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TIL that on Nov. 28, 2013, comet ISON will fly through the sun’s atmosphere little more than a million km from the stellar surface. If the comet survives without breaking up it could emerge glowing as brightly as the Moon, visible near the sun in broad daylight.

Read more science.nasa.gov

via reddit.com

mxmXo TIL the Waters & Sons firm in 1868 developed a process for making boats out of paper. At the peak of their popularity, they built simple single-person boats to a 45-foot "pleasure barge," which could comfortably seat 23 people. In 1875 they became the "largest boat factory in the United States."
rgX0 TIL that Shakira was rejected from the school choir because her music teacher said that she sounded “like a goat.”
GYOXQ TIL The Toba catastrophe theory that states human population was bottle-necked about 70K years ago due to a super massive volcanic eruption. Humanity may have dwindled to less than 10K individuals and many other animal species were similarly affected.
JYdEv TIL Confucius’s lineage has been recorded for over 2500 years and his bloodline can be traced to today.
ZpKGG TIL of CONOP 8888, also known as Counter-Zombie Dominance: a U.S. Department of Defense Strategic Command CONOP document that describes a plan for the United States and its military defending against zombies