Saturn - The Hairy Planet
From The Encyclopaedicus Galactate.
Streaming milky wisdom
all over the spiral arm
Saturn is the sixth planet, according to Unk’s Law of adding one per planet until you reach six. Or other numbers, often smaller or larger.
Saturn is so named because every day of its 29.5 year orbital cycle is Saturday.
The days extending from Monday to Sunday were vapourised by a meteorite, and now rotate, almost weekly, inside the planet’s little known ring system.
Saturn is unique among the planets for a stunning visual feature – the vast, abundant growths of human hair that sprout from its gasy, yet furry surface.
The magnificent hairs of Saturn take many forms. The longest is a single, ginger strand that extends around the equator. Known to stargazers as Newton’s Rusty Whisker, it is 57,835 miles long, and incredibly coarse. At its widest point it is 3,562 miles high, the same girth as seven Denmarks.
Saturn’s tropics are entirely covered in fine, downy prepubescent tufts – the fluffiest material in the known universe. At the polar extremities this becomes an abrasive, freezing bristle, known to stargazers as Hubble’s Bum Stubble.
Little is known of Saturn’s two most hirsute and mysterious features, known to stargazers as Galileo’s Goatee and The Copernicus Mirkin. These vast, unkempt areas of hair float gently around the planet’s surface, wafted softly by the solar winds...
Mars - The Shy Planet
From The Encyclopaedium Infinitum, the Universe’s widest podcast.
Leaking gaseous facts,
in all The Milkiest Ways
Mars is the shyest planet visible to the naked eye. Throughout its 687 day solar orbit, it spins, sad, lonely and self-hating – ashamed of its inflamed, pocked skin. A phenomenon known to stargazers as Hubble’s Blush.
For eons, Mars flew innocently through space, unaware of its appearance. Until 1610, when it was discovered by Galileo, who reportedly fled from his telescope, disgusted, to ‘do a little sick’.
The Red Planet’s skin complaint erupted 23.5 million years ago. A period known to stargazers as The Martian Pubescence. At this time, Mars’ towering Olympus Mons, a giant acne pimple, seeped from the crust, as volcanic discharge. The greasy, molten pus then hardened – reaching the height of two Everests (or five Birminghams).
Mars once thrived with life. A gentle, simple race, with bodies formed of three armpits and a single, beak-like toe, they hopped awkwardly, but happily, over the planet’s surface.
Deeply ashamed of its grotesque, imbecilic natives, Mars suffocated them with a dust storm that lasted almost a thousand years – an event known to stargazers as The Regolith Genocide.