My Daily Smile

Life is short - begin every day with a smile!

Since Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, why isn’t it also the hottest?

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The planet Mercury is too small and too far away to see with the naked eye, but you can easily see Venus with the naked eye because it’s the second brightest object in the night sky after the moon.

What’s more, if you look at Venus through an inexpensive telescope you’ll even be able to see its moon-like phases (crescent, half, or gibbous) as it orbits the sun.

Now, here’s the intriguing part…  [Read more…]

Video: The amazing difference in the sizes of the objects in our solar system

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I have always been fascinated by the night sky and the objects that exist beyond our wonderful planet. And as you probably know, the number of objects that exist in the known universe is simply beyond human comprehension.

Just inside our own solar system there are numerous objects that vary greatly in size, from the tiniest asteroid to the sun, the massive star that holds all the others in place with her incredibly strong gravitational force.  [Read more…]

How long is a day? How about a year? Well, it depends…

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One of the first things we learn as youngsters is how long a day and a year is. After all, birthdays wouldn’t make much sense without this basic understanding of time. And as you surely know, kids are all about birthdays.

Here on planet Earth, one day is roughly 24 hours in length and one year is roughly 365 days.

But the lengths of the days and years on other planets are vastly different than here on Earth. And in some cases, they are mind-bogglingly different.  [Read more…]

The incredibly massive scale of our solar system

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To us humans living on the surface of the Earth, our planet seems quite huge. And it really is in relation to the distances most of us travel during the terrestrial trips we make on foot, by bike, by car, by boat, by train, by plane…

But truth be told, the Earth is but a speck amongst the stars and all of the other countless creations in the universe.

Have you ever pondered just how large the universe must be?  [Read more…]