10 Astounding Facts That Seem Too Good (or Weird) to Be True. Get ready to have your mind blown by the absurdity of reality! We’ve all heard the phrase ‘truth is stranger than fiction,’ but these 10 facts take that notion to a whole new level. From bizarre natural phenomena to astonishing historical events, these incredible true stories will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about the world. So, buckle up and dive into the weird and wonderful world of facts that sound too good (or weird) to be true – but are actually backed by science, history, and sheer incredulity!
Weird facts
1. One teaspoon of a neutron star is equal to the weight of about 900 Pyramids of Giza.
Neutron stars are very small – about 12.5 miles in diameter – but are incredibly dense, about 1.5 times the mass of Earth’s sun. According to National Geographic, “Just a sugar cube of neutron star matter would weigh about one hundred million tons on Earth. “Futurism reports that one cubic meter would be equal to the weight of the entire Atlantic Ocean.
2. It is estimated that there are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
While our planet is not as big as the Milky Way, it holds a gigantic number of trees. According to NASA, there is an estimated 100 billion and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And according to a paper published in the journal Nature, there are more than 3 trillion trees on Earth.
3. There are more tigers privately owned in the United States than in the wild worldwide.
According to WWF, the World Wildlife and Global Tiger Forum, an estimated 3,900 tigers remain in the wild. According to the US government and conservation groups, around 5,000 to 10,000 tigers are privately owned in the US alone.
4. A typical cumulus cloud weighs about 1.1 million pounds.
Clouds might look fluffy but in reality, they weigh a lot. Peggy LeMone, a senior National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist, did the math in 2013. According to him, the fluffy ones you typically see on a sunny day have a water density of half a gram per cubic meter and a one billion cubic meters volume. So, when you calculate the cloud’s total water content, you end up with 500,000,000 grams of water or about 1.1 million pounds.
5. Cheetahs can’t roar. They can only meow like domestic house cats.
Even though cheetahs are wild animals, they can only meow and purr and cannot roar. While they are very large and strong, they have a voice box anatomy similar to a house cat. According to BBC’s Discover Wildlife, “The bones of the cheetah’s voice box form a fixed structure, with divided vocal cords that vibrate with both in and out breaths. This structure is the same for all the ‘small’ cats. While this design enables these cats to purr continuously, it limits the range of other sounds and prevents them from being able to roar”.
More facts you never knew about
6. A typical microwave oven consumes more electricity to power its digital clock than it does to heat food.
It might sound strange that a device used to heat up food uses more electricity to power a digital clock. While a microwave uses more than 100 times as much power as running the clock, most microwave ovens stand idle or in “standby mode” more than 99% of the time. So in the long run, a microwave does use more energy to power its clock than it does to function fully. Many other devices, such as televisions, DVD players, stereos, and computers also spend much of their lives in standby mode, collectively consuming a huge amount of energy.
7. The time difference when Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus lived is greater than the time difference between Tyrannosaurus and humans.
Stegosaurus roamed the Earth about 150 million years ago. According to the US Geological Survey, Stegosaurus had been long gone for approximately 80 million years. So, in short, 80 million years separated Stegosaurus from T. rex, while 67 million years separated T. rex from us.
8. There’s an almost 100% probability that the glass from which you drink contains at least one molecule of water that once passed through the body of a dinosaur.
The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine determined that an adequate daily fluids intake is: About 11.5 cups (2.7 liters) of fluids a day for women. Whether it is tap, filtered, bottled, sparking, or sourced from the Himalayan glaciers, the chance of your glass of water containing at least one molecule of water that once passed through the body of a dinosaur is extremely high.
9. The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backward.
Hummingbirds come in all shapes and sizes. But generally, the females are larger than the males in small species. Whereas the males are larger than females in bigger species. For example, the bee hummingbird, the world’s smallest bird, measures only around 2 inches long. And the giant hummingbird, the largest hummingbird species, measures around 9 inches long. The birds are also the only ones who can fly backward, up, and down, as well as in figure-eight patterns. They also use their wings to create buzzing sounds to communicate with one another.
10. There’s a species of shark that can live for around 500 years.
The Greenland shark holds the record for longest vertebrate lifespan, averaging 272 years, with some reaching 500 years. They are also the largest sharks in the world, known to grow as long as 6.4 meters (21 feet) and as heavy as 1,000kg (2,100 ponds).
