Space
Everything above the sky.
Kiribati moved the International Date Line
Until 1995 Kiribati was split by the date line, so different parts of the country were on different days. So it moved the line.
Point Nemo, where spacecraft go to die
There is a spot in the Pacific so remote that the nearest humans are often the astronauts passing overhead.
The first human in space took off from Kazakhstan
Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin both launched from Baikonur, on the Kazakh steppe. Today Russia rents the cosmodrome, and the town around it, from Kazakhstan.
The mixtape we sent to the stars
Two spacecraft leaving the solar system carry a gold-plated record with whale song, a kiss, 55 greetings and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”.
The Pale Blue Dot
In 1990, from about 6 billion kilometres away, Voyager 1 turned around and photographed Earth. We take up less than a pixel.
Why Ramadan moves about 11 days earlier every year
The Islamic calendar follows the moon, not the sun, so Ramadan travels through every season in about 33 years.
You can’t see the Great Wall from the Moon
The famous claim was made in 1754, two centuries before anyone went to space. China’s first astronaut said he couldn’t see it.