11 Space Facts That Will Change Your Perspective

Space is inaccessible to the vast majority of us, but it’s not as far away as you might think. In this episode of The List Show, host and Mental Floss Editor-In-Chief Erin McCarthy covers some facts about space that we’re covering today that are going to warp your perspective. Don your spacesuits, subscribe to Mental Floss on YouTube for new videos every week, and let’s lift off.

[kendramcgrath]

Keep it up Erin you got this . I wish i did. Stay positive happy and dont let the neg. Nellys get u down. ☮️💜😁

[staubachrt]

The feral cats that I must visit are approximately 5 miles away. I’d rather take that trip.

[Name-psfx]

Find a 12" (30cm) globe. Now find a 3" (7.5cm) globe of the Moon. These are correct size to each other. Now place the Moon 30' (9.3 meters) from the Earth...that's how far away they are.

[alhypo]

What's even more crazy about Sagittarius A* is that, while it's millions times as massive as the sun, it's only a few times larger in size. If the sun were replaced by Sagittarius A*, we'd still be well over 80 million miles from its event horizon.

[ExaltedwithFail]

How does a 1.3 million subscriber channel have less than 500 views at the 1 hour upload mark. Thats crazy

[LeeCarlson]

Every time somebody talks about what percentage of the universe is made up of "dark matter" and "dark energy, " I have to remember how many people today insist that the Michelson-Morley experiment proved that "aether" did not exist, rather than read the actual conclusion that was reached. It's an interesting read.

[DeliveryMcGee]

Black holes aren't actually scary, just dense. If the sun was replaced by a black hole of the same mass ... we'd freeze to death eventually, but that's about all that would change.

[spamspanker]

So those billionaires were only 62 miles away from the Earth? Not far enough. Haha. 😜

[CritterKeeper]

Sorry Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Gonggong, Quaoar, Sedna, Ceres, and Orcus!

[robspiess]

2:12 this is... not quite true. At least, it's more complicated than that. Venus' "sidereal day" (time to spin once) is 243 Earth-days, but its "solar day" (time the Sun is in the same part of the sky) is 116 Earth-days. Meaning, for everyday humans living on Venus, they'd say there's about 2 days a year. Just like we, on Earth, say there's 365 days a year, not 366 (or 367 days in a leap year).
If this is confusing, imagine a planet that doesn't spin at all, but still orbits the Sun. The stars wouldn't rise or set, remaining stationary in the sky. But after a full year, the Sun would have made a full rise and set in the sky, making a "solar day" take exactly one year.

[Enderkilgannon]

Can your next video be about fallacies (just different fallacies that we run into throughout life)

[erikbihari]

Doesn't pluto become planet again?

[michaelsheffield]

So, to go 62 miles at 60 MPH in car to space it would take 1 hour and two minutes. Not 75 minutes...unless traffic was bad.🤔

[RedSixDown]

watching The Expanse i have viewed our Solar System Differently I looked up Asteroid Mining since then Since O.P.A are belters there the lowest rung of citizens in our Possible Colonization of Solar System .

[erikbihari]

Elio? Peter Griffin;"that's why they call that".

[jameshowlett]

Who knew a Mental Floss video about space would remind me how much I hate our car centric culture.

[PotteryLife]

You do a good job debunking the density of the asteroid field myth, and then in the next breath, blow it by showing the same silly misconception graphic about the density of objects in LEO. lol.

[Falcarious]

I was hoping for at least ONE space fact I haven't heard repeated ad nauseum my entire life... Are grade schoolers the target audience?

[soaringsoul]

Where are her "facts" coming from?