Did you know?

25 August 2026

1. 01

   Saturn's axis is tilted about 27 degrees, close to Earth's own tilt, which gives the ringed planet real seasons over its 29-year orbit around the Sun.

2. 02

   The Milky Way and the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy are drifting toward each other and are expected to merge several billion years from now.

3. 03

   Mars has two small, irregularly shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos, thought to be asteroids captured by the planet's gravity long ago.

4. 04

   Some neutron stars, the crushed cores of collapsed giant stars, spin on their axis hundreds of times every second.

5. 05

   Because the Moon has no wind, water or atmosphere to erode them, the footprints left by Apollo astronauts could remain visible for millions of years.

6. 06

   Although the asteroid belt contains millions of objects, they are spread across so much space that spacecraft have flown through it with almost no risk of collision.

7. 07

   Diamond conducts heat better than metals such as copper or silver, even though it does not conduct electricity.

8. 08

   Light slows down when it passes through glass or water compared with empty space, which is why objects can look bent or shifted underwater.

9. 09

   At normal atmospheric pressure, helium is the only element that cannot be frozen solid, no matter how cold it gets.

10. 10

    A rainbow is actually a complete circle of light; standing on the ground, we normally only see the arc above the horizon.

11. 11

    Pure gold is non-toxic to eat, which is why thin gold leaf is sometimes used as a decorative garnish on food and drinks.

12. 12

    The Dead Sea is roughly ten times saltier than the ocean, which is why swimmers float on its surface with almost no effort.

13. 13

    The Amazon River discharges more freshwater into the ocean than the next seven largest rivers in the world combined.

14. 14

    Angel Falls in Venezuela is the world's tallest waterfall, with water dropping nearly 1,000 meters from the top.

15. 15

    Earth's magnetic north and south poles have completely swapped places hundreds of times over the planet's history.

16. 16

    Most of the world's earthquakes and active volcanoes are concentrated along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped belt circling the Pacific Ocean.

17. 17

    Bats are the only mammals capable of true, sustained flight, using thin skin stretched between elongated finger bones as wings.

18. 18

    Trees in a forest can share nutrients and water with each other through underground networks of fungal threads connected to their roots.

19. 19

    Flamingo chicks are born grey; their feathers turn pink only because of pigments in the algae and shrimp that adult birds eat.

20. 20

    A cockroach can survive for about a week without its head, since it breathes through holes in its body and eventually dies of thirst rather than the injury.

21. 21

    Sea otters use rocks as tools, floating on their backs and striking shellfish against the stone to crack them open.

22. 22

    An average adult heart beats about 100,000 times a day.

23. 23

    Individual taste bud cells are replaced roughly every one to two weeks throughout a person's life.

24. 24

    The adult human body is estimated to contain about 37 trillion cells.

25. 25

    In 1947, engineers working on the Harvard Mark II computer found a real moth trapped in the machine causing a malfunction, popularising the term "computer bug."

26. 26

    GPS satellites must correct their onboard clocks for the effects of relativity, or the time signals they send would drift and location readings would quickly become inaccurate.

27. 27

    The spiral data track on a standard music CD, if uncoiled, would stretch about 5 kilometers long.

28. 28

    Sound cannot travel through the vacuum of space because there are no molecules there to carry the vibrations.

29. 29

    Some giant sequoia trees are estimated to be more than 3,000 years old, making them among the oldest living organisms on Earth.