How can a day be longer than a year? It's Astronomy #FridayFunFacts
Good morning you stellar creatures! For this Friday's fun facts, I'm going to take you to the stars. But first, a weightloss tip - go to the moon. You'll weigh one sixth of your weight there.
Sadly, this option is getting harder and harder - the Moon moves about 3.8 centimetres away from Earth every year. No wonder Elvis was singing about a blue moon - it was 2.3 meters closer to Earth back then!
The word "astronaut" comes from the Greek word “Astron” meaning star, and “nautes” meaning sailor. The Russian "cosmonaut" (those are the guys who have orange space suits) has a similar etymology with "Kosmos" changing it to "universe sailor". How badly do you want to be a cosmonaut now?
The original star sailors, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were not covered by life insurance when they set off for the moon on Apollo 11. To protect their families in the event that they died, they each signed photographs of themselves to be auctioned off.
One day on Venus is longer than one year on Venus. It takes the planet 224.7 Earth days to orbit the sun, but it takes 243 Earth days to rotate on its axis just once!
And finally, for the ultimate cool factor, please step aboard NASA's virtual tour of the moon!
