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1921/ If the sun were the
size of the dot over a letter "i", the nearest star
would be a dot 10 miles away.
1922/ A faculae is an
area on the surface of a star that appears brighter by comparison
to surrounding regions.
1923/ Mercury orbits
the sun faster than any other planet, completing one revolution
in 88 days
1924/ Venus is often
referred to as Earth's "sister-planet" because it
comes very close to Earth in size and total mass.
1925/ A globular cluster
may contain over 10,000 stars across only 100 light-years.
1926/ One parsec is equal
to 19.2 million million miles.
1927/ Absolute Magnitude
is the magnitude that any star would have if it were placed
exactly 10 parsecs from the observer.
1928/ The 200-inch mirror
for the telescope on Palomar Mountain weights over 14 tons
and is 27-inches thick. The telescope gathers 640,000 times
as much light as the human eye.
1929/ A light ray travels
5.88 trillion miles a year in space. If a star is 10 light-years
away, it is about 60 trillion miles distant.
1930/ The World's oldest
village was discovered in the parched bed on the southwestern
shore of the Sea of Galilee and dates to the end of the early
Stone Age. Archaeologists believe the settlement to be over
20,000 years old.
1931/ The largest recorded
snowflake was 38cm x 20cm and fell at Fort Keogh, Montana
USA, 28th January 1887.
1932/ The ancient city
of Venice is set on 117 islands in a lagoon. Instead of streets
there are 177 canals, plied by boats called gondolas.
1933/ Estimates suggest
that 7% of the world's top soil is lost each year.
1934/ The ice worm, less
than an inch long, lives on the pollens, insects, minerals
and bacteria blown onto the surface of glaciers by the wind.
1935/ It takes 30-40
years for snow to form dense glacier ice. There are nearly
100,000 glaciers in Alaska, and most of them don't have names.
1936/ The world's longest
glacier is the Lambert Glacier in Australian Antarctic Territory.
At its widest, is 64km, and with its seaward extension, the
Amery Ice shelf, at least 700 km long.
1937/ The San Francisco
earthquake and fire of 18th April 1906 caused the deaths of
around 700 people, obliterated 500 city blocks and caused
$500 million of damage.
1938/ Auroral displays
occur between altitudes of 60 and 600 miles, where Earth's
atmosphere thins. Typical ones are hundreds of miles high
but often less than a mile wide, and their most common colour
is green.
1939/ About 51% of incoming
solar radiation is absorbed by the earth's surface and 14%
absorbed by the atmosphere.
1940/ The amount of water
vapour in the atmosphere is about 14,000 cubic km. This is
about one ten thousandth of the total volume of the Earth's
surface waters.
Click on the links below for more great
facts...
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