Common Space 'Facts' That Are Actually Untrue

ah space the final frontier it's a vast and mysterious expanse that has fascinated us for centuries but as much as we've learned about it there are still plenty of things that we've been lied to about when it comes to space let's take a look at some of the biggest lies we've been told about this topic first off we have the idea that space is just this pristine untouched Wilderness but that's not exactly true we've been littering space with our debris for decades everything from old satellites to Rocket Parts in fact there are over 20,000 pieces

of debris orbiting Earth right now and they're causing all sorts of problems for future space missions so if you're planning on visiting space anytime soon watch where you go you never know what kind of garbage might be floating [Music] around did you know that the sun is not actually yellow it's green well kind of you see see scientists measure the temperature of a star by the color spectrum it emits cooler stars appear red while the hottest of stars look blue our sun emits most of its energy at a wavelength that's close to Green but because

it emits other wavelengths too all these colors mix together and your eyes see this vibrant mixture as white from Earth however the sun looks yellow because our atmosphere is really good at scattering blue light if our star was actually yellow Earth would become a frozen Rock and we'd all be polar bears plus the sun isn't on fire for real it's a big ball of gas mostly made of hydrogen and helium and it works more like a gigantic nuclear reactor constantly fusing hydrogen atoms to create helium inside its core this process releases enormous amounts of energy

that's why the sun is so hot oh and speaking of setting things on fire explosions in space aren't real sorry Star Wars fans a spaceship can't go down in a violent blast because there is no air out there in space No Air means no oxygen and no oxygen means no fire now you might also think that there are too many stars in the night sky for you to count but in fact you can do that according to the Yale bright star catalog there are 9,110 stars that you can see from Earth with the uned eye

so technically you can count them but I wouldn't be surprised if you lost count and if you're worried about flying through an asteroid belt don't be although it does have trillions of space rocks that range in size from space dust to a quarter of the size of the Moon they're very spread out the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is 140 million M across which is is 1 and A2 times the distance between Earth and the Sun this spreads space rocks thousands of miles apart making it almost impossible for a spacecraft to collide with one

you'll instantly freeze in space without a suit nope you won't turn into a popsicle right away it's going to take a bit longer than that because heat and cold don't really move very quickly in the vacuum of space but unfortunately for you there's a bigger problem at hand you won't be able to breathe after just 15 seconds your brain won't be getting enough oxygen from your blood and you'll pass out and then after just 2 minutes it's curtains for the rest of your organs so in short if you find yourself playing astronaut without a SPAC

suit it's game over pretty quickly did you know that space doesn't have any temperature at all that's because the temperature is defined by the speed at which particles move and the amount of energy they have in the true vacuum of space there are no particles to move around making it temperatures of course some parts of space are really hot like areas around stars but the further away you get from Stars the more spread out particles are making those areas of space pretty chilly number nine is our planet's shape no it's not flat but it's not

a perfect sphere either yeah it bulges at the equator because of our planet its wild spin it's like Earth is doing its own little dance and because of this bulging launching spaceships from the equator is much easier than from the poles now when it comes to sound in space it's a bit of a tricky situation you might think that no one can hear you scream but that's not entirely accurate the thing is sound needs something to travel through like air or water in space things are super spread out so all those epic Space Battles and

Galactic explosions would be completely silent yet there are some places in space with enough particles for sound to travel through for example you can hear the black hole at the center of the Perseus Galaxy cluster another myth is about zero gravity that's not a thing there's still some gravity hanging around the International Space Station about 90% of what we feel on good old Earth but astronauts get to float around because they're basically freef falling around the planet and let's be real Hollywood's version of space travel is not factual sure orbits are a thing but different

altitudes mean different speeds so moving from one orbit to another isn't exactly a walk in the park you can't just push yourself in the right direction and hope for the best you got to take those orbital velocities into account this reminded me of the 2013 movie Gravity and how Sandra Bullock tried to survive in space Hollywood sure added some fuel to these myths yet again who can blame them back in 1976 NASA's Viking one spacecraft snapped a photo of a curious rock formation on Mars that looked suspiciously like a face some folks out there claimed

that it must have been proof of extraterrestrial life on the red planet but NASA had a different take according to the space AG gency the face was nothing more than a bunch of rocks piled up in such a way that the Shadows they cast created an illusion of facial features it turns out it was just a regular Hill that got a little too much credit for being photogenic the solar system stays in place lie it's zooming through space at a speed of 140 m/ second which means that it's whizzing through the cosmos faster than a

cheetah chasing its prey it takes us 230 million years for the solar system to complete a full orbit around the Milky Way it's a good thing it isn't getting a speeding ticket because that would be one astronomical F eh without the sun planets would be pretty chilly we're talking about temperatures as low as - 455 de F but with the sun around the planets get to enjoy much more livable temperatures of course not all planets are created equal Mercury for example is the closest to the Sun Venus on the other hand is farther away but

somehow manages to be even hotter than Mercury the distance from the sun isn't the only factor that affects a planet's temperature other things like the planet size and reflectivity also come into play so Mercury being the hottest planet in our solar system is a false proposition no just because it's the closest one to the sun doesn't mean it's the hottest even though we've been deceived in some ways that doesn't make space any less amazing it's still a vast beautiful and utterly fascinating part of our universe and there's still so much we have yet to discover

who knows maybe one day we'll really discover little green people out there or maybe we'll find out something even more incredible until then we'll just have to keep dreaming and exploring there you got 14 things on our list do you have any other space myths to debunk that's it for today so hey if you pacified your curiosity then give the video a like and share it with your friends or if you want more just click on these videos and stay on the bright side