250+ Fun Facts That’ll Explain the Universe [2020]

By January Nelson

The universe is full of mysteries that just can’t be explained. Still, these phenomenons help us understand that the universe is simply a mystery, and somehow, that makes sense to us. Events happen that somehow, in some way, relate to who we are and what we’re doing today.

With random facts about the mystery behind the Great Pyramid, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, and fun facts about Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney’s park, here are some interesting facts about the world that will explain the universe.

Some of these might be considered random fun facts that are fun enough to bring up at parties, and some might be more interesting and make you really think about the universe, Earth, and even the human brain. Even if things are explained, that doesn’t mean we can completely make sense of it…

There’s a theory called “eternal inflation”, which is the idea that we live in a multiverse, in which the universe we live in is one of the trillions. Think about it: we’re on a planet, in a galaxy, in a universe.
The human brain is the most complicated thing we have yet discovered.
The Sahara Desert covers roughly 3.6 million square miles.

As of 2015, there are nearly 38 million people living in Tokyo, Japan, ranking it as the largest city in the world.
Along with being the capital and the largest city in Egypt, Cairo is known for the Great Pyramid…aka, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
A butterfly has about 12,000 eyes.
It would take about 680 years to get to Pluto if you were driving in a car at 590mph.
There is no atmosphere in space, which means there is no way for sound to travel and/or be heard. In other words: space is completely silent.
It took one and half years to build Cinderella’s castle in Disney World.
When you’re asleep and dreaming, you’re actually paralyzed.
The time it takes to get to Saturn via spacecraft has varied in the past. Pioneer 11 took six and a half years to arrive. Voyager 1 took three years and two months, Voyager 2 took four years, and the Cassini spacecraft took six years and nine months to arrive.
Jumping rope is one of the best forms of cardio because it can burn over 200 calories (even if you do it for 10 minutes)!

The British Queen uses handbags as a body language communication device. It’s used to relay secret and silent messages to her staff. For example, if she’s finished speaking to a guest, she will move it from one arm to another.
Before trees existed, giant white mushrooms covered most of the Earth’s surface.
The ocean is full of mysterious, endangered, terrifying, beautiful creatures, including the lion’s mane jellyfish which is measured to be 120 feet in length—which is longer than the size of a whale or a shark!
Jellyfish are made up of 95% water.
Different colored roses symbolize different things: red, love; yellow, friendship; dark pink, gratitude; orange, desire; peach, appreciation white, purity.
There is a volcano on Mars known to be three times the size of Mount Everest, which is over 29,000 feet tall (and 5.5 miles long)!
There’s a condition in which a person experiences unreal and very loud noises just as they’re falling asleep, deep into the REM cycle. It’s called “exploding head syndrome”.
As the largest city in the world, Russia has a tradition for a newly married couple to go on a city tour immediately following the ceremony.
40 billion Earth-like planets could exist in the Milky Way, which means there is a good chance of life somewhere else…
Drinking a cup of warm/hot lemon water when you first wake up is known for helping your digestive system.
There are 4 likely spots for alien life in this solar system.

The Mississippi River is the second-longest river in the world, flowing 2,350 miles. The Missouri River is 100 miles longer. However, compared to the rest of the rivers on Earth like the Nile, the Amazon, and the Yangtze Rivers, the Mississippi-Missouri River comes in 4th place for being the longest river.
Snakes can burp fire—only if the decomposing animal they eat bursts with methane and hydrogen while being digested.
A scorpion can hold its breath for 1 week.
Before 2011, any drink with less than 10% alcohol was legally classified as a soft drink in Russia.
There’s a theory that Earth was struck by a giant object and the collision caused a piece of the Earth to break away, thus creating the moon.
Despite being the largest animal to have ever lived on planet Earth, the Blue Whale is known to feed on some of the smallest marine animals: tiny shrimp called krill!
When you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond.
Lightning can strike twice.
In 1773, after the Boston Tea Party, it was considered to be “patriotic duty” to switch from drinking tea to drinking coffee.
Most perfume is made from Sperm Whale puke.
In North America, you can find every single one of the earth’s major biomes! These include tropical rainforest, grassland, desert, tundra and coral reef: the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls and many more.
The world’s oldest known bird is a Layman Albatross named Wisdom. As of 2018, it is 68 years old.
A bolt of lightning is 5x hotter than the sun!
You know those statues of people riding horses? Well, the legs of the horse can tell you how the person riding it died: if a horse has both its front legs in the air, then the person died in battle. If the horse has one of its front legs in the air, they died of wounds received from a battle. And if the horse has both its front legs on the ground then the person died of natural causes.
49% of Americans start their day with cereal.
The world’s oldest in the world is a pine tree, located in California’s White Mountain range. It’s over 4,700 years old!
Bulls are actually colorblind and so they can’t see the color red.
There is a species of sharks they can live under an active and underwater volcano. Investigation cannot be done because divers would get burns from the acidity and heat of the volcano.
Coca Cola was originally green—food coloring dye is what gives it the color it has now!
The largest tree in the world—the giant sequoia, also known as General Sherman—measures up to 52,508 cubic feet.
According to the United Nations, by 2025, 2/3 of the world’s population is going to face water scarcity.
Fortune cookies are an American thing—it was invented by someone in San Francisco in 1890.
Despite the colossal size of the project, the designing, planning, and construction of The Empire State Building only took 20 months.
10% of the bones in a cat are located in its tail.
Humans have unique fingerprints and unique tongue-prints!
You might consider New York City or Los Angeles to be the largest city in North America, however, Mexico City is actually the largest!
It is possible to play rugby underwater. It’s literally called “underwater rugby.”
Peacocks are male while peahens are female.
On a clear day, you can go to the top of the Empire State Building and see 80 miles into New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.
Blue Whales are so large that their hearts are about 5 feet long and weigh 400 pounds and their tongues weigh as much as an elephant.
It’s considered dangerous for flies to have sex—when they mate, a specific sound emits and catches the attention of predators like bats.
The Amazon Rainforest is 2.13 million square miles long, covering most of the northwestern part of Brazil and extending into Colombia and Peru.
There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth.
Only 3% water of the Earth is fresh, rest 97% salted.
Ben Franklin only received 2 years of formal education.
Ravens can learn how to speak better than parrots.
The Earth is the fifth largest planet, and yet, could fit into the sun 1.3 million times. times. Although Earth is the only known planet in the universe to possess life, researchers suspect that Saturn’s moon Titan or Jupiter’s moon Europa could host life in our solar system.
An average person fast food intake will contain 12 pubic hairs a year.
It’s impossible to hum while holding your nose.
Bertrand Bookstore in Lisbon, Portugal is the oldest bookstore in the world. It opened in 1732.
Octopus’ have 3 hearts.
If you went out into space, you would explode before you suffocated because there’s no air pressure.
Until the 1970s and before alarm clocks became a thing, there were “Knocker Uppers” who would wake people up for work.
Earth’s water was initially trapped within the planet. Over time, it was brought to the surface through volcanic activity that occurred.
It would take 1,200,000 mosquitoes, each sucking once, to completely drain the average human of blood.
Grapes are fatally toxic to cats and dogs.
Chickens are the closest living relatives to the T-Rex because of the avian genome structure in their lineage.
A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been decapitated.
The first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive was a 63 year old female schoolteacher.
There is a species of mouse that defends its territory by howling.
The world’s largest waterfall is underwater.
As of 2018, the world’s population has grown to 7.594 billion people.
If a human being’s DNA were uncoiled, it would stretch 10 billion miles, from Earth to Pluto and back!
The man who invented the software for the World Wide Web admits that “//“ after “https” in a web address doesn’t serve a real purpose.
There are 100,000 satellites currently orbiting the earth and one of them is believed to be alien.
Wasabi is so expensive that some companies use horseradish. Real wasabi is a lot milder than what you might’ve been tasting.
Your mind can sense someone staring at you even while asleep. Which explains why you randomly wake up during the night.
Pirates wore eye patches to help their eyes get accustomed to seeing in the dark.
The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland. This is because of its association with chivalry, purity, and innocence in Celtic mythology.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.
There is a bird in Australia known for mimicking any sound it hears, whether if it’s an animal like a koala or a camera shutter.
Approximately 2.6 pounds of grapes (about 700 grapes) go into making a bottle of wine.
About 8.5 million people live in NYC, which is 40% of the U.S. population.
The Chesapeake Bay stretches about 524 miles from Cooperstown, New York, to Norfolk, Virginia. It reaches six states—Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia—and the entire District of Columbia.
Some people are “blind in the mind” with “Aphantasia” which is a condition that some people have where they can’t see images in their mind.
As you breathe, most of the air goes in and out of one nostril. Then, throughout the day (every few hours) it shifts to the other nostril.
There have been more than 100 documented cases of children being raised by animals.
Because the Chesapeake Bay consists of both salt and fresh water, trees in the surrounding forest help filter and protect the water for human drinking and being a home for animals.
There were 42 known assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler.
There is a place in Ethiopia that is so hot and its air is so toxic that it is known as “The Gateway to Hell”.
Dating back 600 years, bras were made with linen and made for comfort.
Genetically speaking, the children of identical twins are considered siblings, not cousins. The Great Pyramid sits alongside the pyramids of Menkaure and Khafre, and is perfectly aligned with the constellation of Orion.
Water — our oceans — cover approximately 70% of Earth.
Ketchup was a medicine in the early 1800s because of the vitamins and antioxidants and was used to cure diarrhea and indigestion.
Until the mid-1880s, lobster was considered to be low-class food served to prison inmates and servants.
Sunflowers face the sun. When they cannot find the sun, they face each other.
Bumblebees are capable of flying higher than Mount Everest!
Ohio has issued mandatory license plates—yellow with red writing—to drivers who have been repeat DUI offenders.
No one really knows who invented the fire hydrant.
The average person 2 pints of saliva every day.
If you eat too many carrots, it is possible for your skin to turn orange.
There are 3,160 tons of water that flow over Niagara Falls every second.
If a sumo wrestler can make a baby cry, it is considered good luck and that baby will live a healthy life.
Only 5% of the ocean has been explored.
Before 1935, it was illegal to sing “Happy Birthday” in restaurants because of copyright claims; however, those claims are now invalid (the copyright is the piano arrangement, not the lyrics itself).
You’re more likely to receive a computer virus from visiting a religious site than a porn site.
There is a tomb in London that is considered to be a time machine or a teleportation chamber.
Dogs sneeze when play fighting to show they are playing and don’t wanna hurt you!
1.7% of the world’s water is frozen (the fresh water is trapped in glaciers) and unfortunately, unusable.
There is a mysterious hum in New Mexico that only 2% of the population can hear. According to the people who can hear it, they have become depressed and describe it as “some kind of torture.”
It’s estimated that there’s somewhere around 25-50 serial killers that are active each year in the US.
There is an uninhabited island known as Pig Beach, located in the Bahamas, that is populated by pigs. They swim, too!
You are more likely to be bitten by a New York resident than a shark. Yes. Seriously.
Cockroaches can live for weeks without their heads.
If everyone in the US flushed the toilet just one less time per day, we could save a lake full of water about one mile long, one mile wide and four feet deep.
Oranges were originally green.
According to an astronomer, one day—in a trillion years—we will run out of gas. That means black holes will evaporate and there will be no more stars and the universe will become a dark place.
Shel Silverstein—the infamous author of Where The Sidewalk Ends—was once was a cartoonist for Playboy.
There are over 70 unique species of trees in Niagara Falls and the surrounding areas.
Amelia Earhart bought her first plane within 6 months of taking her first flying lesson.
Prisoners at Alcatraz were given the luxury of hot showers. Why? Management of the prison didn’t want them to acclimate to cold water and be able to escape from the island.
Every year on August 5, the Mars Rover celebrates the anniversary of its arrival by singing “Happy Birthday” to itself.
A flock of crows is known as a “murder.”
Humans are constantly shedding our skin into the air. With that being said, the air in the subway is 15% human skin.
Scientology, the infamous cult-like church, was founded in 1954 by devoted followers of a science fiction writer who created Xenu. Today, members of this “church” believe in Xenu, a God-like creature. Many celebrities are a part of this cult and you have to pay (up to half a million dollars) for courses to get in.
A male platypus has venom on its hind foot that has enough poison to kill a medium-sized dog.
Men and women have been known to feel love differently.
7% of American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.
On July 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator Frederick Noonan were reported missing during one of the most difficult parts of their planned route near the Pacific Ocean. It wasn’t until 2018 that scientists found bones that was a possible match to Amelia Earhart. Unfortunately, these remains have been lost and so there’s still speculation and her death is still a mystery.
On average, you will walk past 36 murderers in your lifetime.
It is actually possible for your heart to break. If you experience intense events like a break up, loss of a loved one or betrayal, you can experience physical pains in your heart. It’s called the Broken Heart Syndrome.
Red Sour Patch Kids are the same taste of Swedish Fish, just with some sour sugar sprinkled on them.
The ocean, on average, is 8 Empire State Buildings deep.
If a female ferret doesn’t have sex for a year, she will die.
Recycling one glass jar saves enough energy to watch television for 3 hours.
While Disneyland was being built in the early 1950s, Walt built an apartment for his family above the Fire Department on Main Street. A lamp lit in the window let staff know anytime he was there, and now it’s always alight in his honor.
A giraffe has the same number of bones in their neck as humans.
Birds poop and pee out of the same hole. Bird poop is also green because their urine is green.
The man with the longest beard in the world died after he tripped over said beard trying to run away from a fire.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
A bag of ramen is 2 serving sizes. Yeah, half the bag is a meal for one person.
Cats only meow because it’s a way of communicating with humans.
Squirrels forget where they bury their nuts.
The reason “Kansas” and “Arkansas” are pronounced differently is because “Kansas” has Native American roots, where “Arkansas” has French roots.
A psychologist and his team conducted a study and proved that walking through a doorway can trigger the brain to forget where you were going or what you were going to do.
In the U.S., there are more plastic flamingos than real ones.
A kiss increases a person’s pulse to 100 beats per minute or more.
When icebergs and glaciers melt, they make a fizzing noise. It’s called “bergy seltzer.”
The artists who voiced Mickey Mouse & Minnie Mouse were married in real life.
The word “oxymoron” is an oxymoron within itself. In ancient Greek, “oxy” means “sharp” and “moros” means “stupid.”
For some people, anesthesia has no effect during surgery.
Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin both married their cousins.
It is possible for water to boil and freeze at the same time.
Frederic Baur invented the Pringle’s can and after he died, his ashes were buried in one.
Mandarin Chinese is the most popular language in the world.
It would take 1.2 million mosquitos to drain all of the blood from a human body.
France is the #1 most-visited country in the world. Spain is #2.
Your eyes are the most active muscle of your body, moving about 100,000 times per day.
Walt Disney said silent film star Charlie Chaplin was an inspiration for Mickey Mouse.
About 90 different commercial airplanes have gone missing in the last seven decades. Wreckage from these planes has never been found.
When you crack your knuckles, neck, back, and other joints, you get that popping sound. It’s actually the sound of bubbles popping in the joints’ fluid. It’s not necessarily harmful, but cracking it too often can hurt ligaments.
In The Wizard of Oz, the snow in the poppy scene was made of asbestos.
Ted Bundy and Jack Nicholson had very similar childhoods. Yet, one became a serial killer and the other became a famous actor.
Your hair and nails are made of keratin, which is found in beaks, hooves, horns, porcupine quills and turtle shells.
Tarantulas can swim…fast.
Apparently, humans can hear the difference between hot and cold water being poured.
Judge Judy is the highest-paid TV host.
People in Russia once defrosted prehistoric worms—one was 32,000 years old and the other was 41,7000 years old—and they woke up.
A duck’s quack doesn’t echo.
If you were on Saturn’s moon, Titan, and attached wings to your arms, you could fly.
There is a type of caterpillar that is so poisonous that if it brushes up against your skin, it can cause internal bleeding of your brain.
You are 1 cm taller when you wake up.
There is a psychological phenomenon known as the Acquired Musical Savant Syndrome, in which a person experiences neurological injuries, (like from almost drowning or being struck by lightning), and causes them to become inexplicably talented at playing music. This phenomenon was studied and explained in Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia.
Pigs can have orgasms that last for 30 minutes.
If a comet or a star gets remotely close to a black hole, it can suck it in and stretch it out. This is called “spaghettification”.
Oreos are vegan.
Although space is silent, the planets in our solar system still make a faint noise if you get close enough. Saturn is the most chilling, frightening sound in space.
Only 7% of people are left-handed.
“Deiphnophobia” is the fear of dinner party conversations.
Some scientists suggest that, if space really is infinite, then there is an exact copy of you somewhere in the universe.
Hippopotamus milk is pink.
Approximately 10-20% of U.S. power outages are caused by squirrels.
While the Bermuda Triangle is known to be an area in the Atlantic Ocean where planes and boats mysteriously disappear, it also has a number of reported incidents of UFO sightings and supernatural explanations of the lost continent of Atlantis.
A piece of paper can be folded in half 7 times and that’s it!
During a person’s lifetime, they spend about 2 weeks kissing.
The little jump guinea pigs do when they’re happy is called popcorning.
Talking to your plants and playing music can help them grow faster.
Sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don’t drift away from each other.
There is a network of underground tunnels that help Disney cast members navigate the park. The tunnel walls are color-coded so cast members can easily know where they are.
On February 18th 1979, it snowed in the Sahara desert for 30 minutes.
No word in the English language rhymes with “month”.
Mr. Potato Head was the first toy to be advertised on TV.
There is so much Vitamin A in the liver of a polar bear, that if a human were to eat it, they would die.
You know when you get a song stuck in your head? That’s called an “earworm”.
The surface of Mars is covered in rust, making the planet appear red.
The distance from your inner elbow to your wrist is the same as the length of your foot.
OJ Simpson was cast to play the Terminator, but producers decided against it because they were afraid that viewers wouldn’t see him as a remorseless killer.
The longest traffic jam occurred in Beijing in 2010: it was 62 miles long and lasted 12 days.
Don’t try to hold in a sneeze — it can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and you can die!
The terrifying noises made by the raptors in Jurassic Park were recordings of tortoises mating.
Teeth are the only part of the human body that cannot heal themselves.
All swans in England are owned by the Queen.
Musicians’ lifespans are 25 years shorter than the general population.
Nutella was invented during WWII, when hazelnuts were mixed into chocolate to extend chocolate rations.
It’s possible for dead people to get goosebumps.
There is a company that can turn your ashes into a firework, so when you die, you can go out with a bang.
Hippos have such large mouths that a 4ft. child can fit inside of it.
Can you guess what the strongest muscle in the human body is? Yep, it’s your tongue.
Bunnies can’t move their legs independently, which is why they can’t walk, only hop.
Lungs can float on water.
There is a condition in which people can see small people and animals with distorted and scary faces. Many people believe this to be a portal to a parallel reality.
In South Korea, there is an emergency number to report spies. 113.
Not only do tigers have striped skin and striped fur, but no two tigers have the same pattern.
“Goodbye, My Lover” by James Blunt was recorded in Carrie Fisher’s bathroom.
Dead bodies are used as landmarks and markers for climbers on Mount Everest.
You can’t sneeze in your sleep because your brain shuts down that reflex.
We are all made of star dust. The elements that we are composed of were formed in the interiors of collapsing stars.
In The Wizard of Oz, the cowardly lion’s costume was made of real lion skin. It weighed about 100 pounds.
Several centuries ago in Holland, tulips were more valuable than gold.
About 46% of babies born in China are birthed via a C-section.
Fleas can jump up to seven inches and more than 80 times their height. Yikes.
If you thaw a frozen lobster, it can come back to life.
When the Magic Kingdom Park first opened in 1971, admission was only $3.50. Now it’s about $109.
Our eyes are the same size from birth.
Drinking 10 gallons of carrot juice can make your brain swell with too much Vitamin A and eventually kill you!
There are health benefits to popcorn, including help build bone, muscle and tissues, and aids digestion.
It can take 68 days to swim the full length of the Mississippi River.
Every day, your heart produces enough energy to power a truck for 20 miles.
Cheetahs can sprint for about 17 seconds straight. After that they have to stop because they generate so much heat from the exertion that if they continued running they would literally cook their own brains.
The first person to perform a successful C-section in South Africa was Dr. James Barry…and she was a woman!
The movie Psycho is the first movie, ever, to show a flushing toilet.
Violin bows are made from horse hair.
In terms of astrology, most people have aspects of every 12 signs in their chart.
Camels’ humps don’t actually hold water, but fat that helps regulate their body temperature during the climate of the desert (baking hot days and freezing cold nights).
The filling in a Kit Kat is broken up Kit Kats.
There are no clocks in Vegas’ casinos.
More people die from mosquito bites than by snake or shark bites.
Oranges and bananas are considered “berries”, while strawberries are considered “aggregate fruits.”
Research shows that everyone has up to 6 doppelgängers.
It has been tried and tested: it takes 364 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.
Money was printed with green ink because the ink was plentiful and durable and the color was often associated with stability.
Lungs aren’t the same size. To accommodate the heart, the right lung is larger than the left lung — for humans, that is.
There is a flower known to smell like a rotting dead body. It’s literally called a corpse flower.
It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
In the 1920s, women in several US cities organized Anti-Flirt Clubs to combat catcalling.
China, India, and Greece were the first countries to use astrology. It got started around 3000 BC.
We lose 80% of our body heat from the head.
At any moment, at any time, in the next five minutes or the next thousand years, Earth could be hit by a Gamma Ray Burst. This would extinguish most, if not all life on the planet.
Yawning can cool down your brain.
Chicago is home of the world’s tallest building.
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946. Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters. Both were particularly concerned with civil rights. Both wives lost their children while living in the White House. Both Presidents were shot on a Friday. Both were shot in the head. Lincoln’s secretary, Kennedy, warned him not to go to the theatre. Kennedy’s secretary, Lincoln, warned him not to go to Dallas. Both were assassinated by Southerners. Both were succeeded by Southerners. Both successors were named Johnson. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908. John Wilkes Booth was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald was born in 1939. Both assassins were known by their three names. Both names are comprised of fifteen letters. Booth ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse. Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater. Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

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