How about a little trivia for your Thursday?  I tend to pick up interesting “factoids”, and I’m not usually particular about the subject matter.  I’m like a crow, picking up shiny little bits to take back to my nest.  There’s something satisfying about little bits of information.

Candid Pic of Marian

Starting at about $1,000 US, you can have some of your cremated remains blasted into space, either into orbit around the Earth, to the Moon, or shot into deep space.

Many scientists believe the Stradivarius violins have a purer tone because the wood used in making them was denser because of the Maunder Minimum ca 1645-1750.  That’s a period of low sun spot activity believed to be associated with colder temperatures on Earth.

More than 50 trillion ( that’s 50,000,000,000,000) solar neutrinos pass through your body every second.  There’s no place you can go to get away from them, they can pass through miles of lead.  That’s not the cool part; some scientists believe they can also pass through time.

AMANDA-II map of Northern Hemisphere neutrino sky

The Earth is moving at about 66,700 mph as it travels around the Sun.

On the average, a meteorite strikes a human about once every 9,300 years.

A potentially disastrous meteorite strike occurs on Earth about every 100,000 years.  We’re overdue.

The largest meteorite (still intact) found on Earth is the Hoba meteorite in Nambia, Africa.  It was found in 1920, and weighs about 60,000 kg.  It crashed about 80,000 years ago.

Hoba Meteorite - Image: Basilicofresco (Flickr) some rights reserved

Some of the largest asteroids have their own moons.  The asteroid Ida was the first discovered to have a moon, Dactyl.  You just HAVE to see that:

Ida and her moon, Dactyl - Image NASA/JPL, taken by Galileo on 082893

The International Space Station has been continuously occupied since the first crew boarded, November 2, 2000.

The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was at Vostok Station in Antarctica (remember Lake Vostok?  Exobio?), -126.9 Fahrenheit.

The air temperature around a bolt of lightning is about 30,000 Celsius.  That’s about 5 times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

This makes a nice wallpaper if you need a new one.

Had enough?  Okay, here’s a neat one for you:  The word “Google” comes from the term “googol”, which is a number 1 followed by 100 zeros.  I’m not going to write that out, but if you REALLY want to see it, I’ll put it in the comments.

I’d be interested in hearing any factoids you’ve found interesting (blog-related, of course), or science-related trivia questions.  I’m insatiable.