› added 4 years ago

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TIL Pluto has five known moons. It is considered by many scientists to be a double planet system, because the largest moon, Charon, is so big (half the size of Pluto itself) that the two orbit a spot in between each other instead of Charon just orbiting Pluto like a smaller moon would.

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R5Ny7 TIL of Cottonclads, a class of lightly armed Confederate river ships armored with cotton bales. They used sharpshooters and rams as their main weapons, dropping the gangplanks down to board Union ships. They were used effectively at the Battle of Galveston, capturing the Harriet Lane.
4X9Q5 TIL there is a group of single-celled organisms called Asgard archaea, Lokiarchaeum, named after the Arctic Ocean geothermal vent, Loki's Castle, where they were discovered. They are considered to be the missing link in the evolution of the cell, which separates eukaryotes like humans from bacteria.
6EYmQ TIL Plants are capable of complex decision-making
EggXp TIL of Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) scheduled (now) for early 2025 launch, which will map particles and shape of the heliosphere - the shield from our sun that protects us from cosmic rays.
e0yxb TIL When Cambridge graduate & visionary electronic composer Delia Derbyshire (who wrote the original Dr Who theme) applied for a position at Decca Records, she was told that they did not employ women in their recording studios.