When a massive power outage struck southern California in the 1990s, Los Angeles residents reportedly called 911 to express alarm about strange clouds hovering overhead; they were seeing the Milky Way for the first time.
31
The light hitting the earth right now is 30 thousand years old.
163
There are 5 to 10 times more stars in the known Universe than there are grains of sand on all the world's beaches, but a single grain of sand has more atoms than there are stars in the known Universe.
20
On Titan, Saturn's largest moon, the atmosphere is so thick and the gravity so low that humans could fly through it by flapping "wings" attached to their arms.
7
The last time that the Sun was in its current position in space around the Milky Way, dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
10
Tidal forces between the Earth and Moon are slowing the Earth down and pushing the Moon further away.
46
The Space Shuttle main engine weighs 1/7th as much as a train engine but delivers as much horsepower as 39 locomotives.
147