The hemispheres divide the world into four sections, with the equator separating the Northern and Southern hemispheres at zero degrees latitude and the prime meridian separating the Western and Eastern hemispheres at zero degrees longitude. Most continents fall within only a few of these invisible boundaries, but one has land in all four hemispheres: Africa. The equator passes through seven African nations (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Republic of Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, Somalia, and Uganda), while the prime meridian crosses five (Algeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, and Togo).

Africa is the world’s largest continent.

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Asia is the world’s largest continent by both size and population, with an area of 17.2 million square miles and a population of more than 4.7 billion. Africa is No. 2 on both lists — it has an area of 11.7 million square miles and is home to 1.3 billion people.

Countries beyond Africa that lie in both the Western and Eastern hemispheres include the United Kingdom, France, and Spain, while Indonesia, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Kiribati, and the Maldives intersect the Northern and Southern hemispheres. (In fact, the atolls of Kiribati cross all four hemispheres; some other nations also cross several hemispheres if you include their overseas possessions.) But with 12 hemisphere-spanning countries and land at both the prime meridian and equator, Africa’s spot on the map is unparalleled.

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The average person can probably name a couple of the more famous shipwrecks — maybe the Titanic or Queen Anne's Revenge — but there are many, many more that have sunk from sight and public recollection. Altogether, it's believed that at least 3 million such wrecks dot the ocean floors.

Bermuda has the most shipwrecks per square mile of any location on the planet.

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Although Bermuda measures less than 21 square miles, the combination of its location within trade routes and hazardous coral reefs has produced more than 300 shipwrecks off its coast.

If that number doesn't seem particularly remarkable (humans have been building boats for at least 10,000 years, after all), then perhaps it's more surprising to learn that less than 1% of these submerged crafts have been explored. Why such a small percentage? Well, the world's oceans are enormous, reaching an average depth of more than 12,000 feet, and only 19% of the ocean floor has been charted in detail. There's also the matter of the money needed to launch expeditions to find these vessels. But times are changing in the realm of wreckage discovery: The digitization of archives has made records more accessible, and the development of technologies such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) has rendered the searching process less treacherous for explorers.

So what becomes of most shipwrecks? Some of them are looted for profit, despite legal efforts to preserve the historical value of their artifacts. Some are turned into underwater museums. But most others become reefs — playgrounds for fish and other varieties of marine life. They may not receive the fanfare showered on the wreck of Titanic, but they nevertheless take on new and important functions far below the waves.

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Compared to other planets in our solar system, Earth is filled with impressive landscapes, including snow-capped peaks, lush rainforests, and vast oceans. But some places on our planet are so extreme, they’re otherworldly — like Venus otherworldly. The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the driest places in the world, so it makes sense that such a parched ecosystem would get its fair share of sun. But in the summer of 2023, scientists discovered that some parts of this immense plateau in fact get far more sunlight than any other place on Earth. While taking measurements of solar irradiance (light energy from the sun) on the Chajnantor plateau, researchers discovered — via a complex meteorological process known as “forward scattering” — that this area was nearly as sunny in summer as the surface of Venus.

Venus is the only planet that spins clockwise.

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While most planets spin counter-clockwise, Venus flouts the trend and spins clockwise. Astronomers theorize that a huge celestial collision involving Venus in the early solar system flipped the planet upside down. A similar process may have happened to Uranus, which spins on its side.

Despite some key differences between the two planets, scientists often call Venus Earth’s twin. Venus is roughly the same size as Earth, formed in the same area of the inner solar system, and is composed of much the same material — scientists even theorize that Venus was just like Earth some 3 billion years ago. But it is definitely not Earthlike now; it’s a sweltering hell planet thanks to an atmosphere of thick carbon dioxide that traps all greenhouse gases. If you somehow found yourself on Venus, high levels of solar irradiance would be the least of your immediate worries, considering its surface temperatures of 900 degrees Fahrenheit and sulfuric acid-filled clouds. 

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