Once in England, because of a water spout, it rained frogs!
Almost two-thirds of the earths surface is covered by water. If the earth were flat, water would cover everything in a layer two miles deep!
During a solar eclipse, the shadows of leaves make the same crescent shape of the eclipsing sun. The image is made by light passing through tiny holes in the leaves.
Monks in the 16th century recorded seeing a giant explosion on the side of the Moon. It most likely was a large meteor that slammed into the Moon and left a large crater. It was a good thing the Moon was between us and the meteor!
See the rings of Saturn while you can. They slowly wobble up and down over the years as Saturns poles point away from then towards the sun. The rings disappear when edge on to our line of sight. Currently they are almost at their widest point and can be seen even in binoculars and small telescopes.
A star has been found moving closer to the sun. In a million years a star named Gliese 710 will have moved to within 6/10ths of a light year from the sun. This is more than six times closer than today’s nearest star, Alpha Centauri, which is over 4 light years away.
Stars viewed through even the largest telescopes look like tiny points of light. But astronomers, using the Hubble Space Telescope to photograph a star called Betelgeuse (pronounced “beetle jooze”), have now been able to see the surface of another star. Betelgeuse is a red, giant star located at the left shoulder of the constellation Orion and is the largest known star in our galaxy.
Not all stars are found inside galaxies. Astronomers have found stars moving between the galaxies, which are millions of light years apart. These stars may even have planets, possibly with intelligent life on them. If they do, these beings would see a lonely sky with just one star (its own sun) and a few faint galaxies.
Tired of the cold weather? Take a vacation on the hottest planet in the solar system – Venus. At over 800 degrees, it is hotter than Mercury because the clouds and abundant carbon dioxide hold in most of the heat received from the sun.
Ever notice on a map how the South American and African coasts, along the Atlantic, fit together like two pieces of a giant puzzle? That is because at one time, millions of years ago, they were one continent. Magma from deep in the Earth broke through thin places between these continents and pushed them apart. They are still slowly moving apart and the Atlantic ocean is growing wider.
The lead in pencils, really graphite, is made of the exact same thing as diamonds. Both are pure carbon which just formed under different pressures and temperatures. Intense heat and pressure form the carbon atoms into crystals making diamond, while lesser heat and pressure form the carbon into sheets making graphite.
Geologists have discovered there seems to be more water miles deep between the rocks of Earths mantle than in all the oceans of the world. The intense pressure of the tons of rocks above keeps the hot water from turning to steam and escaping.
If you were to place the planet Saturn in a big enough bowl of water, it would float!
Submitted by: Mark-Robert
About 20 percent of the earths land is made up of desert, and the worlds largest desert is the Sahara of North Africa.
Black Holes are disappearing! At first, it was believed that nothing could come out of a black hole and they would be around forever. But a famous physicist, named Stephen Hawkings, discovered that black holes lose energy and eventually evaporate away. But don’t wait around for one to “disappear” because it will take trillions and trillions of years to happen.
On a clear night, the human eye can see between 2,000 and 3,000 stars in the sky.
Water is the only substance on earth that is lighter as a solid than a liquid.
The White Sands national park in New Mexico is the largest desert with the fine white sand, made of a mineral called gypsum.
Our sun is over 2.5 million miles around at its equator.
After a blistering day of exploring, astronauts may relax with a nice cold glass of ice water from Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. Since there is no atmosphere there to spread the heat around, shadows in deep craters at the poles could hold ice deposited by early comet collisions.
96% of Egypt is made up of the desert sands of the Sahara.
Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world, standing 29,028 feet high.
The Amazon rain forest supplies one-fifth of the world’s oxygen!
Where do comets come from? There is a huge cloud of objects made of ice and rock encircling our solar system, called the Oort Cloud. It lies beyond Pluto and extends half way out to the next star. These objects occasionally bump into each other, sending one in towards the sun to become a comet like the recent Hale-Bopp comet.
Every day, eight trillion gallons of water pour out of the mouth of the Amazon River into the Atlantic Ocean.
The ice that covers 98% of Antarctica holds 90% of the worlds fresh water.
Lake Baikal in Russia is the deepest lake in the world, and holds as much water as all the five Great Lakes of the U.S. combined!
Lake Superior, one of the five Great Lakes between the U.S. and the border of Canada, is a freshwater lake with the largest surface area, and it’s so big it has waves!
Olympus Mons is a mountain on Mars, which is about fifteen miles high, three times higher than Mount Everest on earth, and at the top it is 45 miles across!
Someday you may go ice fishing on Jupiters moon, Europa. Evidence is being constantly discovered that there is an ocean under the ice of Europa. The ice would keep the ocean from evaporating and huge tides caused by Jupiter would keep the ocean temperature above freezing. What kinds of life might there be in such a strange ocean?
The deepest natural caves known to man are the Pierre St. Martin Caves in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France, which reach 4,370 feet deep, almost three times as deep as the Empire State Building is high!
When you think you’re standing still remember this fact. Even though you don’t feel it, our entire local group of galaxies is moving at about one million miles per hour toward another galaxy group called the Virgo Cluster.
Submitted by: Todd
Scientist believe that diamond rains occur on Neptune and Uranus. The heart of these planets may be a layer of diamonds hundreds of miles thick.
Submitted by: Todd
Jupiter’s giant red spot is like a tornado and it is 3 times bigger than the earth.
Submitted by: Macsmom
The largest crater on the moon measures 183 miles across.
Astronomers know Mars is a backwards planet. Once a year, for several days, it appears to move backwards in its orbit. This is actually an optical illusion when the faster orbit of Earth races past Mars.
Submitted by: Todd
The farthest you can see with the naked eye is 2.4 million light years away! (140,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles.) That’s the distance to the giant Andromeda Galaxy. You can see it easily as a dim, large gray “cloud” almost directly overhead in a clear night sky.
Submitted by: Todd
Australia is the only continent on earth without an active volcano.
The earth is over 330,000 times smaller than the sun.
The Earth is 4.5 billion years old.
71% of the Earths surface is covered with water.
Jupiter is a planet made entirely of gases.
There are over six billion people living on Earth!
The Earth is 93 million miles away from the sun.
97% of the earth’s water is undrinkable!
If you could live on the planet Mercury, a year would only last 88 days.
The Hindus of India once believed that the Earth was a huge bowl (to keep the oceans from falling off) held up by giant elephants standing on long pillars. No one back then ever thought to ask what the pillars were standing on! Submitted by: Todd
If someone tells you you smell like flowers, it may not be a compliment if they are refering to the rafflesia flower. This flower smells like rotten meat!
It is said that when England is in danger a drum owned by Francis Drake rolls by itself.
The language of a society changes slowly but steadily with the result that an educated person will not be able to read or understand words in his language written 500 years ago.
There is no word that rhymes with orange.
It took 55 years before the telephone, invented in 1820, was put to use in society.
Sound travels over 14 times faster through steel than through air. If you need to signal someone quickly standing on a metal bridge, bang on a steel pipe!
The Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt, built about 2600 BC, was constructed with enough stone to make a brick wall that could go around the world 20 inches high.
In comparison, the largest modern building, the Pentagon, in Washington DC would only make a brick wall that went around the world two inches high.
If everyone in the world took a daily bath, our entire supply of fresh water would be get dirty in a single day.
The number of bacteria in a quart of soil from your backyard garden is 30 times greater than the population of the world.
When high speed trains past each other they must slow down or they will break their windows. The passing trains produce a low-pressure area between them that can actually pull the glass out of the frames.
A hydroplane can go much faster than a normal boat because it lifts the hull out of the water. It uses supports that act like underwater wings to give it lift. It is really just flying through water.
You can surf on only one or two inches of water. Jump on a wooden disc and you can ride 20 feet or more in the shallow water along the beach.
Manhole covers, the lids that cover sewers, are always round. Why? The round cover rests on a lip that is smaller than the cover so it can’t drop through the opening. A square or rectangular cover, no matter how it was made, could fall through.
The fear of spiders is called arachnophobia. Some other phobias are hydrophobia (fear of water), triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), ecclesiaphobia (fear of churches), pogonophobia (fear of beards), ergophobia (fear of work).
Donald Duck, the cartoon character NEVER wore pants. But, whenever he got out of a shower he would always put a towel around his waist.
Submitted by: Lee & Ginny
There was only one code during World War II that was never broken by the enemy and was used by the US Army. Navajo soldiers, called Codetalkers, developed a radio code based on their native language. It was the only way US soldiers on the battlefield could be sure that messages were from there own side and not from Japanese imitators.
Vincent Van Gogh only sold 1 painting his whole life and that was to his brother!
Submitted by: aquagirl195
A Japanese explorer named Maomi Uemura was the first man to reach the North Pole alone, on April 29, 1978, after his eight-week journey.
In transistors, electrons perform an amazing magic act called quantum tunneling. They can move from one side of a thin metal plate to the other without going through the plate.
Steamboat Geyser, located in Yellowstone National Park, is the most powerful geyser in the world, and can shoot super-hot water 300 feet in the air.
When hydrogen is cooled to almost absolute zero (-460°F or -273°C), the lowest temperature possible, it becomes a liquid with surprising properties. It can flow against gravity and will start running up and over the lip of a glass container.
Mark Twain, one of America’s best-loved authors, dropped out of school when he was 12 years old, after his father died.
The ice cream cone was originally a way to hold flowers, not ice cream!
The first modern traffic light was put to use in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1914.
On April 2, 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman candidate for the U.S. presidency.
Every year, plants make and store ten times the amount of energy that people use.
Babe Ruth kept a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep cool.
Over 160 billion pieces of mail are sent every year in the U.S.
Tomatoes are really fruits, not vegetables.
If someone tells you you smell like flowers, it may not be a compliment if they are refering to the rafflesia flower. This flower smells like rotten meat!
Glass is made of sand.
America’s first major highway was called the National Road, and was opened in 1814, connecting the city of Baltimore with the Ohio River.
Abraham Lincoln once invented a device for lifting riverboats over shallow water.
It took 55 years before the telephone, invented in 1820, was put to use in society.
You speak about 4,800 words a day.
Submitted by: Billybobbibobbilly
Did you know that the Empire State Building once got stuck by lightning 9 times in 20 minutes.
Submitted by: Kathryn
Did you know that the Egyptians thought the world was in the shape of a rectangle and that the heavans were held up by four giant pillars? They also warned sailors not to go to far away or you just might row off the giant rectangle called Earth. Well When the Queen of England heard this she sent 4 ships south, north, east and west to search for these “pillars”. When they didn’t find any (because the world is in the shape of a sphere) they questioned the Eygptians and they told her the pillars must have been farther than they predicted! Clever weren’t they?!
Submitted by: Kathryn
Did you know that there is a world record for seeing how many times you can attempt a world record?!!
Submitted by: kewl
It would take approximately 31.7 years to count off 1 billion seconds.
Honey is the only food that won’t spoil.
There’s 293 different ways to make change for just 1 dollar.
A Jiffy is an actual unit of time. 1 Jiffy = 1/100 of a second.
Submitted by: Erin
A Rubik’s Cube can make 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different combinations!
Submitted by: Jenny
In the tropical rainforest it gets about 80 to 400 inches of rain yearly. If it is raining really hard, it gets about 2 inches of rain per hour.
Submitted by: Emily
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar!
Submitted by: Mike
One kind of insect called a spittlebug, lays its eggs in a big nest of saliva bubbles. I guess no predator would look for a meal in there!
Submitted by: Carl
The holiday Boxing day was originally celebrated in England,for the servants to the rich people. After chrismas,the servants “boxed up” all the left-overs from the rich people and bring them home.
Submitted by: Iknowitall
Over 10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows!
Submitted by: Fouad
A baby is born approximately every 11 seconds in the United States!
Submitted by: SmartyGirl
Glass is actually a liquid- if you had a glass window, over hundreds of years it would seem like it had melted a little bit!
Submitted by: ILikeCereal
The letter Z is only used in words more that five letters when two vowels are present.
Submitted by: Clo
Water expands 9% when it is frozen!
Submitted by: Kayl
A normal piece of paper cannot be folded more than 7 times.
Submitted by: Anna
The only food that doesn’t spoil is honey.
Submitted by: Alice
In China, they believe that the longer ones earlobes are, the wealthier they will be.
Submitted by: Amazing Alina
It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
Submitted by: Mazda Roxx
The average person will spend 4 years of their life on the toilet! Better stock up on TP!
Submitted by: Esme
Thomas Edison, the inventor of the lightbulb, was actually afraid of the dark.
Submitted by: Frank