Which generates more energy, your body or a 60-watt light bulb? You may be surprised to learn that the answer is your body. While sleeping or resting, a human body generates about one hundred watts of power just to stay alive. During exercise, that amount can jump as high as three hundred to four hundred watts. If you do nothing for an entire day, your body will churn through about 2.3 kWh of energy. (An average US home uses 30 kWh per day).
People have always looked into the sky and tried to explain what they saw. Some early civilizations created fantastic stories to explain the patterns above us. Our modern scientific understanding shows the truth is more extraordinary than any of these tales. Some small dots of light in the sky are actually enormous objects called galaxies, made up of billions of stars, some so far away that it took billions of years for the light to reach us. These galaxies are shaped, not by the exploits of gods, but by a whole range of incredible objects, like black holes in space from which nothing can ever escape.
Do you want to visit Mars? Someday, you may get a chance. Several countries and companies have plans for crewed missions to Mars. Elon Musk, a famous inventor and founder of the company SpaceX, is planning one of those missions for 2026. But he has even bigger visions. In a 2021 speech, he said that he wants to “build a city on Mars to become a spacefaring civilization, a multi-planet species. ”
Zip! Zing! Right now, teeny tiny paricles are pelting your body. Every second, one hundred trillion of them zoom through you. But they don’t hur. In fact, they usually don’t disturb even a single atom or molecule on the way through. These paricles can pass through all of planet Earh without hitting anything!
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