Interesting Facts

Highest mountains

2008-09-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

People used to think that Kangchenjunga was the world’s highest mountain. Then the great Trgnometrical survey of India was completed, which measured all the country’s land features. The survey showed that Everest was the world’s highest mountain. The mountain name was suggested in 1865 as a tribute to sir George Everest, the surveyor general of

India

, who had led the survey.

Mountain	Location	Height(m)
1. Everest	Nepal	8,850
2. K2	Pakistan/china	8,607
3. Kangchenjunga	Nepal/India	8,598
4. Lhotse	Nepal/china	8,511
5. Makalu	Nepal/china	8,481

Geysers

2008-08-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

Geysers are jets of boiling water and steam that erupt from beneath the ground where water is heated by volcanic activity. USA has more geysers than anywhere else. There are 500 active once including steamboat geyser, which erupts to a height of 120 m.

Artificial Satellites

2008-08-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

The USSR’s sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to enter Earth’s orbit. This 83.6kg metal sphere transmitted signals back to earth for three weeks before its batteries failed. In 1958 the

usa

began to launch its own satellites. Five went into orbit, including SCORE which transmitted back to earth a pre recorded Christmas message from president Eisenhower. All of the earliest satellites have since crashed bask to earth, except Vangaurd 1 which is still in space and likely to remain so for another 200 years.

Planets visited by Aircrafts

2008-07-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

No human has yet set foot on any space body other than earth and the moon. But unmanned spacecrafts have taken photographs, made scientific readings, and gathered data either by flying past or landing. Pluto is scheduled for its first visit in 2015.

Astronomers have never seen this side of Mercury until now. The image was taken from a Nasa spacecraft 125 miles away

** Longest space walk **

The record for the longest ever space walk was broken from 10-11 march 2001, when mission specialist James voss and Susan Helms stepped outside space shuttle “discovery STS-102” to do construction work on the space station. Their EVA (extra vehicular activity) lasted 8 hours and 56 minutes.

Our Moon

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Earth’s moon is the most familiar and also the largest satellite in relation to its planet in the entire solar system. It is the first body in the solar system on which vehicles from earth landed, and the only one to be explored by humans.

** The only human that remained on the moon was geologist Eugene Shoemaker who was an expert on planetary collision. His ashes were carried aboard NASA’s lunar prospector spacecraft, which was crashed into a crater on 31 July 1999 **

Is there a 10th Planet?

2008-07-08T20:46:00.000-07:00

Astronomers think they have discovered another planet. In 2005, Palomar Observatory ,USA ,spotted a rocky object in the most distant part of the solar system. Its official name is 2003 UB313 but it has been nicknamed Xena. The planet might be 3,000 Km in diameter, which is larger than Pluto. It has at least one moon.

Number 13

2008-07-02T05:53:00.000-07:00

The belief that no. 13 is unlucky comes from time immemorial. The Romans believed that no 13 was a symbol of death and destruction. The Norse people who lived in ancient medieval Scandinavia or modern Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark believed that the 13^th guest at a feast is a spirit of evil. The Christian belief that the no 13 brings bad luck comes from the painting the “Last supper”(Leonardo da Vinci), when Christ sat down with his 12 disciples-making 13 people, the day before he was crucified. It is also believed that the first person to leave a dinner table at which there are 13 dinners will die before the end of the year. The popularities of these believes in Italy can be seen as Paris has no building that bears the no. 13. Also

Italy

omits the no 13 from its national lottery.

Some instances that suggest that 13 is in fact an unlucky number are as follows-

The 13^th Apollo space mission was known as Apollo 13. On 13 April 1917 there was a explosion on board and the space craft began to leak oxygen. This happened 2 days after it took off at 13:13 Hr. the spacecraft only just made it to back to earth.
On Friday 13 September 1928, a hurricane killed 2000 people in Puerto Rico, Florida and the Virgin Islands and caused approximately $25 million worth of damage.
The 13 of the month costs the usa about $ 1 billion a year through cancellations on trains and plane, absenteeism from work and reduced business activities.

Traveling at the speed of light

2008-06-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

In space, light travels at a speed of 299,792.46 km a second. When we look at even the nearest star, what we are seeing is light that left it more than four years ago. Many stars are so far away that If someone could stand on one 65 million light years away and look at the earth, they would see light that left at the time the dinosaurs became extinct. And from a distance of 4.7 billion light years they could watch the earth and sun being formed!

Twinkle twinkle little star

2008-06-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

Stars seems to twinkle because we see them through the layers of earth’s atmosphere. As light passes through these layers, it is distorted so that the amount wee actually see changes constantly. Stars do not twinkle when viewed from space, which is why telescope in space, such as hubble, give the best possible view of the distant stars and galaxies.

The reason why Planets do not twinkle is that planets are nearer to us and appear to be bigger in size, thus they are considered as expanded sources of light rather than point sources of light as in case of stars. Or planets are also considered as a collection of many point sized sources of energy. So the total amount of twinkling effect in a planet averages out to be zero.

Names of the months

2008-06-25T05:35:00.000-07:00

The names of the months in English came from Latin words.

January

Januarius – this month was dedicated to janus. The roman god of doors. Janus had two faces, one looking back at the old year and the other looking to the new year.

July

Julius – after Julius Caesar. This month was named in caeser’s honour by mark antony in 44 BC. Previously this month was called Quintilis from the word quintus, five, as it was the fifth month in the roman calendar.

February

Februarius - Februa was the roman purification festival, which took place at this time of year.

August

Augustus – named in 8 BC in honour of Emperor Augustus.

March

Martius - from mars, The roman god of war

September

Septem – means seven, as it was the seventh month in the roman calendar.

April

Aprilis – from aperire, latin for open, because plants begin to open during this month.

October

Octo – eight (as in octopus, which has eight legs) the eighth month of the roman calendar.

May

Malius – probably comes from mala, the roman goddess of growth and increase.

November

Novem – nine,the ninth month of the roman calendar.

June

Junius – either from a roman family name junius, or perhaps after the goddess juno.

December

Decem – ten, the tenth month of the roman calendar.

Mythical creatures

2008-06-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

Almost every culture on earth has legends full of imaginary which are either part human or part animal; while others are unlike anything we know.

Centaurs – A centaur is a half horse and half man, with the head and arms of the man and the body of the horse. This myth arose in northern Greece, perhaps due to the skillful horsemanship of the people there. These incredible beasts made there way into modern adaptations like Harry potter, the chronicles of Narnia etc

Dragons - These are perhaps the most popular mythical creatures which appear in the legends of many cultures, especially china, where the dragon was the symbol of the emperor. In legends dragons often guard the cave of treasures.

Fairies – Fairies also features in many tales. They are usually sweet, kindly creatures. In the middle ages, however, people believed that fairies stole children and replaced them with fairy beings known as changelings.

Giants – Giants or ogres are enormous human shaped creature. They are usually seen as fearsome but stupid monsters that feed on human flesh.

Leprechauns – They are small Irish creatures who are believed to bring good luck. They are helpful creature usually shown wearing green clothes and a red cap. They always protect their cauldron full of gold coins which is believed to be kept at the end point of the rainbow

Mermaids – Mermaids are beautiful creatures with the head and body of a women and the tail of a fish. The little mermaid by Walt Disney is a popular adaptation of the legend.

Trolls – Trolls are ugly and rather dumb creatures in Scandinavian folklore. They are said to steal sleeping children, sometimes replacing them with one of their own. Trolls have poor eyesight and are active only at night because sunlight turns them to stone.

Unicorns – a unicorn has the body of a horse, a lion’s tail, a goat’s beard, an antelope’s legs and a single, often twisted, horn growing from his forehead. The unicorn is a popular subject in medieval stories. It is fierce but divine and can purify water or neutralize poison. The way to catch a unicorn is to use a young girl as bait, as a unicorn will lie down peacefully next to a maiden. In the bestseller series,”Harry Potter” it is considered that drinking unicorn’s blood give’s life, but a horrible one.

Vampires – Vampires are the “undead” who drink the blood of the living to survive. Vampires are often related to bats. Ideas about vampires include the belief that plunging a wooden stake through a vampire’s heart can destroy it. Some people also think that garlic, holy water, crosses and bibles can provide protection against vampires. And that a vampire can’t enter a home unless invited. The most popular vampire is undoubtedly the Transylvanian, Count Dracula.

Werewolf – Werewolves are creatures in the folk tails of many cultures. They usually appear as man by day but may turn into wolves on the night of the full moons. The werewolf is blood thirsty and ruthless. It devours its pray and shows none of the remorse that it might have felt in human form.

Calendar problem

2008-06-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

Some non-catholic countries such as Britain refused to adopt the Gregorian calendar at first. The julian calendar previously used in Britain was based on a solar year, the time taken for the earth to rotate around the sun. This is 365.25 days, which is fractionally too long (395.24219), so the calendar steadily fell out of line with the seasons. In 1752 Britain decided to correct this by abandoning the julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian calendar. By doing so, 3 September instantly became 14 September – and, as a result nothing whatsoever happened in british history between 3 and 13 september 1752. Many people believed their lives would be shortened. They protested in the streets, demanding,”Give us back our 11 days”.

Gregorian calendar

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The Gregorian calendar is the one most used now a days. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII who introduced it in 1582. There is a leap year every four years ( or more precisely, 97 leap years every 400 years). This means that the year corresponds closely with the astronomical year so that it is just one day out in every 3,300 years.

In Gregorian calendar, July and August have same no. of days because Augustus ceaser wanted to be equivalent of julius caeser so 1 day was taken out of february to make august of 31 days.

Leap seconds

2008-06-12T02:35:00.000-07:00

The rotation of the earth is slowing down. This means that a solar day and the time shown by the atomic clock would gradually diverge. This problem has been solved by adding “leap seconds”. There have been 22 leap seconds since 1972. The last one was added on 31 December 2005 which delayed new year’s day by one second.

Just a second

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A second does not sound very long, but by the time you have read this sentence, almost five of them will have gone by. Watch an average length film and 5,000 seconds will tick away. In a lifetime of 80 years, there are more than 2.5 billion seconds – but you will spend more than 800 million of them asleep!

The world in a single day

2008-05-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

In one day (24 hours 1440 minutes or 86,400 seconds) the world turns once on its axis, on average:

358,522 people are born
155,012 people die
203,510 are added to the world’s population.

The universe in a year!

2008-05-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

The American astronomer Carl sagan first suggested a “comic calendar” as a way of helping people understand the history of the universe. He put everything into the scale of a calendar year:

The Galaxies are formed over nine months and the earth appears in September. All human history is crowded into the last five minutes of the last day of the year. Recent time has to be devided into seconds and fraction of seconds. So everything that happened over the last 475 years takes place in less than the last second of the last minute of the year.

Date/time	Event
1 Jan (midnight)	Big Bang – Universe forms
15 march	First stars and galaxies form
1 may	Milky way galaxy forms
8 sep	Sun forms
9 sep	Solar system forms
12 sep	Earth forms
13 sep	Moon forms
20 sep	Earth’s atmosphere forms
1 oct	Earliest known life on earth
7 oct	Earliest known fossil
18 dec	First multi cell life formed
19 dec	First fish
21 dec	First land plant: first insect
23 dec	First reptiles
24 dec	First dinosaurs
26 dec	First mammals
27 dec	First birds
28 dec	First flowering plants
28 dec	Dinosaurs extinct
31 dec(11:55 pm)	Homo Sapiens (Humans) appears