The stars that you see in the night sky are part of the Milky Way, our home galaxy. But the Milky Way is not all around us because we do not live in the middle of the Milky Way; our solar system resides midway between the edge and the center of the Milky Way galaxy. If we could travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), it would take us about 25,000 years to reach either the rim or the center of the Milky Way.

Older members of your family can probably tell you about the food that astronauts used to eat in space, like freeze-dried foods and Tang. Today's astronauts eat gourmet meals by comparison.

Since its beginnings in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has had to invent everything it needed to make space missions possible, from protective suits for astronauts to the mirrors and software used on the Hubble telescope. But NASA was smart enough to know it couldn't do everything alone -- these are, after all, rocket scientists.

In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, “They’ll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run.” On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Perry hit his first home run of his career (while playing for the San Francisco Giants).

A solar flare isn't just an explosion of hot gases. It pushes out waves of light all across the spectrum. That includes light we can't see -- including radiation in the form of X-rays and gamma rays. These rays can be dangerous to humans. Fortunately, the Earth's atmosphere absorbs most of these high-energy rays.

It is the fire of life. It can be kind but it can get angry. But it never throws its weight around. It is the sun. And although it is 330,000 more massive than earth and contains 99.8% of the mass in our solar system, it is small in comparison with some other stars.

Wilbur and Orville Wright weren’t just lucky to make the first flight. They played with flying paper models in their youth, and by 1901 they had made hundreds of wind tunnel tests. In 1902, their glider was the biggest flying machine ever built. Orville Wright wrote, “We now hold all the records! The largest machine…the longest time in the air, the smallest angle of descent, and the highest wind!”

One of the things that Apollo mission did was deposit a cockroach on the moon. During their outward flight, the astronauts noticed a cockroach in their spaceship, but when they returned, the craft was thoroughly inspected by NASA technicians and no trace of it was found. The only conclusion is that it crept out and was left behind.

Some interesting facts about our solar system so you can impress your friends (maybe).

For those, who wondered “Where did all the three Russian shuttles go?”. One has been found on the backyard of some repairing shop.

The only place in the universe where a flag flies all day, never goes up or comes down, never flies half-mast and does not get saluted, is the moon.