16 Amazing Science Facts:
1. Fingernails grow four times faster than toenails
2. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people
3. If you rub an onion on your foot – within 30 – 60 minutes you will be able to taste it – this is because it travels through the blood stream
4. You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath (if you hold it until you go unconscious, you begin to breath normally as soon as you do)
5. On one square inch of human skin there are 20 million microscopic creatures
6. Armadillos are the only creatures apart from men that can catch leprosy – there are known cases of armadillo to human transfers of the disease
7. A snail can sleep for 3 – 4 years – during which period it does not need food
8. Giraffes can live longer without water than camels
9. The songs of humpback whales can change dramatically from year to year, yet each whale in an oceanwide population always sings the same song as the others.
10. The forces required to remove a foot from quicksand at a speed of one centimeter per second would require the same amount of force as “that needed to lift a medium-sized car.”
11. To test if a pearl is real, you can rub vinegar on it – the composition of the pearl will cause it to bubble furiously
12. Goldfish kept in a dark room turn much paler – and if it wasn’t for the color in the food they eat, they would turn completely white
13. Unlike normal bees, the Queen bee’s stinger is not barbed and can be used repeatedly without harming her
14. Quicksand doesn’t directly kill humans as it is usually not very deep at all – it is the fact that it can be incredibly difficult to remove yourself from quicksand that causes death by the environment – such as exposure.
15. Oysters can change between being female or male
16. Men are over 30% stronger than women on average, especially in the upper body, and men’s brains are heavier than women’s
Some Interesting Facts about Our life:
1: If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on your right side. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on your left side
2: If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. For when a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.
3: Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
4: Your tongue is germ free only if it is pink. If it is white there is a thin film of bacteria on it.
5: The Mercedes-Benz motto is ‘Das Beste oder Nichts’ meaning ‘the best or nothing’.
6: The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal.
7: The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent when a person looks at something pleasing.
8: The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.
9: Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.
10: Frank Perdue’s chicken slogan, “It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken” was translated into Spanish as “it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate.”
11: Dalmatians are born without spots.
12: Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
13: The ‘v’ in the name of a court case does not stand for ‘versus’, but for ‘and’ (in civil proceedings] or ‘against’ (in criminal proceedings]
14: Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right, but women’s shirts have the buttons on the left
15: The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink. All other birds raise their lower eyelids
16: The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it’s already been digested by a bee
17: Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks
18: The color blue has a calming effect. It causes the brain to release calming hormones
19: Every time you sneeze some of your brain cells die
20: Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart
21: The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate
22: When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red
23: When Hippos are upset, their sweat turns red
24: The first Harley Davidson motorcycle was built in 1903, and used a tomato can for a carburetor
25: The lion that roars in the MGM logo is named Volney
26: Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros
27: Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan
28: It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it
29: The attachment of the human skin to muscles is what causes dimples
30: There are 1,792 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower
31: The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting
32: Human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
33: It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body
34: The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets
35: Most soccer players run 7 miles in a game
36: The only part of the body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air
37: Every day 200 million couples make love, 400,000 babies are born, and 140,000 people die
38: In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is
10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it is smiling.)
39: Colgate faced big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command “go hang yourself.”
40: The only 2 animals that can see behind it without turning its head are the rabbit and the parrot
41: Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
42: The average person laughs 13 times a day
43: Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are: Mizaru(See no evil), Mikazaru(Hear no evil), and Mazaru(Speak no evil)
44: Women blink nearly twice as much as men
45: German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog
46: Large kangaroos cover more than 30 feet with each jump
47: Whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound
48: Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death
49: If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural cause.
50: The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet!!
A dollar can be made into small change in 293 ways:
You can remember the value of Pi (3.1415926) by counting each word's letters in "May I have a large container of coffee?"
Multiplication and succession:
1 × 8 + 1 = 9
12 × 8 + 2 = 98
123 × 8 + 3 = 987
and so on.
Submitted by: Moi, Canada.Submitted by: Moi, Canada.
142857 is a cyclic number, i.e., its digits are rotated around when multiplied by any number from 1 to 6. Like this:
142857 × 1 = 142857
142857 × 5 = 7 14285
142857 × 4 = 57 1428
142857 × 6 = 857 142
142857 × 2 = 2857 14
142857 × 3 = 42857 1
Submitted by: Moi, Canada.Submitted by: Moi, Canada.
1089 multiplied by 9 gives an exact reverse: 9801.
From 0 to 1,000, the letter "A" only appears in 1,000 ("one thousand").
2 is called the "oddest" Even Prime-number. 2 is a unique Even Prime because all Even-numbers are divisible by 2. But any number apart from 2 that is divisible by 2, is not a Prime.
1 × 9 + 2 = 11
12 × 9 + 3 = 111
123 × 9 + 4 = 1111
... and so on.
Submitted by: RobSubmitted by: Rob
40 when written "forty" is the only number with letters in alphabetical order, while "one" is the only one with letters in reverse order.
Submitted by: RobSubmitted by: Rob
1 googol = 10100;
1 googolplex = 10googol = 1010100 .
111 111 111 x 111 111 111 = 12345678 9 87654321
Pi (3.14159...) is a number that cannot be written as a fraction.
Submitted by: Tiff - Witherbee, United StatesSubmitted by: Tiff - Witherbee, United States
The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven.
Submitted by: Ramesh - Pune, IndiaSubmitted by: Ramesh - Pune, India
21978 when multiplied by 4 is the same number with digits in reverse order: 21978 x 4 = 87912
If you add up the numbers 1-100 consecutively (1+2+3+4+5...) the total is 5050.
The billionth digit of Pi is 9.
1 and 2 are the only numbers where they are the values of the numbers of factors they have.
2 and 5 are the only primes that end in 2 or 5.
The largest prime number is 9,808,358 digits long; more than the number of atoms in the universe.
The digits to the right of the Pi's (3.141...) decimal point can keep going forever, and there is no pattern to these digits at all.
Funny facts:
• Try these
•
• on your Family, Class or Troop Did you know that there are 206 bones in the adult human body and there are 300 in children (as they grow some of the bones fuse together).
• Flea's can jump 130 times higher than their own height. In human terms this is equal to a 6ft. person jumping 780 ft. into the air.
• The most dangerous animal in the world is the common housefly. Because of their habits of visiting animal waste, they transmit more diseases than any other animal.
• Snakes are true carnivorous because they eat nothing but other animals. They do not eat any type of plant material.
• The world's largest amphibian is the giant salamander. It can grow up to 5 ft. in length.
• 100 years ago: The first virus was found in both plants and animals.
• 90 years ago: The Grand Canyon became a national monument & Cellophane is invented.
• 80 years ago: The food mixer and the domestic refrigerator were invented.
• 70 years ago: The teletype and PVC (polyvinyl-chloride) were invented.
• 60 years ago: Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission by splitting uranium, Teflon was invented.
• 50 years ago: Velcro was invented.
• 40 years ago: An all-female population of lizards was discovered in Armenia.
• 30 years ago: The computer mouse was invented.
• 20 years ago: First test-tube baby born in England, Pluto’s moon, Charon, discovered.
• 10 years ago: First patent for a genetically-engineered mouse was issued to Harvard Medical School.
• 5 years ago: The first successful cloning of human embryo
• The smallest bone in the human body is the stapes or stirrup bone located in the middle ear. It is approximately .11 inches (.28 cm) long.
• The longest cells in the human body are the motor neurons. They can be up to 4.5 feet (1.37 meters) long and run from the lower spinal cord to the big toe.
• There are no poisonous snakes in Maine.
• The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.
• The largest man-made lake in the U.S. is Lake Mead, created by Hoover Dam.
• The poison arrow frogs of South and Central America are the most poisonous animals in the world.
• A new born blue whale measures 20-26 feet (6.0 - 7.9 meters) long and weighs up to 6,614 pounds (3003 kg).
• The first coast-to-coast telephone line was established in 1914.
• The Virginia opossum has a gestation period of only 12-13 days.
• The Stegosaurus dinosaur measured up to 30 feet (9.1 meters) long but had a brain the size of a walnut.
• The largest meteorite crater in the world is in Winslow, Arizona. It is 4,150 feet across and 150 feet deep.
• The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times a year.
• Skylab, the first American space station, fell to the earth in thousands of pieces in 1979. Thankfully most over the ocean.
• It takes approximately 12 hours for food to entirely digest.
• Human jaw muscles can generate a force of 200 pounds (90.8 kilograms) on the molars.
• The Skylab astronauts grew 1.5 - 2.25 inches (3.8 - 5.7 centimeters) due to spinal lengthening and straightening as a result of zero gravity.
• An inch (2.5 centimeters) of rain water is equivalent to 15 inches (38.1 centimeters) of dry, powdery snow.
• Tremendous erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years.
• 40 to 50 percent of body heat can be lost through the head (no hat) as a result of its extensive circulatory network.
• A large swarm of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) can consume 20,000 tons (18,160,000 kilograms) of vegetation a day.
• The largest telescope in the world is currently being constructed in northern Chile. The telescope will utilize four - 26 ft. 8 in. (8.13 meters) mirrors which will gather as much light as a single 52 ft. 6 in. (16 meters) mirror.
• The Hubble Space Telescope weighs 12 tons (10,896 kilograms), is 43 feet (13.1 meters) long, and cost $2.1 billion to originally build.
• The longest living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime.
• The largest flying animal was the pterosaur which lived 70 million years ago. This reptile had a wing span of 36-39 feet (11-11.9 meters) and weighed 190-250 pounds (86-113.5 kilograms).
• The Atlantic Giant Squid's eye can be as large as 15.75 inches (40 centimeters) wide.
• Armadillos, opossums, and sloth's spend about 80% of their lives sleeping.
• The starfish species, Porcellanaster ivanovi, has been found to live in water as deep as 24,881 feet (7,584 meters).
• The tentacles of the giant Arctic jellyfish can reach 120 feet (36.6 meters) in length.
• The greatest tide change on earth occurs in the Bay of Fundy. The difference between low tide and high tide can be as great as 54 ft. 6 in. (16.6 meters).
• The highest temperature produced in a laboratory was 920,000,000 F (511,000,000 C) at the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor in Princeton, NJ, USA.
• The most powerful laser in the world, the Nova laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA, USA, generates a pulse of energy equal to 100,000,000,000,000 watts of power for .000000001 second to a target the size of a grain of sand.
• The fastest computer in the world is the CRAY Y-MP C90 supercomputer. It has two gigabytes of central memory and 16 parallel central processor units.
• The heaviest human brain ever recorded weighed 5 lb. 1.1 oz. (2.3 kg.).
• The deepest part of the ocean is 35,813 feet (10,916 meters) deep and occurs in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. At that depth the pressure is 18,000 pounds (9172 kilograms) per square inch.
• The largest cave in the world (the Sarawak Chamber in Malaysia) is 2,300 feet (701 meters) long, 980 feet (299 meters) wide, and more than 230 feet (70 meters) high.
• The hottest planet in the solar system is Venus, with an estimated surface temperature of 864 F (462 C).
• The ears of a cricket are located on the front legs, just below the knee.
• The first electronic digital computer (called ENIAC - the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was developed in 1946 and contained over 18,000 vacuum tubes.
• The leg muscles of a locust are about 1000 times more powerful than an equal weight of human muscle.
• The cosmos contains approximately 50,000,000,000 galaxies.
• There are between 100,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000 stars in a normal galaxy.
• Sound travels about 4 times faster in water than in air.
• Scientists have discovered that copper pollution of the atmosphere occurred about 2500 years ago. This was discovered by analyzing ice cores from Greenland. The pollution was attributed to the Romans who used copper for military purposes and to produce coins.
• Hydrofluoric acid will dissolve glass.
• In a full grown rye plant, the total length of roots may reach 380 miles (613 km).
• In a full grown rye plant, the total length of fine root hairs may reach 6600 miles (10,645 km).
• A large sunspot can last for about a week.
• If you could throw a snowball fast enough, it would totally vaporize when it hit a brick wall.
• Boron nitride (BN) is the second hardest substance known to man.
• The female Tarantula Hawk wasp paralyzes a large spider with her sting. She then lays her eggs on the motionless body so that her developing young have a fresh supply of spider meat to feed on.
• The seeds of an Indian Lotus tree remain viable for 300 to 400 years.
• The only letter not appearing on the Periodic Table is the letter “J”.
• Velcro was invented by a Swiss guy who was inspired by the way burrs attached to clothing.
• Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
• October 10 is National Metric Day.
• If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long.
• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
• Super Glue was invented by accident. The researcher was trying to make optical coating materials, and would test their properties by putting them between two prisms and shining light through them. When he tried the cyano-acrylate, he couldn't get the prisms apart.
• No matter its size or thickness, no piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
• A car traveling at 80 km/h uses half its fuel to overcome wind resistance.
• Knowledge is growing so fast that ninety per cent of what we will know in fifty years time, will be discovered in those fifty years.
• According to an old English system of time units, a moment is one and a half minutes.
• The typewriter was invented in 1829, and the automatic dishwasher in 1889.
• The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.
• When glass breaks, the cracks move at speeds of up to 3,000 miles per hour.
• By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.
• Ten minutes of one hurricane contains enough energy to match the nuclear stockpiles of the world.
• Most gemstones contain several elements. The exception? The diamond. It's all carbon.
• Diamonds are the hardest substance known to man.
• Which of the 50 states has never had an earthquake? North Dakota.
• When hydrogen burns in the air, water is formed.
• Sterling silver contains 7.5% copper.
• Cars were first made with ignition keys in 1949.
• J.B Dunlop was first to put air into tires.
• Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, also set a world water-speed record of over seventy miles an hour at the age of seventy two.
• It is energy-efficient to turn off a fluorescent light only if it will not be used again within an hour or more. This is because of the high voltage needed to turn it on, and the shortened life this high voltage causes.
• The Earth's equatorial circumference (40,075 km) is greater than its polar circumference (40,008 km).
• Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world.
• Due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the moon is directly overhead.
• The Earth's average velocity orbiting the sun is 107,220 km per hour.
• There is a high and low tide because of our moon and the Sun.
• The United States consumes 25% of all the world’s energy.
• Flying from London to New York by Concord, due to the time zones crossed, you can arrive 2 hours before you leave.
• There is enough fuel in a full tank of a Jumbo Jet to drive an average car four times around the world.
• The surface speed record on the moon is 10.56 miles per hour. It was set with the lunar rover.
• If you could drive to the sun -- at 55 miles per hour -- it would take about 193 years
• The moon is one million times drier than the Gobi Desert.
• Just twenty seconds worth of fuel remained when Apollo 11's lunar module landed on the moon.
• A Boeing 707 uses four thousand gallons of fuel in its take-off climb.
• The planet Saturn has a density lower than water. So, if placed in water it would float.
• Since 1959, more than 6,000 pieces of 'space junk' (abandoned rocket and satellite parts) have fallen out of orbit - many of these have hit the earth's surface.
• It takes 70% less energy to produce a ton of paper from recycled paper than from trees.
• Every year in the US, 625 people are struck by lightning.
• Hawaii is moving toward Japan 4 inches every year.
• The rocket engine has to supply its own oxygen so it can burn its fuel in outer space.
• The North Atlantic gets 1 inch wider every year.
• Oxygen is the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, waters, and atmosphere (about 49.5%)
• A stroke of lightning discharges from 10 to 100 million volts & 30,000 amperes of electricity.
• A bolt of lightning is about 54,000°F (30,000°C); six times hotter than the Sun.
• Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe (75%).
• The average distance between the Earth & the Moon is 238,857 miles (384,392 km).
• The moon is 27% the size of the Earth.
• The Earth weighs 6.6 sextillion tons, or 5.97 x 1024 kg.
• The center of the Sun is about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million °C).
• Sunlight takes about 8 minutes & 20 seconds to reach the Earth at 186,282 miles/sec (299,792 Km/sec).
• The highest temperature on Earth was 136°F (58°C) in Libya in 1922.
• The lowest temperature on Earth was -128.6°F (-89.6°C) in Antarctica in 1983.
• Sunlight can penetrate clean ocean water to a depth of 240 feet.
• The average ocean floor is 12,000 feet.
• The temperature can be determined by counting the number of cricket chirps in fourteen seconds and adding 40.
• House flies have a lifespan of two weeks.
• Chimps are the only animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror.
• Starfish don't have brains.
• The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
• Shrimp's hearts are in their heads.
• Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
• The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds
• Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards.
• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
• Porcupines float in water.
• An ostrich's eye is bigger that its brain.
• An iguana can stay under water for twenty-eight minutes.
• The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.
• It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
• The pupil of an octopus' eye is rectangular.
• Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
• The leg bones of a bat are so thin that no bat can walk.
• Ants cannot chew their food, they move their jaws sideways, like scissors, to extract the juices from the food.
• Hummingbirds are the only animals able to fly backwards.
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
• Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
• A cat's jaws cannot move sideways.
• Armadillos get an average of 18.5 hours of sleep per day.
• Armadillos can walk underwater.
• There are more beetles than any other kind of creature in the world.
• Certain frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen.
• Only humans sleep on their backs.
• The human brain is 80% water.
• Everyone's tongue print is different.
• As an adult, you have more than 20 square feet of skin on your body--about the same square footage as a blanket for a queen-sized bed.
• In your lifetime, you'll shed over 40 pounds of skin.
• 15 million blood cells are produced and destroyed in the human body every second.
• Every minute, 30-40,000 dead skin cells fall from your body.
• The brain uses more than 25% of the oxygen used by the human body.
• If your mouth was completely dry, you would not be able to distinguish the taste of anything.
• There are more living organisms on the skin of a single human being than there are human beings on the surface of the earth.
• Muscles are made up of bundles from about 5 in the eyelid to about 200 in the buttock muscle.
• Muscles in the human body (640 in total) make up about half of the body weight.
• The human body has enough fat to produce 7 bars of soap.
• The human head is a quarter of our total length at birth, but only an eighth of our total length by the time we reach adulthood.
• Most people blink about 17,000 times a day.
• Moths have no stomach.
• Hummingbirds can't walk.
• Sea otters have 2 coats of fur.
• A starfish can turn its stomach inside out.
• A zebra is white with black stripes.
• The animal with the largest brain in relation to its body is the ant.
• The largest eggs in the world are laid by a shark.
• A crocodile’s tongue is attached to the roof of its mouth.
• Crocodiles swallow stones to help them dive deeper.
• Giraffes are unable to cough.
• Sharks are immune to cancer.
• Despite the hump, a camel’s spine is straight.
• Cheetah's can accelerate from 0 to 70 km/h in 3 seconds.
• A giraffe's neck contains the same number of vertebrae as a human.
• The heart of giraffe is two feet long, and can weigh as much as twenty four pounds.
• On average, Elephants sleep for about 2 hours per day.
• Lobsters have blue blood.
• Shark's teeth are literally as hard as steel.
• A mosquito has 47 teeth.
• Oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen make up 90% of the human body.
• Seventy percent of the dust in your home consists of shed human skin
• Fish are the only vertebrates that outnumber birds.
• A cockroach can live for several weeks without its head.
• The average human produces a quart of saliva a day -- about 10,000 gallons in a lifetime
• Elephants have been known to remain standing after they die.
• The embryos of tiger sharks fight each other while in their mother's womb, the survivor being the baby shark that is born.
• Ants do not sleep.
• Nearly a third of all bottled drinking water purchased in the US is contaminated with bacteria.
• Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over 1 million descendents.
• An Astronaut can be up to 2 inches taller returning from space. The cartilage disks in the spine expand in the absence of gravity.
• The oldest known fossil is of a single-celled organism, blue-green algae, found in 3.2 billion year-old stones in South Africa.
• The oldest multicellular fossils date from ~700 million years ago.
• The earliest cockroach fossils are about 280 million years old.
• Healthy nails grow about 2 cm each year. Fingernails grow four times as fast as toenails.
• 20/20 vision means the eye can see normally at 20 feet. 20/15 is better; the eye can see at 20 feet what another eye sees at 15 feet.
• The average person has 100,000 hairs on his/her head. Each hair grows about 5 inches (12.7 cm) every year.
• There are 60,000 miles (97,000 km) in blood vessels in every human.
Amazing Facts About the Universe
This article is a collection of amazing facts about the universe in increasing order of awesomeness. Universe we live in, is a beautifully awesome, enigmatic place, infinite in extent and full of mysteries! Read and stay awed!
The Universe is the totality of all space, time, matter and energy. Our earth is a tiny island of matter and energy, in the vast ocean of space time, which the universe is! Just as they say, truth is stranger than fiction and so it is with the universe. The things that our scientists have found in the vast realms beyond our planet are unbelievable and beyond imagination. This article is a compilation of some astounding and amazing facts about the universe, which will bamboozle you! To know about the origin of the universe, read, 'How was the Universe Created'?
Astounding and Amazing Facts About the Universe:
The universe as we know it to be, is an amazing and astounding place, full of surprises. Amazing facts about earth or interesting facts about the solar system, just pale in comparison to the grandeur and vastness of the rest of the universe. Let us know some amazing facts about the world and the ocean of space time that we float in!
Amazing Facts About the Universe: Galaxies:
Here are some amazing facts about huge island of matter and energy called galaxy, that we live in!
Galaxies are spiraling whirlpools of matter and energy, which are like small oasis in the vast empty spaces of our universe. We live in one such galaxy, which we call the Milky Way!
One light year is the distance traveled by light in a year and it amounts to about 9.4605284 × 1015 meters! Our Milky way galaxy disk is about 100,000 light years in diameter and about 1000 light years thick! It has up to 400 billion stars like our Sun!
There are estimated to be about 100 billion such galaxies in the universe. The nearest spiral galaxy to our milky way is the Andromeda galaxy, which is 2.6 million light years away! This galaxy is on a collision course with our galaxy, and will collide with it in some billion years!
At the center of every galaxy, there resides a massive black hole! Even our Milky way galaxy has a massive black hole in its center.
For more on this read, 'Facts About Milky Way - The Galaxy'
Amazing Facts About the Universe: Black Holes
Here are some amazing facts about the strangest objects in the universe called 'Black Holes'.
Black Holes form, when stars much larger than our Sun, run out of their fuel and collapse under their own gravity to zero volume, forming a hole in the fabric of space time!
When it comes to black holes, the line from Dante's 'Divine Comedy', 'All hope abandon ye who enter here' is actually true! Nothing can escape the phenomenal and unsurpassed gravitational pull of a black hole, not even light!
The boundary of black holes is called 'Event Horizon'. The surface area of this event horizon is directly proportion to the entropy inside a black hole! Entropy is the measure of disorder in a system.
Black Holes are not entirely black. They emit radiation called 'Hawking radiation' and eventually disappear!
To Know more on this read, 'Getting into Black Holes'.
Amazing Facts About the Universe: Pulsars
Here are some amazing facts about the 'pulsating stars' or 'Pulsars'
Pulsars are rotating neutron stars with huge magnetic fields, which emit electromagnetic radiation. They are formed from the core of a star exploding in a supernova!
A pulsar is like a light house. Just as the light house beam passes periodically in front of us, the pulsar pulses pass our earth every 1.4 milliseconds to 8.5 seconds. This is because they are rotating at phenomenal speeds, while they emit radiation!
When they were first discovered, the periodic nature of their radiation out put was mistaken for a signal from an alien civilization! In fact, the first pulsar source was dubbed 'LGM' standing for 'Little Green Men'!
Amazing Facts About the Universe: Quasars
Here are some amazing facts about objects with the most phenomenal energy output called 'Quasars'.
Quasars (Quasi-stellar objects) were first mistaken to be stars, but later they were discovered to be galaxies. They have a very high redshift, which means that they are traveling at a speed close to the speed of light!
Quasars are the very distant and most energetic galaxies, with an energy output unsurpassed by any other object in the universe. The energy out put of a quasars is the same as about 1 trillion (1012) Suns!
At the central core of the quasar, is a super-massive black hole, which is swallowing gas and dust, as it courses through space. The energy is thought to be emitted by the in falling matter, as it heats up!
Hope these amazing facts about the universe have intrigued you and fueled your curiosity and imagination to learn more about astronomy. Just get a telescope and take a look at the world beyond our earth, to see the grandeur of our universe, through your own eyes!
Amazing Animal Facts:
1. Penguins can jump 6 feet in the air.
2. A group of Kangaroos is called a mob.
3. A young Kangaroo is called a Joey.
4. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards.
5. Beavers can hold their breathe for 45 minutes under water.
6. The smallest bird in the world is the Humming Bird. It weighs less than 1 oz (or 28g).
7. A bear can run at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour (48 km/h).
8. Elephants are the only animal that can’t jump.
9. Polar bears are left handed.
10. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
11. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
12. Tigers have striped skin not just striped fur.
13. Reindeer eat moss because it contains a chemical that stops their body from freezing.
14.The coyote’s scientific name (Canis Latrans) means ‘barking dog’.
15. Snakes can see through their eyelids.
16. A Woodpecker can peck 20 times per second.
17. Woodpeckers don’t get headaches from all that pecking. Their skulls have air pockets to cushion the brain.
18. The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head 360 degrees.
19. Butterflies tast sensors are in their feet. They taste their food by standing on it.
20. Katydids have ears in their front legs.
21. The strongest animal in the world is the rhinoceros beetle. It can lift 850 times its own weight.
22. Flamingos are pink because shrimp is one of their main sources of food.
23. The flying frog uses flaps of skin between its toes to glide.
24. The slowest mammal on earth is the tree sloth. It only moves at a speed of 6 feet (1.83 meters) per minute.
25. The Chameleon’s tongue is as long as its body.
26. The Chameleon can focus its eyes seperately to watch two objects at once.
27. The Kangaroo’s ancestors lived in trees. Today there are eight different kinds of tree kangaroos.
28. Flamingos eat with their heads upside down to strain the water out of their food.
29. Many snakes never stop growing. That’s one reason they must shed their skin.
30. The Artic Tern flies from the North Pole to the South Pole and then back again to spend summer in each place.
31. The black bulldog ant from Australia is the most dangerous ant in the world. It stings and bites at the same time and has killed humans.
32. A hippopotamus can stay under water for up to 30 minutes.
33. The Basenji is the only dog which does not bark.
34. Armadillos, opossums and sloths spend up to 80 percent of their lives sleeping
Facts About Plants:
A notch in a tree will remain the same distance from the ground as the tree grows.
Banana oil is made from petroleum.
84% of a raw apple and 96% of a raw cucumber is water.
The largest single flower is the Rafflesia or “corpse flower”. They are generally 3 feet in diameter with the record being 42 inches.
Onions contain a mild antibiotic that fights infections, soothes burns, tames bee stings and relieves the itch of athletes foot.
Quinine, one of the most important drugs known to man, is obtained from the dried bark of an evergreen tree native to South America.
The rose family of plants, in addition to flowers, gives us apples, pears, plums, cherries, almonds, peaches and apricots.
No species of wild plant produces a flower or blossom that is absolutely black, and so far, none has been developed artificially.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
The bright orange color of carrots tell you they are an excellent source of Vitamin A which is important for good eyesight, especially at night. Vitamin A helps your body fight infection, and keeps your skin and hair healthy.
A plant’s stem appears and grows upward shortly after the primary root appears. It continues to grow above ground level.
Water and minerals flow upward through the roots into the stem of the plant and then into the leaves of the plant.
Pistils have three parts – the stigma, the style, and the ovary.
Petals are usually colorful, and they attract insects and birds that help with pollination.
Fruit is really the part of a flower in which seeds grow. Cherries, apples, and even milkweed pods are fruit.
Buds are small swellings on a plant from which a shoot, leaf, or flower usually develops.
The primary root is the first thing to sprout from a seed, and it grows downward.
A seed contains its own food supply, which helps the sprouting plant as it begins its new life.
Roots are covered with root hairs that absorb water and minerals.
Grapes and clematis have stems that climb with tendrils, which hold onto a surface, as the stems get longer.
