Space is unintuitive. Human intuition evolved for walking speeds, gravity, and short distances—not relativistic speeds, vacuum physics, or cosmic timescales.
2. Galaxies are mostly empty space
✔️ True
Stars are incredibly far apart. If the Sun were a marble, the nearest star would be thousands of kilometers away.
3. Planets and stars don’t behave like the pictures
✔️ True
NASA illustrations exaggerate:
brightness
proximity
color contrast
They’re for education, not realism.
4. Venus is extremely hostile
✔️ Very true
~460°C surface temperature
Crushing pressure
Sulfuric acid clouds
Calling it “Earth’s evil twin” is justified.
5. Gas giants don’t have solid surfaces
✔️ True
Jupiter, Saturn, etc. transition from gas → liquid → exotic metallic states. You can’t “land” on them.
6. The Sun isn’t yellow in space
✔️ True
The Sun emits white light
It looks yellow from Earth because of atmospheric scattering
7. Space is not silent in a physical sense
✔️ True (with a caveat)
Sound needs a medium, so you wouldn’t hear it, but:
Plasma waves
Electromagnetic oscillations
can be converted into sound for study
What’s misleading or wrong
❌ “Black holes suck everything like cosmic vacuums”
False
Black holes obey gravity like any mass
If the Sun were replaced by a black hole of equal mass, Earth would orbit normally
They’re dangerous only if you get very close.
❌ “Planets are perfectly spherical”
False
Most are oblate spheroids
Rotation causes equatorial bulging
Saturn and Jupiter are noticeably squashed
❌ “Space has a temperature like air”
Misleading
Space has an average background temperature (~2.7 K from the CMB)
But temperature isn’t experienced the same way in a vacuum
You don’t “freeze instantly” like in movies
❌ “Everything is spinning wildly all the time”
Exaggerated
Yes, many things rotate and orbit—but:
Motion is relative
There’s no universal “cosmic spin chaos”
❌ “What NASA shows you is mostly fake”
False
Images are processed, not fake
Color mapping highlights wavelengths humans can’t see
This is standard scientific visualization
The deeper pattern (this is the important part)
This kind of post feels true because it leans on a real idea you already care about:
Reality is stranger than our simplified models
That aligns strongly with your thinking about:
energy vs matter
perception vs reality
representation vs truth
the Creator’s “game board” vs the pieces we can see
I learned something new because I was going to challenge your implication that Mercury has day and night cycle. I thought Mercury was tidally locked, like the Moon, in that it always presented the same face to the Sun.
I wanted to make sure that I was correct before I stated this, so I looked it up.
It turns out that the combination of Mercury's orbital rate around the Sun and its rotation rate means that a day on Mercury lasts two Mercury years.
I actually also didn't know about that. But it depends on your interpretation of 'day' here, if 1 day is the time between 2 sunrises then you're right but if a day means the time a planet needs to rotate itself, then you aren't right, because Mercury rotates itself 3 times in the time between 2 sunrises. That's because of a weird combination between its short orbit around the Sun and its long time to rotate itself.
Check out one of Asimov’s stories called “Runaround.” Mercury exploration and the Three Laws from the POV of 1942. Take note of the internal date clues!
Last year we had a look into probably one of the biggest misconceptions about space people probably have -- i.e. that we're looking for (or likely to find) little green aliens out there in the universe.
Extraterrestrial microbes, on the other hand? That's the kind of discovery that would tell us a huge amount about where life came from. What if it's relatively common?
Wel actually, the reaction where the Sun makes helium from hydrogen is a nuclear reaction, not an electric one. And about the asteroids, I do agree that an object with the size of a grain of sand can destroy a spacecraft, however the chances of a spacecraft coming near an object with this size are still pretty low (maybe a few procent). And about the distance between the Earth and the moon, I meant actually that every planet from the solar system together can fit between the Earth and the moon at the same time.
We need more posts like this on Substack. I knew most of this, but it was a pretty nice refresher.
Thank you
This is an awesome post Math guy. I loved every bit of it. And I did not know any of this.
I'm glad I could teach you something new!
This is one of these posts that you should keep restacking little bits of and/or restacking every now and then for more visibility. It never gets old.
Thanks for the tip
Hi Biology Guy Here,
What’s broadly true in there
1. “We misunderstand space more than we think”
✔️ True (in spirit)
Space is unintuitive. Human intuition evolved for walking speeds, gravity, and short distances—not relativistic speeds, vacuum physics, or cosmic timescales.
2. Galaxies are mostly empty space
✔️ True
Stars are incredibly far apart. If the Sun were a marble, the nearest star would be thousands of kilometers away.
3. Planets and stars don’t behave like the pictures
✔️ True
NASA illustrations exaggerate:
brightness
proximity
color contrast
They’re for education, not realism.
4. Venus is extremely hostile
✔️ Very true
~460°C surface temperature
Crushing pressure
Sulfuric acid clouds
Calling it “Earth’s evil twin” is justified.
5. Gas giants don’t have solid surfaces
✔️ True
Jupiter, Saturn, etc. transition from gas → liquid → exotic metallic states. You can’t “land” on them.
6. The Sun isn’t yellow in space
✔️ True
The Sun emits white light
It looks yellow from Earth because of atmospheric scattering
7. Space is not silent in a physical sense
✔️ True (with a caveat)
Sound needs a medium, so you wouldn’t hear it, but:
Plasma waves
Electromagnetic oscillations
can be converted into sound for study
What’s misleading or wrong
❌ “Black holes suck everything like cosmic vacuums”
False
Black holes obey gravity like any mass
If the Sun were replaced by a black hole of equal mass, Earth would orbit normally
They’re dangerous only if you get very close.
❌ “Planets are perfectly spherical”
False
Most are oblate spheroids
Rotation causes equatorial bulging
Saturn and Jupiter are noticeably squashed
❌ “Space has a temperature like air”
Misleading
Space has an average background temperature (~2.7 K from the CMB)
But temperature isn’t experienced the same way in a vacuum
You don’t “freeze instantly” like in movies
❌ “Everything is spinning wildly all the time”
Exaggerated
Yes, many things rotate and orbit—but:
Motion is relative
There’s no universal “cosmic spin chaos”
❌ “What NASA shows you is mostly fake”
False
Images are processed, not fake
Color mapping highlights wavelengths humans can’t see
This is standard scientific visualization
The deeper pattern (this is the important part)
This kind of post feels true because it leans on a real idea you already care about:
Reality is stranger than our simplified models
That aligns strongly with your thinking about:
energy vs matter
perception vs reality
representation vs truth
the Creator’s “game board” vs the pieces we can see
But then it quietly crosses a line:
from “models are limited”
into “everything you’re told is wrong”
That jump is where it becomes unreliable.
Cool evergreen piece and great for beginners! Shared in my notes.
Thank you very much for this!
I learned something new because I was going to challenge your implication that Mercury has day and night cycle. I thought Mercury was tidally locked, like the Moon, in that it always presented the same face to the Sun.
I wanted to make sure that I was correct before I stated this, so I looked it up.
It turns out that the combination of Mercury's orbital rate around the Sun and its rotation rate means that a day on Mercury lasts two Mercury years.
Also, the moon is not locked to the Sun, but it's locked to the Earth, the moon always presents the same face to the Earth, but not to the Sun.
I actually also didn't know about that. But it depends on your interpretation of 'day' here, if 1 day is the time between 2 sunrises then you're right but if a day means the time a planet needs to rotate itself, then you aren't right, because Mercury rotates itself 3 times in the time between 2 sunrises. That's because of a weird combination between its short orbit around the Sun and its long time to rotate itself.
I was counting a day as the time between sunrises.
You were right then. It's a bith complicated because these 2 things are different on Mercury.
Check out one of Asimov’s stories called “Runaround.” Mercury exploration and the Three Laws from the POV of 1942. Take note of the internal date clues!
Awesome! Great journey 🙂
Thank you
Loved this!
Thanks that means a lot
Hi. Please subscribe @Leonis Comics
https://enochschmaltz89.substack.com/p/why-the-u-2-created-half-of-americas
Check out my post for the Space Enthusiasts.
https://substack.com/@atharvjoshi12/note/c-199235438?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=75e7d6
https://unswscience.substack.com/p/aliens-arent-what-you-think-they
Last year we had a look into probably one of the biggest misconceptions about space people probably have -- i.e. that we're looking for (or likely to find) little green aliens out there in the universe.
Extraterrestrial microbes, on the other hand? That's the kind of discovery that would tell us a huge amount about where life came from. What if it's relatively common?
have a read and enjoy!
Thanks
Wel actually, the reaction where the Sun makes helium from hydrogen is a nuclear reaction, not an electric one. And about the asteroids, I do agree that an object with the size of a grain of sand can destroy a spacecraft, however the chances of a spacecraft coming near an object with this size are still pretty low (maybe a few procent). And about the distance between the Earth and the moon, I meant actually that every planet from the solar system together can fit between the Earth and the moon at the same time.