The human eye is so sensitive that if the Earth were flat and it was a night, a candle’s flame could be seen from 30 miles away.
100 Mind-Blowing Away Facts
Volvo invented the three-point seatbelt and then gave the invention away for free. They decided it was too important of an invention to keep to themselves.
An 18-year-old with dwarfism played the 8-year-old Grinch in The Grinch (2000). He passed away two years after the film was released.
It’s believed that Orlando Bloom has swinophobia, which is a fear of pigs! He was seen running away from a pig on the set of Kingdom of Heaven.
To keep Nazis away, a Polish doctor faked a typhus outbreak. This strategy saved 8,000 people.
Whenever Charles Dickens was away from home, he would always realign the bed he was sleeping in to face Northwards, as he felt that this fostered and unlocked his creativity.
Snakes can help predict Earthquakes. They can sense a coming Earthquake from 75 miles away, up to five days before it happens.
Calling “shotgun” when riding in a car comes from the term “shotgun messenger.” This term was used to refer to the guard who sat next to the Stagecoach driver. The guards would use a shotgun to keep robbers and criminals away. It made its way into society due to Hollywood’s love of Western flicks.
Hanson made a beer called “Mmmhops.” They give away a free song with every bottle.
If your throat tickles, scratching your ear can make it go away.
Your nails grow faster in hot summer. This is probably due to increased blood supply to the fingertips. It could also be because you’re less stressed while on holiday so less likely to gnaw away at ‘em.
There’s a planet mostly made from diamonds. Called 55 Cancrie, it’s around twice the size of Earth and some 40 light-years away from us within the Cancer constellation.
Mercury, not Venus, is the closest planet to Earth on average. On average, Mercury is 1.04 astronomical units (AU) away from Earth compared to the 1.14 AU average distance between Earth and Venus. One AU is equal to the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. Venus still comes closest to Earth as part of its orbit around the Sun, however.
Sunsets only exist because Earth’s atmosphere acts as a prism for light. In scientific terms, it’s called “scattering”. a) Molecules and particles in the atmosphere (which are more numerous at sunset) scatter short-wavelength violet and blue light away from your eyes, so we can see the other colours on the spectrum, like yellow and orange.
A tiger’s roar can be heard up to two miles away.
The Earth is 147.2 million kilometres away from the Sun, and it’s about 4.5 billion years old. That’s some serious heritage.
To determine how far away a lightning storm is from you, National Geographic Kids says you can count the seconds between the flash and the crack and watch for the flash of lightning from a safe location. Time how many seconds elapse before you hear thunder. Divide the number of seconds by five and the answer is the approximate number of miles away.
Roller coasters were invented to distract Americans from sin. In the 1880s, hosiery businessman LaMarcus Thompson hated that Americans were tempted by hedonistic places like saloons and brothels. So he set out to straighten up one of the most immoral places he could think of: Coney Island in New York. There, he built America’s first roller coaster to give New Yorkers some good, clean fun—away from seedier pastimes.
The Statue of Liberty used to be a lighthouse. About a month after the statue’s 1886 dedication, it became a working lighthouse for 16 years, with its torch visible from 24 miles away.
William McKinley was shot right after giving away his good-luck charm. President McKinley always wore a red carnation for good luck but sometimes gave it out as a memento. When greeting the crowd in 1901, he handed a 12-year-old girl, Myrtle, his the bloom off his lapel, saying “I must give this flower to another little flower.” Minutes later, he was fatally shot by a man in the crowd.
You can see four states from the top of Chicago’s Willis Tower. From the top of the former Sears Tower on a clear day, you can see about 40 to 50 miles away—beyond Illinois and out to Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
In 2014, there was a Tinder match in Antarctica. Two research scientists matched on the global dating app in the most remote part of the world – a man working at the United States Antarctic McMurdo Station and a woman camping a 45-minute helicopter ride away. What are the chances?!
You can hear a blue whale’s heartbeat from over 2 miles away. Blue whales weigh an average of between 130,000 and 150,000kg, with their hearts weighing roughly 180kg.
Sleep cleanses your brain. When we sleep, more cerebrospinal fluid flushes through the brain to wash away the day’s worth of harmful, excess proteins and toxins. Think about that on your next Netflix binge.
The Eiffel Tower leans away from the sun. Heat makes metals expand. As such, the top of the Eiffel Tower can move up to 7 inches in the summer.
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone. The Ancient Egyptians used wooden or stone headrests as pillows. They believed it helped with body vigour, blood circulation, and warding away demons.
A blue whale’s heartbeat can be heard from two miles away. Contrary to popular belief, a blue whale’s heart isn’t as big as a Volkswagen beetle. However, it is still huge at 5 ft in length, 4 ft in width, and standing at 5 ft tall. This massive organ weighs about 181 kg.
Cows have “best friends” and will get stressed when separated. If a cow is taken away from her “best friend,” her stress levels will decrease her milk yields. Surprisingly, cows are not the only species that form attachments to certain companions. The “best friend” preference is also observed in certain bats, elephants, chimps, and dolphins.
The design for the seatbelts we use now was given away by Volvo. Before 1966, seatbelts were not mandated. During this period, seatbelts just secured the lap but offered no upper-body protection. When Nils Bohlin of Volvo invented the three-point seatbelt design, he gave away the patent for free to keep drivers safe.
The first commercial aeroplane flight lasted 23 minutes. In 1914, Abram Pheil paid $400 (the current equivalent of $8,500) for a 23-minute plane ride. Pheil flew between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, which was only 21 miles away from each other.
A candle’s flame is hot and blue in zero gravity. Diffusion feeds the flame with oxygen. This then allows carbon dioxide to move away from the point of combustion.
The bones of the human body can multiply in density. This occurs in very extreme cases. People who have been discovered to have this rare gene mutation have cases of walking away from car accidents and other impact injuries without fractures.
Timothy Leary escaped prison. Rather than break out, he simply walked away from the minimum-security prison he had been placed in since 1970. He then later changed out of his prison uniform at a nearby gas station.
Many pets from the U.S. run away on July 4th. This is highly due to their fear of fireworks during America’s Day of Independence.
Charles Darwin’s pet turtle outlived him. The turtle named Harriet lived 124 years after Darwin’s death. It was 176 years old by the time it passed away.
Snakes can predict Earthquakes. Studies have found that most species of snakes can detect Earthquakes before they occur. They are also able to sense quakes that occur as far as 75 miles away and up to five days away. I guess you could say, they’re just that down to Earth.
Playing dance music helps ward off mosquitoes. According to a study in 2019, the song ‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’ contains both low and high frequencies that yellow fever mosquitoes dislike. Just dance the mosquitoes away.
An eagle is capable of killing a young deer and flying away with it. Bald eagles especially are one of the strongest and most aggressive species of eagles. These birds are capable of swooping in and carrying away your baby.
The roar of a lion can be heard up to 5 miles away. Its roar is about 114 decibels. This is roughly 25 times louder than a gas-powered lawnmower.
A Norwegian Island made dying illegal. It is illegal to die in Svalbard because they are unable to safely bury the deceased due to the permafrost ground. When people on this island are about to die, they are brought to mainland Norway to pass away there.
A Polish doctor once faked an outbreak to keep the Nazis away. Eugene Lazowski announced that there was a typhus outbreak that ended up saving over 8,000 people during the Second World War. At the time, this was considered to be a smart move because Lazowski decided to tug on the German’s phobias about hygiene.
Kangaroos never stop growing. From birth, they will continue to grow until they pass away. They are also the largest marsupials on the planet.
The moon is moving away from the Earth. 85 million years ago, the moon orbits between the Moon and Earth were only 35 feet away from the planet’s surface.
Soap is used for cleaning because its molecules trap dirt in the centre of its compound when in water. Soap cleans by acting as a surfactant and emulsifier. It can surround oil, making it easier to rinse it away with water.
The word ‘testify’ comes from an ancient Roman practice. This practice made the men swear on their testicles when in court. This would force them to speak the truth or risk having their testicles taken away.
The heartbeat of a blue whale can be heard from two miles away. This mammal is the largest on the entire planet and weighs over 150 tons. Its heart is roughly the size of a small car and weighs over 1,300 pounds. The blue whale’s heart only beats 8-10 times per minute.
A fly will always launch backwards to get away faster. Fruit flies can turn midair by shrugging their shoulders. Research has also found that a fly can process information at a much faster speed compared to humans. The average fly can process the ongoings of its surroundings seven times faster than a human being can.
The filmmakers of Saw paid for Jigsaw to have its seat. Jigsaw the puppet is the face of the grisly Saw franchise. Whether you’re a sadist who enjoyed the films or you’re one of the people who just looked away, one of the interesting facts about Saw is that Jigsaw once got its plane seat. James Wan and Leigh Whannell paid for Jigsaw to have a seat on a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles. Imagine how its seatmate felt!
A lit candle creates 1 million tiny diamonds per second. According to a 2011 study, 1.5 million diamond nanoparticles are created by a candle’s flame for each second it burns. However, the nanoparticles are quickly burned away by the flame.
People have tried to sue God. Again, it sounds like one of the made-up funny facts, but people have filed lawsuits against God – for reasons you can imagine. Negligence, failure to keep people away from the Devil, and other harmful acts of God are quoted in most of these cases.
Friday the 13th was filmed at an actual camp, and people kept scaring campers away. Camp Crystal Lake might be fictional, but it was shot in a fully functional summer camp. Because of Friday the 13th, people used to scare children away from the camp to the point that the Camp Nobebosco website used to have a disclaimer against using the film to scare kids.
Ants can’t die from falling. Because of their body proportions and tough exoskeleton, an ant’s terminal velocity isn’t enough to kill or hurt it on impact. They can survive being dropped from the Empire State Building and walk away unharmed.
The human heart can squirt blood 30 feet away. When the heart pumps blood throughout our system, it creates pressure so strong that when our arteries face sudden trauma, blood squirts out.
A pharaoh once bathed his slaves in honey to keep bugs away from him. Whenever King Pepi II would get bothered by insects, he would command that one of his servants be covered in honey to lure the bugs away from him.
Scientists detected a radio signal in space from 5 billion light-years away. 5 billion light-years mean the Earth did not exist at the time the source transmitted it! How strange.
Human beings share 99.9 per cent of the same genes. You’re just 0.1% different from the person you hate the most. However, you’re just 0.1% away from being Beyonce.
The loudest burp in the world is louder than a chainsaw. Have you ever woken up annoyed at the construction ongoing near your flat, or your neighbour blasting music? If yes, then you’d better stay away from Paul Hunn – or at least be out of earshot. Hunn made the world record for the world’s loudest burp which clocked in at 109.9 decibels. If you have no idea how loud that is, an average chainsaw is 106 decibels loud, while a jackhammer is 130 decibels. That’s probably the loudest of these WTF facts.
You can’t bring a Furby to the Pentagon. Since its release in 1998, Furbies have been a staple in the toy industry. You may find them adorable or creepy, but one thing for sure is that the American government doesn’t trust them. If you’ve ever encountered conspiracy theories about satanic Furbies, you’d be surprised that Furbies are banned from the Pentagon. One of Furby’s main features is speech imitation. Since most (if not all) of the communications in the Pentagon are confidential, they can’t risk a rogue Furby leaking everything to the public. As of 1999, the National Security Agency has banned Furbies from the Pentagon. See for yourself if a Furby would give away all of your secrets.
Space is only 62 miles away.
The film’s realism makes it difficult to watch. “Schindler’s List” does not shy away from depicting the brutal realities of the Holocaust, making it a challenging but essential viewing experience.
To keep Nazis away, a Polish doctor faked a typhus outbreak that saved more than 8,000 people.
A skunk’s smell can be detected by a human a mile away.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet (2 m) away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
A lion’s roar can be heard from five miles away.
A lion’s roar can be heard from as far as five miles (eight kilometres) away, making it one of the loudest roars in the animal kingdom.
A lion’s roar can help establish and defend its territory, warning other lions to stay away.
The longest goal ever scored was from over 82 metres away by Asamoah Gyan of Sunderland in 2013.
The Statue of Liberty was once a lighthouse. About a month after the statue’s 1886 dedication, it became a working lighthouse for 16 years, with its torch visible from 24 miles away.
A blue whale’s heartbeat can be detected up to 2 miles away. And their hearts weigh almost 400 pounds!
The heartbeat of a blue whale can be detected from 2 miles away. The blue whale’s heart also weighs 400 pounds.
The Statue of Liberty was once functioning as a lighthouse. In 1886, the famous statue was a working lighthouse for years. You could see its light from 24 miles away.
There exists a planet that is mostly made of diamonds. The planet 55 Cancrie is twice the size of Earth and is located 40 light-years away.
Apples you find in the supermarket can be a year old. It is one of the many weird facts about food at the supermarket! Those supermarket apples might be a year old. Farmers often harvest them in the fall, wax them, and store them away.
Mars is the 4th planet from the sun. It is 227,936,637 km (141 million miles) away from the sun. It would take 300 days (around 8 months) to get there from Earth.
One year on Mars is 687 days long. That’s 1.9 Earth years. This is because Mars is further away from the sun so it takes longer to orbit it.
Mars’ surface has many channels, plains, and canyons which could have been caused by water erosion (water wearing away the surface). This could be evidence that open water in liquid form once existed on the surface billions of years ago.
There are stars we will never be able to see. Ever since the Big Bang, most objects in space have been moving away from one another. The expansion of the Universe is accelerating. This is one of the facts about space that has rocked the cosmological boat over the past few years. As regions of space are whizzing away from one another at an ever-increasing rate, the first population of stars to form in the Universe are now too far away for us to ever hope of spying on them – even using the best present or future telescope. Hope is not lost; we can attempt to spot them indirectly via the energetic bursts of radiation they emit at the end of their lives.
Jupiter’s magnetic field is bigger than the Moon. The region of space in which a mass’s magnetic field dominates is known as its magnetosphere. These regions surround planets, pulsars and even our Galaxy. The planets in our Solar System have magnetospheres that interact with and are shaped by the charged particles in the wind streaming from our Sun. The largest magnetosphere in our Solar System surrounds Jupiter. Jupiter rotates very fast and has a very strong magnetic field, and its magnetosphere is filled with plasma from its volcanically active moon, Io. These features, coupled with the fact that the solar wind is slower and less dense at Jupiter than at Earth, lead to a very sizeable Jovian magnetosphere. It is easily big enough to contain a body the size of our Sun and, if visible, would be larger than the Moon in our night sky; quite an achievement considering that it is over 1,500 times farther away.
Vast amounts of water have been found in space. Earth’s oceans may not be that unique. Three of Jupiter’s moons (Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) and two of Saturn’s (Enceladus (pictured above) and Titan) are thought to have underwater seas. Europa’s ocean may contain over twice the volume of water found on Earth. However, the most water ever discovered surrounds a black hole some 12 billion lightyears away. This region contains vast amounts of water vapour, the equivalent of 140 trillion times the volume of water in Earth’s oceans. There is more water in space than you might think.
There is gravity on the International Space Station. Footage of astronauts on the International Space Station may give the impression of a gravity-free environment, but onboard gravity is only 10-11% weaker than it is on Earth’s surface. This particular one of our facts relates to the common belief that there’s no gravity in space. Astronauts float freely due to the Space Station’s continual state of free-fall, the same effect experienced by skydivers. The difference with the ISS is that it also has horizontal motion. As the ISS moves ‘sideways’ and falls towards Earth, the horizon curves away beneath it at the same rate, keeping the ISS in orbit and simulating a feeling of weightlessness for anyone on board.
The Moon is getting farther away every year. The Moon exerts a pull on Earth, causing our planet to be slightly egg-shaped. It affects water even more, creating tides and causing the oceans to pile up towards one side of the planet, forming a ‘tidal bulge’. This bulge is dragged around with the Moon as it orbits. As Earth rotates faster than the Moon – 24 hours versus 27.3 days – the bulge moves slightly ahead of the Moon’s position in orbit. The Moon pulls back on it, effectively trying to slow it down and causing Earth’s rotation rate to gradually slow down over time as a result. As the two bodies interact through gravity, this tugging causes Earth to lose energy while the Moon gains energy. Because of this energy boost the Moon is slowly spiralling outwards, moving away from us by 3.8cm per year.
5 billion Suns could fit in UY Scuti, one of the biggest known stars. Compared to the rest of the worlds of our Solar System – even colossal Jupiter – our Sun is pretty big. But it’s nothing compared to the biggest stars we know of red hypergiant stars that would positively dwarf our Sun if ever there was a cosmic ‘who’s the biggest star?’ contest. UY Scuti is one such stellar giant. It’s often referred to as the biggest known star in the Universe (although this can’t definitively be proven). But what calculations have revealed is that if UY Scuti were to replace our Sun, its outer edge would sit beyond the orbit of Jupiter. 5 billion Suns, 7 trillion Jupiters or 7 quadrillion Earths would fit inside UY Scuti! What’s more, UY Scuti is 300,000 times brighter than the Sun but is so far away you wouldn’t know this when observing it in our night sky.
Alpha Centauri isn’t a star, but a star system. It is 4.22 lightyears away.
Manatees face several dangers in their native waters: boating accidents can harm or even kill manatees and things like plastics in the water can cause health problems. You can learn more about how to protect manatees even if you live thousands of miles away, by visiting Save the Manatee.
The nearest star to Earth is 4.2 light-years away. It’s called the Proxima Centauri.
The Moon is drifting away from Earth. You read that correctly! The Moon is gradually drifting away from Earth at a rate of approximately 4 cm per year. This phenomenon is caused by the Moon pulling on Earth’s oceans creating tidal forces that produce a bulge of water on the side of Earth facing the Moon. This bulge in turn creates a gravitational pull on the Moon, causing it to accelerate slightly and move further away from Earth. Over time, this process has caused the Moon to move farther away from Earth each year. This gradual drift is not noticeable on a day-to-day basis, but over millions of years, it can have significant effects on Earth’s rotation. Today, most scientists believe the Moon is ‘Earth’s child’ – a large body collided with Earth, destroying our planet’s mantle and sending material into orbit from which the Moon formed. This ‘big splash’ theory would explain why the Moon’s rocks are similar to those on Earth. Bonus fun fact: Australia is wider than the Moon. The Moon sits at 3400 km in diameter, while Australia’s diameter from east to west is almost 4000 km. The Moon, as a sphere, has more surface area, but it’s still pretty impressive.
While they grow, reindeer antlers have a velvety covering. When the antlers are fully grown, the ‘velvet’ is shed and rubs away.
The lion has the loudest roar of all the big cats. It can be heard as far as 5km (3 miles) away.
A company in Japan awards non-smokers an extra six days of paid leave each year. It was brought to the marketing firm’s attention that employees who went for smoke breaks had more than 15 minutes of extra time away from their desks each day. Instead of penalising smokers, they came up with a creative incentive to quit smoking while keeping their non-smoking employees happy in the process!
George Clooney had a pet pig called Max. In the late 80s, George Clooney bought a Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig for his then-girlfriend, Kelly Preston, but he ended up keeping the pig after they split up. Max, the pig, ended up living for another eighteen years, only passing away in 2006. Clooney often jokes that his relationship with Max was the longest he ever had.
Bill and Melinda Gates have given away more than $45 billion since 1994. Bill Gates alone has ranked among the world’s richest for decades now, amassing much of his vast fortune from Microsoft, which he co-founded. Bill and Melinda Gates founded the “Giving Pledge” in 2010 to encourage other wealthy people like themselves to donate much of their wealth either during their lifetimes or afterwards. Despite giving so much away, Bill Gates is still worth over $110 billion.
Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone let his fans vote on what he should change his middle name to. The famous Home Alone child star has faded away a little into obscurity these days, but he’s still manageing to stay relevant. In November 2018, he asked the world to give him a new middle name, as his name was “something dumb.” Out of a wide range of ridiculous finalists, he ended up changing his middle to his full name and is now officially known as Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin!
Every year 22,000 tons of dust is blown from the Sahara Desert to the Amazon Rainforest. Long, long ago, the Sahara Desert used to be a lake, and the dust and sand left behind are rich in phosphorous. This is quite fortunate, as this phosphorous-rich dust is carried through the skies to the Amazon rainforest, which is surprisingly in need of fertilizer. The rainforest loses just about as much phosphorous as it gains because it all gets washed away through streams, creeks, and the Amazon River.
Frogs eat with their eyes! If you get close and personal with a frog and watch it eat, you may come away wondering why it closes its eyes every time it swallows. It’s not just that they savour every bite, but it’s biological. Frogs will close their eyes and then retract them down towards their throat, which helps push food down towards their stomach!
We throw away enough ribbon each year to tie a bow around the entire Earth.
One of President John Tyler’s grandsons is still alive today—and he was born in 1790. How is this possible? President Tyler, the 10th US president, was 63 when his son Lyon Tyler was born in 1853; Lyon’s son was born when he was 75. President Tyler’s living grandson, Harrison Tyler is 94. Lyon’s other son Lyon Jr. passed away in 2020 at the age of 95. The Tyler family still maintains the President’s home, Sherwood Forest Plantation in Virginia.
Cartoonist Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey, came up with names for the things we often see in comics and cartoons: “briffit” is the dust cloud a character makes when he runs away quickly; “plewds” are the beads of sweat when a character is under duress; and “grawlix” are symbols such as “#@*%” that stand in for curse words.
Internet privacy is becoming a big issue. Therefore, some choose to stay away from heavy social media.
Each year, Americans dump cell phones containing worth over $60 million in gold and silver. E-waste comprises 2% of the waste in America’s landfills. Shockingly, 70% of all toxic waste is comprised of e-waste. Americans throw away 14 million mobile devices each year. Few people realize these devices contain precious metals like gold and silver. On an annual basis, Americans toss $60 million in gold and silver straight into the trash.
This man threw a hard drive loaded with 7500 bitcoins into the trash. James Howells mined 7,500 Bitcoins in 2009 and stored them on a hard drive. At that point, Bitcoin’s value amounted to almost nothing. The cryptocurrency slowly started to grow in value after a few years, and Howells thought he owned a small fortune. Only then did he realize he accidentally threw away the hard drive sometime in 2013? Howells lives in Wales and contacted the Newport City Council to excavate the local landfill. He offered the City Council over $70 million if the hard drive was recovered. Based on today’s rate, the hard drive is worth more than $375 million. The City council baulked at the offer due to environmental regulations and the required cost.