was just a fictional idea appearing in sci-fi novels, but nowadays research is progressing with the thought that it might actually be feasible.
The reason is that, for a long time, there was no cable material that could connect the ground to an artificial satellite—until it was discovered in Japan in 1991.
It’s such a realistic topic that some even say it could be completed by 2050.
A future where we can go to space without boarding a rocket… it’s exciting to imagine!