Top 4 Amazing Science Facts.

Fact 4 of 4

16. The average person accidentally eats 430 bugs each year of their life

17. A single rye plant can spread up to 400 miles of roots underground

18. The temperature on the surface of Mercury exceeds 430 degrees C during the day, and, at night, plummets to minus 180 degrees centigrade

19. The evaporation from a large oak or beech tree is from ten to twenty-five gallons in twenty-four hours

20. Butterflies taste with their hind feet, and their taste sensation works on touch – this allows them to determine whether a leaf is edible

Top 4 Amazing Science Facts.

 Fact 3 of 4

1. The oceans contain enough salt to cover all the continents to a depth of nearly 500 feet

2. The interstellar gas cloud Sagittarius B contains a billion, billion, billion liters of alcohol [JFrater is planning to move there in the near future]

3. Polar Bears can run at 25 miles an hour and jump over 6 feet in the air

4. 60-65 million years ago dolphins and humans shared a common ancestor

5. Polar Bears are nearly undetectable by infrared cameras, due to their transparent fur

Top 4 Amazing Science Facts.

Fact 2 of 4

1. Blood sucking hookworms inhabit 700 million people worldwide

2. The highest speed ever achieved on a bicycle is 166.94 mph, by Fred Rompelberg

3. We can produce laser light a million times brighter than sunshine

4. 65% of those with autism are left handed

5. The combined length of the roots of a Finnish pine tree is over 30 miles

Top 4 Amazing science Facts.

Another trivia list! This list explores a variety of fascinating scientific facts that you probably are unaware of. Science is still a very mysterious subject so there are millions of trivial facts about it – this will be the first of many scientific fact lists in the future.

Fact 1 of 4

1. There are 62,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body – laid end to end they would circle the earth 2.5 times

2. At over 2000 kilometers long, The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth

3. The risk of being struck by a falling meteorite for a human is one occurrence every 9,300 years

4. A thimbleful of a neutron star would weigh over 100 million tons

5. A typical hurricane produces the energy equivalent of 8,000 one megaton bombs

End Of An Era

All good things must come to an end and Hubble is no different as after April 2013 no more servicing missions are planned. Without the regular maintenance the telescope's main functions it will begin to fail until it spins out of orbit; its prolonged life means that it will outlast the space shuttle programme and so won't be able to be guided safely back to Earth. However, life also springs eternal, as the James Web Telescope is due for launch in 2014.

We hope you've enjoyed this brief jaunt into some of Hubble's facts and famous images, and credit has to be given to the fantastic Hubblesite.org, which has a whole host of info and images available and is well worth a visit.

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Central section of the Milky Way

This photograph is actually a combined effort between the Hubble, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope and does a wonderful job of showing off our very own galaxy.

Age Of Discovery

The Hubble telescope has had a marked role to play in many discoveries, not least of which has been to strengthen the hypothesis that dark energy causes the expansion of the Universe to accelerate. It was also instrumental in narrowing down the estimated age of the Universe from 10 to 20 billion years to 13 to 14 billion, as well as giving astronomers detailed information on supernovae, and galaxies in various evolutionary states.