An interesting thing I didn't know until today

[Amor de Cosmos]

Uranus is a "sideways' planet. Its poles are East/West. So it gets half a year of Winter night, and half a year of Summer day. It sounds unbearable, but fascinating nonetheless.

[hobbes]

I suspect the wonky aspect would be the least of your problems, real-estate wise. The liquid amonia in the atmosphere would make your eyes sting a bit and being the coldest planet in the solar system would mean expensive heating bills. (Although there plenty of hydrogen to burn.)
Nice rings though.

[Duncan Gardner]

Shot sideways through Uranus, you only ...

[Ginger Yellow]

Venus is upside down.

[Gangster Octopus]

Should be called Sunev?

[Janik]

Earth is a semi-sideways planet - it's at a 23 degree rotation from the orbital plane. That is pretty significant... and causes our seasons. If it was in line with the plane (the default but not something likely to be maintained for long by any celestial body) then there would be a gradient of warmer or colder weather running towards the poles but without that varying particularly, well, ever.

Seasons are to an extent a peculiar local phenomenon rather than a standard to be expected everywhere.

My current favourite solar system fact is that Mercury rotates once on it's axis in a shorter time than it takes to make one orbit around the Sun... but because it is also orbiting around the Sun, the length of time from solar noon to solar noon (the usual definition of a day) on Mercury is greater than it's year.
[the central point here is that any body orbiting another needs to complete x+1 rotations to keep bringing the same locus back to a fixed point in it's sky - for instance, every 365 Earth days the Earth spins all the way round 366 times]

[Patrick Thistle]

Moving off the space thread, yesterday I learned about "airgraphs" which were used during the second world war. A person bought a form to write a letter / draw a picture, which was then photographed along with lots of others (1600 letters per roll of film), the film was transported overseas, where the airgraphs were printed and given to the serviceman who could send an airgraph back if they wanted. 65 million letters were sent this way from 1942-46.

[hobbes]

If we didn't have the moon the Earth wouldn't be.able to maintain its 23degree angle. The moon is by far the largest satellite compared to its host that we know of. So technically if it wasn't for the horrendous space kablooie that created the moon (a cataclysmic collision between the earth and another proto planet around the size of Mars) then we wouldn't have seasons. In fact there a theory that without the moon the Earth could be tidally locked to the sun which would fuck us right up.

Also, due to the Earth not being a perfect sphere but rather an oblate spheroid it has an axial precession caused by the additional force of gravity on the bulge. which means "north" moves in a complete circle over approx 26000 years.
So relatively soon, Polaris won't be the pole star anymore.

[hobbes]

Oh and Jupiter and Saturn spin REALLY fast, their days being just shy of 10 and 11 hours respectively.

[hobbes]

Oh, one more before bed. The largest star we currently know of is UY Scuti. It's so big that if you put it in the solar system so it's centre is where the sun's centre is, all of the planets out to Saturn would be swallowed up by it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Did you really not know all those things until today?

[jason voorhees]

I found out Napoleon sent Polish troops to help quell the Haitian Revolution. Upon getting there, and realizing they were not fighting for the ideals of the revolution, they joined the Haitian uprising.

[ursus arctos]

And their descendants are still there

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Haitians

[Sam]

Did you really not know all those things until today?

If we're sticking to strictly things we found out today, then: due to a client of my client deciding, a week after I'd finished proofreading their 74-page sustainability report, that actually they do want Oxford commas in spite of their style guide saying they were to be avoided unless absolutely necessary, today I ... perhaps didn't exactly find out, but had reconfirmed, just what a common word 'and' is. 'Or' somewhat less so.

[Duncan Gardner]

Liquid water on Jupiter's moon Europa, by Jove?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I suspect that almost all of the above were interesting things hobbes knew before yesterday, and should therefore be struck from the record.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

One interesting thing I found out in Genoa three days ago is that the "English" flag is, in fact, theirs. Our ships adopted it in the 12th century so they could gain protection sailing in the Med (no pirates were stupid enough to mess about with Genoan ships) and our king liked it so much he nicked it. Genoa is actually quite pissed off that so few of the stupid English know about that, and ask why they've got "our" flag.

[hobbes]

I suspect that almost all of the above were interesting things hobbes knew before yesterday, and should therefore be struck from the record.

I was sharing in the hope that other people might find them out for the first time.

[3 Colours Red]

Saturn has a hexagonal cloud pattern at its north pole.

[tee rex]

OTF teaching:

Thread on dictators in songs > so I look up Billy Joel's We didn't start the fire > find Malenkov > learn who he was.

Will forget tomorrow but at least I knew today, so thanks.

(edit: OK, he was in The Death of Stalin so I kind of knew who he was, but these days I do a lot of re-learning)

[elguapo4]

Only recently found out about the war between France and Thailand in 1940.

Following the fall of France, the military dictatorship in Thailand thought " we'll grab a bit of Cambodia and Vietnam for ourselves " the Vichy government replied with " you will in your hole" and a short war ensued, eventually stopped by a peace deal, organised by those honest brokers Japan, who walked in and took over the whole area less than a year later.

[hobbes]

So it's my first day in the office today. And I've learned an awful lot about some chap 20 yards from me's garden and new decking. None of it is interesting, unfortunately.

[Nocturnal Submission]

In private, the Queen is said to be a very good mimic, according to Mr Lacey, a historical consultant on Netflix series The Crown.

She is said to do a particularly good impression of the former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, says Karen Dolby, author of the Wicked Wit of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Queen has met many comedians, including Tommy Cooper, who Ms Dolby recounts once asked the monarch if she liked football.

When she admitted to not being particularly interested, he replied: "In that case, can I have your FA Cup final tickets?"

In terms of TV comedy preferences, the Kumars at No. 42 is said to have been a royal favourite.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I suspect the wonky aspect would be the least of your problems, real-estate wise. The liquid amonia in the atmosphere would make your eyes sting a bit and being the coldest planet in the solar system would mean expensive heating bills. (Although there plenty of hydrogen to burn.)
Nice rings though.

smh some people have never heard of wearing an extra jumper

[caja-dglh]

Today I learned that some colleagues spend their time doing whatever they like so they cannot commit resources to things that need done.

Crossover with workplace annoyance there.