This is one of the biggest misconceptions in the world, so don't feel bad if you genuinely believed it. Yes, the sun definitely does appear yellow, orange, or even red every time you look out your windows. However, that's just because of the human perspective.
The sun is actually white. So why does it seem yellow most of the time? Earth's atmosphere causes short-wavelength colors (like blues, greens, and violets) to scatter, so only the reds, yellows, and oranges can get through the thick atmosphere in the sky.
If you've seen Star Wars, Star Trek, or any other space-based TV show or movie, then you can probably remember the scene with an ace pilot outmaneuvering the enemies in an asteroid belt. Well, there's a reason you only hear about that in the movies.
The density of the asteroid belt is actually significantly lower than what Hollywood would lead you to believe. There can be several kilometers between the asteroids, and the chances of colliding with any of them are incredibly low.
The Great Wall of China has held this claim for years that it's the only man-made structure you can see from space. Honestly, when you're in space, the Great Wall seems a little less great than in person. According to Kamlesh P. Lulla, a senior scientist at NASA, the Great Wall is actually tough to distinguish.
In contrast to the Great Wall, there are several other clearly visible man-made structures. The pyramids of Giza, Minutemaid Park in Houston, and the Greenhouses of Almeria in Spain can all be seen very clearly.
You'd think this would be true, right? The Earth is always seen as this perfectly round sphere of blue and green spinning wildly in the black backdrop of space. However, that's just not the case.
Thanks to the spin of the planet, the poles of Earth are relatively flat while the equator bulges. The bulges at the equator mean that the distance from Earth's center to sea level is roughly 21 kilometers greater than at either of the planet's poles.
Mercury is the planet that's closest to the sun. With that, you'd think that it would be the hottest planet in our solar system. That's a fair assumption and a widespread misconception.
Venus actually takes the title for the hottest planet in our solar system. Venus's atmosphere keeps the planet's surface at an average of 900° F (480° C). Mercury, on the other hand, averages about 332° F (167° C).
You've probably heard this your entire life, and we definitely can't fault you for believing this. On this list, thinking the sun is just a giant ball of fire is probably one of the most common misconceptions out there. So why is this so wrong?
Well, for one thing, fire requires oxygen. As we're sure you know, there's no oxygen in the vast vacuum of space, and the sun itself is composed primarily out of helium hydrogen. So, no fire. The sun's heat is actually created through nuclear fusion. The pressure and temperature of the sun's core makes those hydrogen and helium atoms to fuse together and emit intense heat and light.
In movies, you always see black holes as these massive funnel-like suckers. Black holes are definitely not like what you see in movies.
In reality, black holes are actually spheres. The idea that they're more funnel-like probably comes from the fact that they're surrounded by matter that's being pulled in.
You hear this all the time in middle school, "people in the middle ages thought the Earth was flat, and you'd fall right off it if you sailed to the edge." There's also a bunch of people in today's world that wholeheartedly believe this myth. But it's still a myth.
Almost every scholar that was alive during the middle ages knew that Earth was round; this is the key reason people started sailing off to the east and west horizons. Greeks, as early as 300 BC, knew the Earth was round.
Space doesn't actually have much of a temperature. High temperatures typically indicate that the atoms of something are excited, but there aren't many atoms in the vacuum of space. So, space is essentially temperature-less (however, there are some spots with extreme colds and extreme hots).
This kind of goes back to the slide about it not being cold in space, and there's that ever-present scene in sci-fi movies and TV shows. The second a character is sucked outside an airlock without a spacesuit, then they're covered in ice, but that's not what happens.
It's more likely that you'd overheat if you were sucked out of an airlock. The heat your body generates would have nowhere to go, as you usually transfer it via convection or conduction while you're on Earth.
This almost seems like it would be common sense. It's kind of like a jet stream from behind a plane, right? Actually, it's nothing like that.
A comet's tail is influenced by heat and solar wind, which means the tail will always face away from the sun, no matter the direction of the comet.
This also applies to the idea that you can hear anything in space. It's like in Star Wars; you can hear the engines of the fighter engines and the explosion of the Death Star. That does make for good TV and movie effects, but that's not how it works in reality.
Space is a vacuum and sound, in general, can't travel through vacuums. On Earth, sound travels as mechanical waves that are transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas medium. Space doesn't provide any of that for mechanical waves to go through, so you wouldn't hear anything while you were in the vast vacuum of space.
Astronauts can't go warp speed because the engines on the ships aren't strong enough, right? Well, not quite.
Space offers next to no resistance, so even the weakest of engines could eventually accelerate a massive object to amazing speeds. The main problem is fuel. To accelerate for that long, the engine must run on something, and once you hit max speed, you could just turn off the engines and cruise to the edge of the universe. But that brings up another problem: stopping.
"The Dark Side of the Moon" is more than just an album by the legendary band Pink Floyd; it's also a common misconception about space. For a long time, people have believed that the side of the moon we can't see is doused in perpetual blackness.
A better name for the moon's dark side would simply be the 'far side' of the moon. The other side of the moon isn't always bathed in blackness and shadow; it's just facing away from Earth's face due to the rotation of both the moon and the Earth.
