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.
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The Earth sees about 760 thunderstorms every hour, scientists have calculated.
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The light hitting the earth right now is 30 thousand years old.
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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
A single speck of dust is half way in size between a subatomic particle and the Earth.
15
Ants make up 1/10 of the total world animal tissue. The total biomass of all the ants on Earth is about equal to the total biomass of all the people.
85
More than a dozen men have stood on the surface of the moon, but only three have been to Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, the deepest known spot in the ocean.
17
In 1859, the largest known geomagnetic storm struck the Caribbean, causing an aurora and telegraphs could even operate without a power source.
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