It takes a photon 170,000 years to travel from the core of the Sun to the surface, but only 8 minutes to travel the rest of the way to Earth.
6
If Earth's history was condensed into twenty-four hours, life would've appeared at around 4am, land plants at 10:24pm, dinosaur extinction at 11:41pm, and human history would’ve began at 11:58:43pm.
21
In 1859, the largest known geomagnetic storm struck the Caribbean, causing an aurora and telegraphs could even operate without a power source.
25
The North Atlantic gets 2.5 centimetres (1in) wider every year.
119
In 1963, the US Military created an artificial ring around Earth, similar to that of the planet Saturn. The ring was made of copper needles and was used for worldwide communications in the case that the Soviets disabled all other methods of communication.
26
According to a study by the National Science Foundation, only half of Americans believe in evolution, and one in 4 don't know that the Earth orbits the Sun.
14
Earth is the only planet in our solar system that's not named after a god or goddess.
17