On a perfectly clear, dark night, when you look at the sky
you can see the Andromeda Galaxy with your naked eye. It appears as a faint, fuzzy patch of light, but that smudge is actually an entire galaxy containing roughly a trillion stars and located about 2.5 million light years away.
The light reaching your eyes began its journey around 2.5 million years ago, long before modern humans existed.
When you look at Andromeda, you’re literally seeing another galaxy outside our own Milky Way as it appeared millions of years in the past,
you are literally looking at the past
Birds in Ukraine use drone fiber-optic cables to build nests
It's a sad sight, but also a reminder that life finds a way, as birds adapt by using the remnants of war to build their homes
The sound of thunder
A single bolt of lightning can reach temperatures of around 30,000°C, which is several times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
That sudden heating makes the air expand explosively, because the surrounding air is heated almost instantly and is forced outward at extreme speed. This rapid expansion creates a powerful pressure wave in the air, which travels outward as sound
what we hear as thunder.
There is a river in Peru that is so hot it boils
It is called the Shanay Timpishka River, often known as the “Boiling River.”
It is about 6.4 km (4 miles) long, and in some sections the water can reach extreme temperatures of around 50–90°C, hot enough to cause severe burns. Because of this, nothing can survive if it accidentally enters
The river is hot because rainwater seeps deep underground and is heated by geothermal energy inside the Earth. This superheated water is then pushed back up through cracks in the ground into the river, raising its temperature without any nearby volcano.
📹 Eddie Garcia /zest_amen
Did you know
Your eyes are constantly moving, even when you think they’re perfectly still. These tiny, involuntary movements include microsaccades, as well as slower drifts and tiny tremors.
Without these movements, your vision would gradually fade because neurons in the visual system adapt to unchanging images. By continually shifting images across the retina, these eye movements help keep visual information fresh and prevent perceptual fading.
So even when you’re staring intently at something, your eyes are secretly dancing helping your brain maintain a stable and detailed view of the world.
The iron in your blood came from ancient stars that lived long before you were born
Every atom of iron in your blood ultimately comes from ancient generations of massive stars that lived and died long before the Solar System formed. Iron is created in the late stages of stellar life and is released into space through supernova explosions and other cosmic events that spread elements across the galaxy.
The ashes of dead stars are the life force in our bodies, material that was forged in long dead stars and recycled through space over billions of years.
Over time, this stardust mixed with clouds of gas and dust, which eventually formed new stars, planets, and Earth itself.
You are made of stardust. ✨⭐️
Neutron star collisions creates gold
When two neutron stars, the incredibly dense remnants of massive exploded stars spiral together and collide, they create one of the most violent events in the universe.
In a fraction of a second, the collision produces extreme heat, density, and neutron-rich conditions that allow heavy elements to form through rapid neutron capture, including gold and platinum.
The explosion, known as a kilonova, ejects this newly created material into space. Over billions of years, this enriched dust and gas mixes with interstellar clouds and is eventually incorporated into new stars, planets, and solar systems including Earth.
This means a portion of the gold we mine today was formed in ancient neutron star mergers long before our Solar System existed.
Did I say space is metal 🔥
You are, in a real sense, made of stardust
When a massive star reaches the end of its life, it can explode as a supernova, releasing enormous energy and scattering many of the elements it produced during its lifetime into space. These include elements like carbon, oxygen, silicon, and iron, which are essential building blocks for planets and life.
These elements are thrown into space and gradually mix with clouds of gas and dust. Over time, those clouds collapse to form new stars and planets, recycling the material across generations of cosmic history.
This means many of the atoms in your body were formed in ancient stars or stellar explosions, (while hydrogen mostly comes from the early universe after the Big Bang)
These atoms end up in your body because they become part of the Earth itself when it formed from this recycled cosmic material. They are locked into rocks, water, and air, and over time they enter living things through natural cycles like the food chain, breathing, and water. For example, plants absorb carbon, calcium enters bones through food, oxygen is breathed in from the atmosphere, and water carries many dissolved elements throughout the body.
A fight between two mice on a London Underground platform
The photo, taken by Sam Rowley, won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award in 2020
Gianni Infantino knocked down all the reporting over visa concerns for this World Cup in August 2025: “I think it’s important to clarify this. There is a lot of misconception out there. Everyone will be welcome in Canada, Mexico and the United States for the FIFA World Cup next year.
“There is a process to go through to get visas and so on. This process will be smooth…
“We want to unite the world and we will unite the world next year. The world needs occasions of unity, of bringing teams together, of bringing people together, of bringing fans together... So again everyone will be welcome, be positive and you will see it will be a great, great celebration of the greatest FIFA World Cup ever.”
No, again we are just meant to look the other way and allow this thing we love so much, that we want to enjoy, that we can map our whole lives around, to be used and abused.
Again we are told about unity and inclusion when division, disparity and denial is the reality.
It is a great, great celebration of getting more money whatever it takes, no matter who has to pay the price. The greatest showpiece of allowing - unopposed! - the man who is meant to protect and grow the people’s game into playing celebrity, massaging his own ego and that of heads of state.
The biggest, most expensive, least accessible World Cup ever. The thing we love and all the beautiful pieces of it we’ve lost.
Newly hatched baby snapping turtles
Snapping turtle hatchlings are independent from the moment they emerge from their eggs, making their way to water without any parental care. Though tiny now, snapping turtles grow into powerful reptiles known for their strong bite
There’s a diamond the size of Earth floating in space
The remnant core of the white dwarf star BPM 37093, located about 50 light-years away, is a roughly Earth-sized white dwarf with a diameter of approximately 4,000 km.
( it’s about one-third Earth’s diameter)
As the star cooled over billions of years, the extreme pressure caused the carbon and oxygen in its interior to crystallize into a solid, diamond like structure.
It was nicknamed Lucy by astronomers and the media after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
The Mid-Ocean Ridge is the longest mountain range on Earth, and it is almost entirely underwater.
Stretching for about 65,000 kilometres (40,000 miles) across the ocean floors, it is far longer than any mountain range on land. New oceanic crust is continuously formed here as magma rises from the mantle, pushing tectonic plates apart. This is the engine room of plate tectonics.
Most people have never heard of it, yet it is the largest continuous mountain system on the planet and large sections of it remain poorly mapped and explored in detail.
The sea is hiding Earth’s biggest mountain chain right beneath the surface.
Uranus as seen by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope
The image reveals Uranus' faint rings and icy atmosphere in remarkable detail, while dozens of distant galaxies shine in the background
There is a forest in China made of stone.
The Stone Forest (Shilin) in Yunnan province is an extraordinary landscape where thousands of towering limestone pillars rise from the ground like a petrified woodland, some reaching heights of 20 to 50 meters.
Approximately 270 million years ago, this area was a shallow tropical seabed where thick layers of limestone formed from marine life. Tectonic uplift later exposed the rock, and over millions of years, mildly acidic rainwater carved the stone through a slow dissolution process known as karstification.
The result is one of the world’s most spectacular examples of pinnacle karst topography a surreal “forest” of jagged, majestic stone formations
Black hole shoots a plasma beam through space. Captured by NASA
A supermassive black hole is blasting a jet of plasma at nearly the speed of light. These powerful jets can stretch for thousands of light years and carry enormous amounts of energy across the cosmos