The Sun is 3, 30, 000 times heavier than the Earth. Its volume, the amount of matter in it, is roughly 1.3 million times bigger than the Earth's.
Moon is the Earth's only natural satellite and the age of the moon is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old. It is also widely believed that moon was formed from a chip of the Earth, which broke away when our planet was hit by a huge heavenly body, before it go1 solidified completely.
Mercury is the Sun's heaviest planet. By day within the crater on it; surface, the temperature averages between 350- 400°C. By night, it drops to at least -170°C, due to lack of atmosphere. Its nucleus of iron and nickel is larger than the Moon.
The Milky Way, our galaxy, gets its name because in the starry sky, it appears to the naked eye as a milky-white trail. It is 33,000 light years (One light year = 9,460 billion km) away from its centre, Orion. Its diameter is about 1, 00, 000 light years.
The light from the brightest Star in the night sky Sirius, takes almost nine years to reach the Earth.
A new star is born in the Milky Way every 18 days and hence, there are 20 new stars every year.
Some of the largest meteors (falling star) do not disintegrate spectacular crater made by a meteorite is the Devil's Canyon in Arizona (USA) Colorado. It is more than 29 km wide and nearly 1.6 km deep. It is believed that this was made some million years ago.
There are about 20 planets orbiting the other stars. But, the only other system spotted so far is, Upsilon Andromedae.
The 1560 kg Cartosat-1The first of its kind from Asia was launched into the Sun- Synchronous polar orbit of 62 km from the new launch pad from Sri Harikota (india) through PSLV-C6 on May 2005. The two panchromatic cameras on the satellite with a spatial resolution of 2.5 m, are designed to Cartograph the whole country in 10 to 12 months. Cartosat will send 3D, black and white pictures of any size from 2.5 (Eg. A car on Indian road) to the size of the whole Indian country.
The temperature of the Spacecraft reaches up to 1500°C, when it re- enters into the Earth's atmosphere. The sudden rise in temperature is due to the friction with the air.
