Tag Archives: Universe

What are The Dangers of Space?

The exploration of space has claimed the lives of 15 men and women. On January 27, 1967, three American astronauts, Virgil Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger Chaffee, were strapped into a capsule atop a rocket for a takeoff simulation. At 6:31 P.M., a frantic voice cried out that a fire had started in the capsule. [...]
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How Did The Jojoba Plant Help Save The Sperm Whale?

Sperm whales are mercilessly hunted by Russian and Japanese whalers. These giant mammals provide a type of valuable oil. So many whales are killed to get this oil that the whales are in danger of extinction. However, a small plant that grows in the arid lands of the San Carlos Apaches in Arizona may put the [...]
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How Is Amber Formed?

Amber is a gem that is made by trees. Amber is made of fossilized resin, a substance given off by certain trees. Usually yellow or brown, amber is a semiprecious stone, which means that it is valuable but not as valuable as a diamond, ruby, or emerald. Some of these amber gems were formed around the [...]
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What Is The Tallest Mountain On Mars?

Mount Everest is five and a half miles high. Is there really a mountain somewhere that is fifteen miles high? Yes. This great mountain is called Olympus Mons, and it sits on the planet Mars. The mountain is a volcano, and the top of it is 45 miles across. How could a mountain ever get so [...]
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Do Volcanos Emit Dangerous Gases?

Iceland’s Mount Laki is an active volcano, and it once emitted a gas called fluorine, which is a very slow-working poison. Months afterward, this gas caused the teeth of sheep to turn black and the tails of many horses to fall off. Stranger yet, many animals born after the blast of invisible gas had spiny growths [...]
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How Much Oil Is There In The Tar Sands Of Canada?

It smells like tar, and Canada has more of it than any other nation in the world. The Tar sands are a rich source of oil that lies right on the earth’s surface in parts of western Canada. There is so much oil in this tar sand that Canada may very well become the richest nation [...]
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What Was The Worst Hailstorm In The World?

The storm that hit India on April 30, 1888, is considered to have been the world’s worst. Hailstones said to be the size of softballs killed 246 people. Some people died because they were hit and battered by the stones, but others were knocked unconscious, buried under mounds of hailstones, and later died from the cold. The [...]
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What Was the Most Damaging Hurricane in US History?

On September 8, 1900, a powerful hurricane rushed across the Galveston Bay in Texas and nearly destroyed the entire city of Galveston. More than half the homes in Galveston were completely destroyed. The official death toll was 6,000, but the storm came so suddenly that whole families were swept out to sea right inside their houses, [...]
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How Do You Measure A Star’s Temperature?

Look at the skies at night and see all those bright stars. Is it possible that man could measure the temperature of just one of them? As strange as it may sound, we can take the temperature of a star. All we need is a jet airplane, a telescope, a heat detector, and a paper-thin diamond [...]
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Are Iceland’s Sulfur Pools Toxic?

To many people, Iceland is a strange and eerie place. It sits in the North Atlantic on top of a range of ancient volcanoes that rise from the ocean floor. It also has, from time to time, strange and mysterious pools of death. An animal walking across a pasture will suddenly fall over and die. A man [...]
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