Some scientific facts that will leave you speechless

It is really sad that only few people are into science nowadays. I think this is mainly due to the way science is portrayed and taught to kids at schools all around the world. Why can’t we learn science and still make if fun and interesting at the same time? Is it a bad idea to ask comedians, for instance, to include some science facts in their jokes? It is an idea worth mentioning and discussing I think.

With that being said, here are some amazing science facts that will literally blow your mind. These kind of facts just continue to amaze me and keeps me hungry for more. It just proves that with all the things we have learned in the world still have an ocean of facts to dive into.

IT CAN TAKE A PHOTON 40,000 YEARS TO TRAVEL FROM THE CORE OF THE SUN TO ITS SURFACE, BUT ONLY 8 MINUTES TO TRAVEL THE REST OF THE WAY TO EARTH

A photon travels, on average, a particular distance, d, before being briefly absorbed and released by an atom, which scatters it in a new random direction.From the core to the sun’s surface (696,000 kilometers) where it can escape into space, a photon needs to make a huge number of drunken jumps. The calculation is a little tricky, but the conclusion is that a photon takes between many thousands and many millions of years to drunkenly wander to the surface of the Sun. In a way, the light that reaches us today is energy produced maybe millions of years ago. Isn’t that just amazing! (image source)

THERE ARE 8 TIMES AS MANY ATOMS IN A TEASPOONFUL OF WATER AS THERE ARE TEASPOONFULS OF WATER IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

A teaspoon of water (about 5 ml) contains 2×1023 water molecules, but each water molecule is comprised of 3 atoms: two hydrogen and one oxygen. Moreover, if you’d laid down end to end each water molecule from a teaspoon full you’d end up with a length of 50 billion km or 10 times the width of our solar system. (image source)

IF BETELGEUSE WOULD EXPLODE TRANSITING FROM THE RED SUPER GIANT STAGE TO SUPERNOVA THEN OUR SKY WOULD LIGHT CONTINUOUSLY FOR TWO MONTHS. IT CAN HAPPEN ANYTIME, WITHIN A COUPLE OF THOUSAND YEARS, TOMORROW OR EVEN NOW!!

Betelgeuse lies some 430 light-years from Earth. Yet it’s already one of the brightest stars in Earth’s sky. The reason is that Betelgeuse is a super-giant star – the largest kind of stars in the Universe. Betelgeuse has a luminosity about 10,000 times that of the Sun and its radius is calculated to be about 370 times that of the sun. If it were positioned at the center of our sun, its radius would extend out past the radius of Mars. Because it’s near the end of its lifetime, Betelgeuse is likely to explode into a supernova. (image source)

THERE IS ENOUGH DNA IN AN AVERAGE PERSON’S BODY TO STRETCH FROM THE SUN TO PLUTO AND BACK. 17 TIMES

The human genome, the genetic code in each human cell, contains 23 DNA molecules each containing from 500 thousand to 2.5 million nucleotide pairs. DNA molecules of this size are 1.7 to 8.5 cm long when uncoiled, or about 5 cm on average. There are about 37 trillion cells in the human body and if you’d uncoil all of the DNA encased in each cell and put them end to end, then these would sum to a total length of 2×1014 meters or enough for 17 Pluto round trips (1.2×1013 meters/Pluto round trip). (image source)

HOW BIG IS THE UNIVERSE?!!

The known universe is made up of 50,000,000,000 galaxies. There are between 100,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000 stars in a normal galaxy. In the Milky Way alone there might be as many 100,000,000 planets. Do you still think you are alone?!! (image source)

THE AVERAGE HUMAN BODY CARRIES TEN TIMES MORE BACTERIAL CELLS THAN HUMAN CELLS

It’s funny how we compulsively wash our hands, spray our countertops and grimace when someone sneezes near us—in fact, we do everything we can to avoid unnecessary encounters with the germ world. The truth of the matter is that each and every one of us is a walking petri dish! All the bacteria living inside you would fill a half-gallon jug or 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells, according to Carolyn Bohach, a microbiologist at the University of Idaho. Don’t worry, though. Most of these bacteria are helpful; in fact, we couldn’t survive without them.

For one thing, bacteria produce chemicals that help us harness energy and nutrients from our food. Germ-free rodents have to consume nearly a third more calories than normal rodents to maintain their body weight, and when the same animals were later given a dose of bacteria, their body fat levels spiked, even if they didn’t eat any more than they had before. The gut bacteria is also very important to maintaining immunity. (image source)

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