Astronomer Percival Lowell believed that he was the first person to observe canals on Venus, but because of a faulty adjustment of the eyepiece on his telescope, he was in fact looking at the blood vessels in his own eye.
4
The Sun and Moon appear to be the same size because the moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, but 400 times closer to Earth.
13
The earth rotates more slowly on its axis in March than in September.
145
An unprotected human can survive up to 1.5 minutes in space with no permanent bodily damage.
82
Earth is the only planet in our solar system that's not named after a god or goddess.
17
An international team of astronomers has spotted the farthest known gravitational lens and, as Albert Einstein predicted, it is a galaxy that deflects and intensifies the light of a much further object.
9
Neil Armstrong, the first man to step foot on the moon, carried with him a piece of cloth and wood from the original 1903 Wright Flyer.
12