Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Does the Moon Always Show Us the Same Face?
The Moon does spin, but exactly once for every trip round the Earth, so one side always faces us, and the side we never see is not dark at all.
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Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Is a Rainbow Curved?
A rainbow is really a full circle of light centred on the shadow of your own head, and the ground hides the bottom of it, which is why you only ever seem to get an arch.
Fiction Made-Up Words
Cracklecreep: Opening a Noisy Wrapper Very Slowly in a Quiet Room
(n.) The painfully slow opening of a noisy sweet wrapper in a hushed room, done in the firm belief that slow means silent, which it never does.
Fact-based Odd Places
A Coast Paved With 40,000 Stone Columns, and No Giant Needed
On a shore in Northern Ireland, thousands of neat six-sided stone columns step down into the sea, and the real builder was a lake of lava that cooled very, very slowly.
Fact-based How It Started
The Slinky Began as a Ship Spring That Fell Off a Shelf
In 1943 an engineer working on springs to steady instruments on ships knocked one off a shelf, and instead of flopping in a heap it walked down to the floor and stood up.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
Shark Skin Taught Boats and Planes to Slip Along on Tiny Grooves
A shark's skin is covered in tiny tooth-shaped scales, and copying their fine ridges gave engineers a film of grooves, no deeper than a scratch, that helps hulls and wings meet less drag.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Do Stars Twinkle When Planets Shine Steadily?
The stars are not flickering at all: their light is being nudged about by the air above your head, and a planet looks calm for a surprisingly simple reason.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Is the Sky Blue but the Sunset Orange?
The same sky and the same sunlight give us a blue afternoon and an orange evening, and the difference comes down to how tiny air molecules toss light around.
Fact-based Weird Facts
A Fluffy White Cloud Weighs About as Much as a Hundred Elephants
The small cumulus drifting over your garden is carrying roughly five hundred tonnes of water, and it stays up there for a reason that has nothing to do with being light.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Can You Hear Whether Water Is Hot or Cold?
With your back turned you can usually tell a hot pour from a cold one, and the tidy explanation everybody repeats may have the whole thing the wrong way round.