› added 4 years ago

244

TIL A telescope designed to view the H-alpha emission produced by excited hydrogen can show granulations on the solar surface and great detail in the sunspot regions. The H-alpha filter must be designed to produce a very narrow pass band around the wavelength of 6,562.8 Ångströms for safe viewing

Read more ianmorison.com

via reddit.com

MeV68 TIL that Irish American actor Robert De Niro was raised by an openly gay Catholic father and an atheist mother in New York just two generations after his family fled Ireland to escape the famine
6EaOm TIL that New Zealand is not (officially) part of any continent. It is, however, a part of Zealandia, a mostly submerged continental shelf that many consider to be the eighth continent.
yQQQv TIL that Mexican Racing driver Pedro Rodríguez always traveled with a Mexican flag and a record of the national anthem, because when he won the 1967 South African GP the organizers did not have the Mexican anthem, and instead played the Mexican hat dance.
epmpE TIL the jigsaw puzzle was commercialized around 1760 by John Spilsbury. His design took world maps, and cut out the individual nations in order for them to be reassembled by students as a geographical teaching aid.
VM4l8 TIL in 1945 San Marino became the first country ever to be ruled by a communist party through democratic elections