› added 7 months ago

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TIL about GJ 1214 b, an exoplanet that orbits a star about 48 light-years from our Sun. GJ 1214 b is the most likely known candidate for being an ocean planet or "waterworld." Due to varying pressures, ocean planet models feature steam, liquid, superfluid, high-pressure ice, and plasma-phase water.

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7rdKM TIL "Mad" Mike Hughes died after crashing in his homemade steam powered rocket. He launched from the California desert and hoped to reach the Kármán Line, where Earth's atmosphere meets outer space 62 miles above the ground to prove that the Earth is a flat disk and not a sphere.
WZpN TIL: Nikola Tesla was offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison Company’s direct current generators for fifty thousand dollars. After months of work, when Tesla asked for payment Edison refused and said “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor”
0wG5M TIL Ted Turner, the owner of CNN, has a bitter personal feud with Rupert Murdoch, the owner of NewsCorp. Turner has publicly challenged Murdoch to a televised fistfight in 1983 and 2003.
EgKox TIL that in rural Kentucky, there's a family known as the "Blue Fugates" due to the dark blue skin color of many family members. This was seen in over six generations because of inbreeding. It's called hereditary Methoglobinemia.
LmVZ TIL that Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, felt his professor at Harvard was giving him unfair grades. To prove it he turned in a paper from George Orwell and received a B-.