20 The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth. In the photograph, Earth is shown as a fraction of a pixel (0.12 pixel in size) against the vastness of space.

Pale blue dot is a photograph that was taken of Earth on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers. Between March and May 1990, Voyager 1 returned 60 frames back to Earth, with the radio signal travelling at the speed of light for nearly five and a half hours to cover the distance. The size of the Earth is less than a pixel and the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space. The Voyager 1 was launched by NASA on September 5, 1970, for the purpose of exploring the outer solar system and interstellar space. The spacecraft is the farthest man-made object from Earth which is travelling at 40,000 miles per hour (64,000 km/h). (Source)

19 Research shows that up to 50% of the water in your drinking glass was created over 4.5 billion years ago, which means that Earth’s water is older than the solar system, the sun, and the Earth itself.

The sun is thought to be 4.5 billion years old, but the water on Earth which is the water in our drinking glass is thought to be older than the sun. Scientists analyzed ancient ices that are preserved in comets and asteroids since the early days of the solar system, and by using computer simulations, it was determined that water in the oceans, meteorite samples and comets bore the chemical fingerprint of formation before the solar system took place. Since the water contained “deuterium” – a ‘heavy’ strain of hydrogen with extra neutrons in its nucleus – it indicated that at least some of the water in the solar system and on Earth dates before the sun. The discovery suggests that water may be a common ingredient in the clouds of dust and gas from which solar systems are born. (Source)

18 The Milky Way has at least 46 billion Earth-size planets and roughly 200 billion stars, And that’s just in our galaxy.

According to a new study funded by NASA and the University of California, nearly one in four stars similar to the sun hosts planets like Earth. The study was conducted using W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii for five years to search 166 sun-like stars near our solar system for planets. The data found in this survey indicates that our galaxy, with its roughly 200 billion stars, has at least 46 billion Earth-size planets, excluding Earth-size planets that orbit farther away from their stars in the habitable zone. The research also postulates that Earth-size worlds that orbit farther away from their stars can support conditions that could be favorable for life. (Source)

17 Astronomers discovered an Earth-sized ‘diamond’ 900 light years away.

PSR J2222-0137 has been dubbed as an Earth-sized diamond that is present at a distance of 900 light years away from Earth. It is a companion to a white dwarf star located near the constellation Aquarius and has a temperature as low as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature is so low that it’s the coldest such object that astronomers have ever detected and because of the extremely cold state it is in, its carbon has crystallized, much like diamonds. However, it will take 10 lifetimes traveling at the speed of light to reach this interstellar. (Source)

16 There is a mass reservoir of water floating in space that is 100,000 times bigger than our sun and holds 140 trillion times more water than all of our oceans.

Two teams of astronomers, each led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), have discovered the biggest water reservoir in the entire universe that is at a distance of 30 billion trillion miles. The water reservoir is at least 140 trillion times that of all the water in the world’s oceans combined, and 100,000 times more massive than the sun. The reason has been attributed to a black hole that is steadily consuming a surrounding disk of gas and dust and in the process is spewing out water vapors. (Source)