15 Facts about Kuiper Belt and Beyond: Trans-Neptunian Objects
The Solar System doesn’t end with the planets, there’s a whole world after it. Starting with the Kuiper Belt (काइपर घेरा), Scattered Disc, Detached Objects and the undiscovered Oors Cloud (ऑर्ट क्लाउड), the boundary of the Solar system is way further. These objects are known as Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). This vast dark world has many unknown secrets waiting to be discovered. Here are some interesting facts about the Trans-Neptunian Objects: No confirmed direct observations of the Oort cloud have been made Kuiper belt is similar to the asteroid belt but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20 to 200 times as massive Appendix: AU Some of the Solar System’s moons, such as Neptune‘s Triton and Saturn‘s Phoebe, may have originated in the region Many compounds that would be gaseous when closer to the Sun remain solid in the Kuiper belt The region now called…
15 Facts about Pluto: The Demoted Dwarf
Pluto ( ♇ , प्लूटो ) was once a planet but thanks to the discovery of Eris, it was demoted to the status of a dwarf planet. This tiny ball in space was just recently pictured from a short distance for the first time. This Flyby mission revealed many characteristics of this demoted planet. Here are some interesting facts about the ex-planet with a heart, Pluto: Pluto is the largest known Plutoid Tombaugh’s task was to systematically image the night sky in pairs of photographs, then examine each pair and determine whether any objects had shifted position. After the observatory obtained confirmatory photographs, news of the discovery was telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory on March 13, 1930 The final choice of name was helped in part by the fact that the first two letters of Pluto. These are the initials of Percival Lowell, a wealthy Bostonian…
15 Facts about Neptune: The World Far Away
The last one in the family, Neptune ( ♆ , वरुण ) is a world far far away. This cold planet with Supersonic winds is a mysterious place in the dark. Here are some interesting facts about Supersonic Neptune: The discovery of Neptune was initially credited to both British astronomer John Couch Adams and French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier. Later, it was concluded that Adams does not deserve equal credit with Le Verrier for the discovery of Neptune. The credit belongs only to the person who succeeded both in predicting the planet’s place and in convincing astronomers to search for it. Neptune was discovered about 12° from Adams’ prediction Shortly after its discovery, Neptune was referred to simply as “the planet exterior to Uranus” or as “Le Verrier’s planet”. Claiming the right to name his discovery, Le Verrier quickly proposed the name Neptune for this new planet …
15 Facts about Uranus: The Icy Misfit
Uranus ( ⛢ , अरुण ) is the Solar System‘s weirdo. Let it be its featureless look, mysteriously low temperature or excessive tilt, it is unlike any other planet. This far from home icy planet has its own amazing set of quirks. Here are some interesting facts about Uranus, the icy misfit: Uranus is the Latinized version of Ouranos Sir William Herschel announced its discovery on 13th March 1781, but he assumed it was a comet. By 1783, he acknowledges that his discovery is, in fact, a planet Appendix: Classical Planets The interior of Uranus is mainly composed of ices and rock. Uranus and Neptune are known as the Ice Giants This could be because of the low heat generated by the planet Neptune, which is Uranus’ near twin in size and composition, radiates 2.61 times as much energy into space as it receives from the Sun.…
15 Facts about Saturn: The Crowned Giant
Saturn ( ♄ , शनि ) can be deemed as the most royal planet of the Solar System. With a huge set of rings, the distinctive look of Saturn makes it the most talked-about planet. This fascinating planet is even more interesting from the close. Here are some interesting facts about Saturn, the one with the rings: Saturn has only one-eighth of the average density of Earth Saturn’s astronomical symbol (♄) represents the god’s sickle An apparent oddity is that it does not have any known Trojan Asteroids. Trojans have been discovered for Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune Appendix: AU The equatorial diameter of Saturn is 11,808 km longer than the diameter measured through the poles while the diameter of Earth is only 12,742 km The outermost layer of Saturn spans 1,000 km and consists of gas Appendix: Metallic Hydrogen Saturn’s finer cloud…
Menstruation! The Taboo which shouldn’t be One!
If you are a woman younger than 12 or a man who avoids the word ‘feminism’, you can relate the word “menstruation’ to the TV advertisement with a lady in white pants and a small diaper drenched with a blue liquid from a test tube. Haven’t we all tried to decipher the advertisement at least once in our lifetime? Then we grew up; some men learned and some are still oblivious. Women learned it the hard way. Our life changed and while our parents were happy, we couldn’t understand why?
15 Facts about Jupiter: The King of the Gods
Jupiter (♃ , बृहस्पति) is the giant of our Solar System. Not only Jupiter is very huge, its gravitational force also helped in sculpting the structure of the Solar system, as we see today. First of the giant planets, Jupiter is a mammoth ball of gas with many striking features. Here are some interesting facts about Jupiter, the giant of the giants: Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System Roman god Jupiter is also called Jove which is the reason behind the name Jovian planets. ‘Jovian planets’ is the other term used for ‘Giant planets’ Jupiter’s upper atmosphere is about 88–92% Hydrogen and 8–12% Helium by percent volume of gas molecules Jupiter’s rotation is the fastest of all the Solar System‘s planets But like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface Astronomers have…
How we managed to stay blind on climate change
The talk around climate change is nothing new. Humans were always selfish when it comes to their own profit over other species’ lives. We killed off Mammoth, Dodo and many others. As the population of homo sapiens skyrocketed, the degradation of the environment reached a scary level. Now, we are almost on the ‘no-return’ stage of climate decay.
15 Facts about Asteroid Belt: The Planet that Never Became One
Between tiny Mars and humongous Jupiter, lies a band of objects known as Asteroid Belt. This belt of ‘minor planets’ was supposed to be a planet but Jupiter’s gravity didn’t let that happen. So, it ended up as Sun‘s own ring system made up of asteroids and a dwarf planet. Here are some interesting facts about the Asteroid Belt: The Asteroid Belt is also termed the ‘Main Asteroid Belt’ or ‘Main Belt’ to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and Trojan Asteroids Collisions became too violent and instead of fusing together, the Planetesimals and most of the Protoplanets shattered and formed the Asteroid Belt Appendix: Accrete, Primordial Computer simulations suggest that the original Asteroid Belt may have contained the mass equivalent to the Earth Although some scientists refer to the asteroids as residual Planetesimals, other scientists consider them…
15 Facts about Mars: The Next Destination
Mars ( ♂︎ , मंगल ), the fourth planet of the Solar System can be called the most behaved planet after Earth. Unlike extreme conditions on Mercury and Venus and unavailability of a solid surface on the giant planets, Mars is the only nearby place we can think of having a colony. It sounds nice but in reality, Mars is still a very hostile planet. A colony may be a dream of far future but we may soon have few humans there. Here are some interesting facts about our friendly neighbour Mars: The Greeks named this planet as Ares, the Greek God of War. Then, Roman changed the name of the planet as their God of War: Mars Mars is the second smallest planet in the Solar System after Mercury The Maps by Christiaan Huygens contain terrain features of Mars The rotation on Axis (Solar Day)…