For many people astronomy is an interesting science filled with many astronomy fun facts. Everything from the size and temperature of our own star, the Sun, to the makeup of distant planets is recorded. People can get a lot of enjoyment from all of this data.

The Sun is a great source of astronomy fun facts. Measurements show it between 91 and 94.5 million miles from Earth. It’s not that nobody knows for certain. Our orbit is elliptical. The distance between us grows larger and smaller throughout the year.

The size of our son also provides many astronomy fun facts. 98% of all the matter in our solar system is inside the Sun. Everything else, counting the earth and all the planets, is a tiny 2%. About 100 Earths side to side would stretch across the face of the sun. An AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. The solar winds extend 50 AU’s from the sun.

Are all astronomy fun facts about the sun? What about the moon? It’s the only other space object, besides the earth, over which man has walked. One earthly traveler visited the moon and never came back. Dr. Eugene Shoemaker didn’t make the cut for astronauts. But when he died he was cremated and his ashes spread over the moon in 1999.

The moon abounds with more astronomy fun facts. In a famous nursery rhyme a cow jumped over the moon. Many people, in fact about 13% of those asked in 1988, still believe the moon is made of cheese. And finally the suits worn by the moon walking astronauts weighed 180 pounds on Earth but only 30 pounds on the moon. I’d bet the astronauts thanked their lucky stars for that.

Astronomy fun facts aren’t limited to our close neighbors. Stars bring the past to life. We’re so far away that the light from the stars may take a million years to reach our eyes. It could be that some of those stars blinked out long ago. The number of stars in the sky is expressed by a one with 22 zeros following it. That is huge.

Astronomy fun facts can go on forever. However, this article must come to an end. So get out there and learn about astronomy.

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