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For most people astronomy is an interesting science filled with loads of astronomy fun facts. Everything from the size and temperature of our own star, the Sun, to the makeup of distant planets has been established. All of this information can be retold to entertain and enlighten people.

The Sun is a fantastic source of astronomy fun facts. Our own star that provides us with all our heat and light is between 91 and 94.5 million miles from Earth. It’s not that nobody knows the distance exactly. It’s that the Earth orbits the Sun in an elliptical, uneven, orbit, so the distance varies depending on where the Earth lies in that orbit.

The Sun is only of average size for a star, yet it’s size is another terrific source of astronomy fun facts. As average as it is, it accounts for about 98% of all the matter in our solar system. Even with the huge planet of Jupiter on our side, we’re still a tiny 2% of non Sun material.

It would take the diameter of about 100 Earths to measure across this average Sun. The solar winds produced by the Sun extends to about 50 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. In other words, those solar winds go out about 50 AU’s, with an AU being the distance from the Earth to the sun. That’s quite fantastic, isn’t it?.

What about astronomy fun facts that don’t have anything at all to do with the Sun then? How about our Moon? It’s the only object that man has walked on except the Earth until now. And one man actually travelled to the Moon but has never left it. Dr. Eugene Shoemaker really liked the Moon but was not found acceptable as an astronaut. After his death, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Moon by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft in 1999.

There are lots more astronomical fun facts about the Moon. It’s the site of what might become the oldest footprint known to man. Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind left a footprint or shoe print in the Moon’s dust that will probably still be visible in 15 million years time.

Many people, in fact about 13% of those asked in 1988, still believed the Moon to be 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, because of the reduced gravity on the Moon. Talk about an instant diet, eh?

Astronomy fun facts aren’t limited to our close astronomical neighbours. Looking at stars is like looking into the past. Some of the stars we see today in the night sky are so far away that their light takes a million years to get to us. Some of the stars you see may really be images of stars a million years old that aren’t even there now. There are over 1 x 10 ^22 stars in the universe. That’s a 1 followed by 22 zeros. The number is really quite awesome.

There are millions of astronomy fun facts and we could relate them forever. But this article can not. So, please, walk out there and learn about astronomy for yourself.

Fascinated by astronomy, please visit our website at: Astronomy Today Don’t reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.

Before their implementation of the Western solar calendar scheme, the Chinese almost exclusively followed their own lunar calendar for determining the times of planting and harvesting and festival days. Though people in China today use the Western calendar for almost all business, governmental and practical matters of daily life, the old system still serves as the basis for determining numerous seasonal holidays. This coexistence of two calendar systems has long been accepted by the people of China.

However, this does not only apply to China, it also occurs in most other Eastern countries, like Thailand, and most Arabic countries.

A lunar month is calculated by measuring the period of time needed for the moon to finish its full cycle of 29 and a half days, a standard that makes the lunar year a full 11 days shorter than its solar counterpart. This disparity is corrected every 19 years by the addition of seven lunar months.

The 12 lunar months are further divided into 24 solar divisions characterized by the four seasons and times of heat and cold, all of which bear a close relationship to the yearly cycle of agricultural work.

The Chinese calendar – very much like the Hebrew calendar- is a combination of the solar and lunar calendars in that it attempts to have its years coincide with the tropical year and its months agree with the synodic months. It is not surprising that a few similarities exist between the Chinese and the Hebrew calendar.

For instance, an average year has 12 months, a leap year has 13 months. An ordinary year has 353, 354, or 355 days, a leap year has 383, 384, or 385 days. When determining what a Chinese year will be like, one needs to make a number of astronomical calculations.

First of all, you have to determine the dates of the new moons. In these instances, a new Moon is the completely black Moon (that is to say, when the Moon is in conjunction with the Sun), not the first visible crescent, as is used by the Islamic and Hebrew calendars. The date of a new moon is then the first day of a new month.

The reason why the majority of countries which had their own calendars had to dump them in favour of the Western, Julian calendar that we use today, is business. First the British and then the Americans ran international business and they used the Julian calendar.Anyone who wanted to work with them had to follow suit. This is why national policy often varies from local custom in Third World countries.

The government desires to deal on the International markets, but the ordinary family in the country can not. So, the government adopted the Julian calendar but the people only pay lip service to it. I live in Thailand and people here do not even use the 24 hour day divided into two halves. Their day has four sections of six hours each and the first part starts at 6AM, not midnight. Therefore, they have four 4 o\’clocks a day, for instance but no 7 o\’clocks. They are also 543 years ahead of us, although this is more common, for instance in Muslim countries.

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