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Lose weight by planet hopping
If you’re, say, 140 pounds, did you know you would be about 53 pounds on Mercury? Without getting caught up in complicated math, the reason behind the swift weight change is the planet’s gravitational field. This is because your mass is constant across the universe, while your weight measurement changes depending on the force of gravity wherever you are—and gravity changes from planet to planet. Since Mercury’s gravitational field is less than Earth’s, you’d weigh less. If the gravitational field is more than the Earth’s, you’d, of course, weigh more. (Word to the wise: Avoid Jupiter,
Move over, moon rocks
You don’t have to go all the ways to Mars to get a souvenir from space. When meteorites were tested on Earth from the Sahara Desert and Antarctica, it was revealed that some rocks come from Mars.
Chad has a diverse range of traditional arts and crafts.
From pottery and basket weaving to woodcarving and leatherwork, Chadian artisans create beautiful and intricate crafts that reflect their cultural heritage.
The Tibesti Mountains are located in northern Chad.
Reaching heights of over 3,000 meters, the Tibesti Mountains offer stunning landscapes, volcanic formations, and ancient rock art, attracting adventurous travelers.
The Kanem Empire played a significant role in Chad’s history.
From the 8th to the 14th century, the Kanem Empire thrived in present-day Chad, serving as a major center of trade, Islamic scholarship, and political power.
Chad has a challenging climate.
The country experiences a wide range of climatic conditions, from the scorching heat of the desert to the more moderate temperatures in the south, presenting diverse challenges for its inhabitants.
Poor Pluto
Pluto was unceremoniously kicked off the team of full-sized planets we consider part of our solar system. (The rest of them are, of course, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.) “The International Astronomical Union reclassified poor Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006—a move that had astrologers and many a stargazer alike upset at the demotion. Pluto lost its status due to being just half the width of the United States—way smaller than any of the other planets sharing the same status in the solar system.
Chad is home to unique wildlife species.
The national parks and reserves of Chad provide sanctuary for endangered species such as the African manatee, African wild dog, and Kordofan giraffe.
WELCOME TO PAGE 441 - THE SPACE FACTS PAGE !!
A long trip
The last time our solar system was in its current position around the Milky Way, the earliest dinosaurs were first roaming the Earth. That’s because it takes a whopping 230 million years for our solar system to complete one single orbit around the Milky Way.#
Earth is slowing down
In the days of the dinosaur, a day was only 23 hours long. That’s due to the slowing of the Earth’s rotation each century by roughly two milliseconds. In 1820, the Earth’s rotation was 24 hours on the dot, notes NASA. Now, the Earth’s rotation is off by 2.5 milliseconds. We can’t blame our poor old Earth—we all slow down a bit as we age. We’ll take it if it means two more seconds of daylight in winter.
Optical illusion
The sun and moon may look fairly similar in size when you look at the sky, but don’t let your eyes fool you. Not only does the sun actually dwarf the moon in size—it’s 400 times larger—it’s also 400 times further away from Earth than the moon. That distance gives the sun the illusion of appearing moon-size.
Daytime moon sighting
Depending on the moon’s position above the horizon and how it coincides with the sun’s position, you should be able to see the moon during the daytime. In fact, it’s actually pretty common—the only time you wouldn’t be able to see the moon is when it’s a “new” moon, meaning the lit side of the moon is facing away from the Earth.
Solar system maps are wrong
If a map of the solar system was created to scale, it would be way too big to hang. Using a single pixel to represent the moon, designer and developer Josh Worth created what he calls “a tediously accurate scale model of the solar system.” You’re probably better off going with the textbook version that makes the planets appear a wee bit closer if you want something to hang on your wall.
Bye-bye, Polaris
Polaris, our North Star, isn’t leaving us anytime soon—at least not for another 12,000 years. But when it does, the star Vega will replace it. Why? It’s all about the rotation of the Earth. As our planet’s axis changes over a very long 26,000-year cycle, the north eventually shifts to different stars. It won’t be the first time Vega gets the starring role in our night sky; it was the North Star several thousand years ago.
Peace and quiet are out of this world
If you need some time to chill out and ditch all the noise on Earth, you might want to go for a spacewalk. That’s because we typically can’t hear sound in space. Sound travels by making molecules vibrate, but in space, there are only five protons in the same volume (a square centimeter of air) that you would find nearly 300,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules in here on Earth. You would need “an eardrum comparable to the size of Earth” to hear the small pressure variations of the magnetosonic waves that you’d find in space.
Black holes belch stars
A black hole can actually suck up a star and burp it back out. Sound gross? When a star gets sucked up into a black hole, it will release a huge jet of plasma. This “burp” can span hundreds of light-years. “When the star is ripped apart by the gravitational forces of the black hole, some part of the star’s remains falls into the black hole, while the rest is ejected at high speeds,” notes Suvi Gezari, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, to sciencealert.com.
Mars is a bit rusty
Although there isn’t any water on Mars, it’s rusty red on its surface and so is its sky. Earth rust is made from iron and water, and one theory about the iron oxide on Mars is that it probably formed many eons ago, when there may have been water on the planet (there’s still ice at its north and south polar caps, just like on Earth). The planet remains very rich in iron oxide.
Even your tears won’t fall
Whether it’s tears or plain old water, the weightless atmosphere in space causes liquid to adhere to a surface rather than fall. When it comes to tears, they’ll just form bubbles around your eyes, so you’ll look like an alien. Fitting!
Keep those socks on in space
Astronauts don’t spend a lot of time on their feet while they’re floating around in the weightless environment of space. This might give their tootsies a nice break, but it also causes the skin on their feet to soften and flake. Astronauts don’t change their underwear and socks frequently as they can’t do loads of laundry like at home. So watch out when they do—the sloughed-off skin can be released with each sock and end up floating about.
Venus runs hot and cold
A planet with a reputation for an atmosphere five times hotter than boiling water, Venus has a cold spot, too. Although the average temp is hot, hot, hot, there’s a cold layer hidden in its atmosphere with temperatures of -175 °C and possibly carbon dioxide ice. “The cold layer is unique, in that Earth and Mars don’t have anything like it,” said Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s Venus Express project scientist, in a press release.
Moon water might one day be a thing
A study has found that the moon might one day be a space resource for water, as it contains a lot more H2O than previously thought. Scientists conclude we could extract water from pyroclastic deposits, a substance on the moon made mostly of volcanic glass beads formed during ancient explosive eruptions.
Sarcasm boosts creativity
You may not think of sarcasm as the most endearing habit or quality. If you tend to have a sarcastic sense of humor, you’ve probably been told to tone it down at least once. But according to this bit of random trivia, sarcastic people get the last laugh—studies have shown that sarcasm boosts your creativity. And as if that weren’t enough of a reason to embrace the snark, sarcasm can also boost the creativity of the recipients, too! Using it involves making connections between opposing ideas, and interpreting it also requires your brain to reason beyond the literal.
The chance of a coin landing heads-up is not 50-50
When you flip a coin, physics, not probability, determines how it will land. Mathematician Persi Diaconis found that a coin is slightly more likely to land on the face that was up when you flipped it. The way a coin lands is not “random”; it’s easy, with a little practice, to manipulate your coin flip so that it lands the way you want it. What’s more, if you’re spinning a coin, it’s more likely to land tails up, since the heads side weighs slightly more
There’s an equation to tell how far away the horizon is
“The horizon,” a distant concept that might seem almost abstract, might be closer than you think. There’s an equation that, if you know how far above sea level you’re looking from, can tell you the distance of the horizon. The neatest application of this rule is that if you’re six feet tall, standing at sea level, your eyes are about five and a half feet above sea level—and the horizon is approximately three miles away. The equation does require a calculator—the actual equation is “√(height above surface / 0.5736) = distance to horizon”—but it’s still handy to know there’s a way to figure it out!
If you’re ever attacked by a crocodile, stick your thumb in its eye
Easier said than done, of course, but wildlife experts agree that this is the best way to save yourself in the event of a crocodile attack. The same goes for an alligator, too. The eyes are the most sensitive part of its body, and jabbing at them should, ideally, cause them to loosen their jaws. (Your fingers will do if you don’t have the presence of mind to specifically use the thumb.)
The shortest sentence in English is “Go.”
Yes, “Go,” all of two letters is a grammatically correct English sentence. It’s only a sentence, though, if it’s a command, because then “you” is the understood subject. It’s commanding the listener to go. If you’d rather a sentence with a separate word as the subject, “I am” is the shortest sentence, with three letters.
A “jiffy” is a real unit of time
Ever told someone you’d be back in a “jiffy”? You were definitely lying. Though the English language has adopted it to mean “a short amount of time,” it actually is a scientific term. In the physics world, a “jiffy” is the time it takes light to travel a centimeter in a vacuum or around 33.4 picoseconds. (A “picosecond,” meanwhile, is a trillionth of a second.)
Money isn’t really made of paper
Turns out “paper money” is a bit of a misnomer! According to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, money is actually 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen, which “gives [it] its distinct look and feel.”
Orange is the worst color to wear to a job interview
The color orange will make the worst first impression at a job interview, according to a Career Builder survey. Twenty-five percent of respondents claimed that the bright color comes across as unprofessional. The best color to wear, in case you’re wondering, is blue.