› added 7 months ago

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TIL the Chandra X-Ray Telescope captures X-ray photons at a calculated angle, using the same ancient technique as stone-skimming, otherwise the X-rays would pass straight through the mirror.

Read more nasa.gov

via reddit.com

mxQlo TIL The oldest known prayer to the Virgin Mary, Sub tuum praesidium, refers to her as Theotokos and dates back to the 3rd to 4th century
nWp9d TIL Shania Twain's album 'Come On Over' (1997) holds several music records including best-selling album by a female solo artist, best-selling album by a Canadian artist, and the best-selling Country album of all-time having sold over 40 million copies.
ep6Zb TIL That in the victorian era, corsets were not worn crushingly tight, but merely snug, and a lot of what we see is heavily altered
MemP8 TIL Female mummies in Ancient Egypt were always more decomposed than their male counterparts. They discovered that this was because male bodies were embalmed a lot sooner than female bodies. Female bodies were kept at the family home until they started to decompose in order to avoid necrophilia.
46xa TIL Sidney Sheinberg wanted to change the title of Back To The Future to ‘Spaceman From Pluto’. Robert Zemeckis, horrified, asked Steven Spielberg for help, so Spielberg wrote Sheinberg a memo convincing him that they thought his title was just a joke, embarrassing him into dropping the name change.