Fun Facts About Space for Kids
8 space facts for kids as told through LEGO® bricks
Introduction
Kids are fascinated with space for all the obvious reasons.
The vastness. The incredible phenomena. The mystery of the unknown.
Although… did you know we actually know far more about space than our own planet’s oceans?
And if you liked that fact… you’ll LOVE these fun space facts for kids that’ll expand their excitement for the skies above and help them wrap their heads around our universe’s most mind-boggling facts.
We’ve also included lots of fun LEGO® activities to accompany our space trivia for kids, to creatively combine their passions!
And there’s even a fun space quiz for kids at the end!
Building to the moon and back
Okay, so space is very, very big. And while you can do BIG things with LEGO bricks, they remain one of the smaller things in our universe.
But they can give a sense of scale when posing space questions to kids.
What you’ll need: A big open space (either inside or outside), a measuring tape and at least 32 standard LEGO bricks.
Ask your kid to build a structure that’s 25 LEGO bricks tall. It can just be a simple line or something more complex but will represent the Earth’s diameter – from the north to the south pole.
Then build a structure that’s 7 LEGO bricks tall. This will represent the Moon’s diameter, which is approximately 27% smaller than Earth’s.
Now that you have your scale, ask your child to place their LEGO Moon the proportionate distance away from their Earth model.
See how close they get to the actual answer, which would be approximately 24 feet (7.3m) away – nearly 750 LEGO bricks tall!
Shrinking our solar system
This might be a pretty Earthling-centric thing to say… but we reckon our solar system is the best part of the Milky Way. But how much space does it take up?
What you’ll need: Some LEGO bricks and a room.
Ask your child to imagine shrinking down the Milky Way galaxy – all 300 billion stars of it – to the size of the continental United States, or mainland China or Australia (for these illustrative purposes, we always allow a bit of leeway with the measurements…).
Then ask them how big they think our entire solar system would be on that scale – including all the orbits of all the planets.
They may name a state or a city. Give them a hint, by telling them that the correct answer can actually fit inside the room you’re in.
Encourage them to build a LEGO model of the solar system and see how close they get to the answer. Find a map of the solar system for reference.
They’ll have fun learning about the order of the planets, and roughly how far away they are from each other… before you blow their tiny minds with the correct answer – which is within a 2x2 LEGO brick.
Of course, they could ruin our ingenious plan by guessing the answer right straight away. In which case, best start looking up college astrophysics courses in your area…
Counting to reach the stars
Speaking of scale, it’s tough to imagine the enormousness of the scale of the Milky Way – especially when we do unhelpful things like make it small enough to fit in our new LEGO Art set…
Like, we fit 300 billion stars into that wall art set… but what does that even mean?
In a recent LEGO podcast, the renowned astronomer Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock revealed her favorite way to explain this number to kids.
“We do a thought experiment! We sit there, and count from one to one billion doing one number a second. We start with one… two… and it gets rapidly very boring!”
Maggie then asks the kids how long they reckon it would take for continuous counting to get to a million. How long will your kids say it takes?
The correct answer is around 12 days.
“I ask: ‘So how long is a billion seconds?’,” Maggie continues, “is it more than a month? Is it more than a decade? And it’s actually just under 32 years.”
That means it would take 9,600 years to count to the number of stars in the galaxy… Get cracking!
LEGO minifigures on a space mission
You might be forgiven for thinking that the minifigures in our latest LEGO City Space sets are the only minifigures in Space… but what if we told you some have visited Jupiter??
That was the fate of three very special minifigures, representing the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno and Galileo, as they blasted off from NASA’s Atlas V rocket in 2011 to spend some time with the largest planet in our solar system.
Fun space facts for kids: Did you know… Jupiter’s distinctive Great Red Spot is actually a huge storm bigger than planet Earth!
The star of all stars
Here are some more fun facts about space for kids… The Sun is… erm… big (*waits for applause*).
So big, in fact, it makes up for 99.8% of our solar system’s mass.
Meaning if you laid out 500 LEGO bricks of the same size, just 1 would represent the mass of all the planets, moons, asteroids and all the other matter in our solar system. The remaining 499 pieces would represent the mass of the sun.
You COULD ask your child to lay out those 500 LEGO bricks if you need a lot of time to yourself that day...
Fun space facts for kids: It would take around 1.3 million Earths to fill the Sun!
The bigger the better!
Can your kid guess what the most expensive man-made object ever is?
It’s the International Space Station, which has cost a tidy $100 billion USD… but you get what you pay for!
It spans 356 ft. (109m) – bigger than a football field! Inside, you’ll find a gym, six sleeping quarters, a 360-degree view bay window and eight miles of electrical wires to power all the computers and laboratories.
You’ll also find a crew of at least 7 astronauts, who are flying at 5 miles per second! Meaning that each day, they travel the equivalent distance to the Moon and back!
The modularity of the ISS makes it perfect for being built with LEGO pieces. We’ve had our own crack at it, of course. But we’d love to see your kids’ efforts!
Summiting the mountain on Mars
What’s the tallest mountain we know of? (Hint: It’s not Everest)
It’s Olympus Mons, an extinct volcano on the planet Mars! At its peak, it stands at a whopping 16,16 miles (about 26 kilometers) tall, about three times the size of Everest.
Another fascinating thing about Olympus Mons is that it isn’t steep, with an average gradient slope of just 5% – meaning you could walk up it easily. (Although it does spread out over an area about the size of Poland, so you’d be walking for a while...).
To illustrate the gentleness of the slope, you can use LEGO bricks!
What you’ll need: lots of LEGO bricks!
Lay out 20 bricks, side by side, 1 brick tall. Then for the next 20, make them 2 bricks tall. Then for the next 20, 3 bricks tall. And so on and so on, for as long as you can.
That will be the same steepness as the tallest mountain in our solar system!
The most complex thing in the universe is closer than you think
Here’s a bit of an unusual space fact to finish with… Ask your kid to build the most complex thing we know of in the universe.
What you’ll need: lots of LEGO bricks
It’ll be interesting to see what they pick. Would it be Saturn’s rings, consisting of billions of chunks of ice and rock, some as big as mountains? Would it be neutron stars, a teaspoon of which weigh more than all of humanity put together? Or what about black holes, like Sagittarius A* which sits at the center of the Milky Way?
The actual answer is… the human brain and its ability to generate endless imagination!
Why? The brain is so complex that even the brain itself doesn’t fully comprehend its own complexity. One thing that makes the brain so complex and unique is its ability to think creatively and generate endless imagination.
Despite the unimaginably huge nature of the universe, this answer is a great way to contextualize our position in it, and to remind kids of the vast potential inside them!
Now, let’s see how much you’ve learned about space and our great solar system. Get ready for our space test.
Space questions for kids
Ask your kids these questions to see how much they’ve learned – make sure they’re not sneaking a peek at the answers!
- What is the largest planet in our solar system?
a. Jupiter - How many Earths would fit into the sun?
a. 1.3 million - What is the most expensive man-made item ever?
a. The International Space Station - How many stars are there in our galaxy?
a. 300 billion - What is the tallest mountain in our solar system?
a. Olympus Mons
How many did your kids get right? Go through the answers and the article to get them all right. Or better yet, continue your space journey on LEGO.com!
That’s right, your kids’ space exploration doesn’t need to end here. Discover the vast universe of LEGO Space right here, where you’ll find LEGO sets fit for any aspiring astronaut and inspiration for your kids to build their next space adventure.
