10 Well Known Facts You Thought Were True (That Actually Aren't)

10. There€™s No Gravity In Space

Sorry to burst your bubble €“ but there€™s loads. There€™s gravity out the wazoo, tons of the stuff. If gravity was matches, there€™d be more than enough in space to make a life size Taj Mahal, with sufficient left over to construct a gift shop. The original Taj Mahal doesn€™t have a gift shop. Eat that, Emperor Shah Jahan I, fifth Mughal Emperor of India. In fact, since every physical body exerts a gravitational force on every other physical body, nowhere near you is likely to be completely missing gravity. It€™s one of the four fundamental forces in nature, after all. What you see replicated in science fiction and films like Apollo 13 and Gravity itself is called €˜microgravity€™ €“ the effect of earth€™s lesser gravity at that distance from the planet. The idea of €˜weightlessness€™ goes back to the concept of weight itself, which is defined as the action of gravity on an object. Generally speaking, mass is constant but weight can vary. In orbiting situations, you€™re not technically weightless at all €“ microgravity is making you fall at the same rate as everything else is falling. You€™re actually in a state of free-fall, moving horizontally at around 5 miles a second, which is a concept so terrifying that the human brain tends to want to switch to a screensaver featuring dancing kittens rather than think about it.