Libya's discovery of oil in the 1950s marked a significant improvement for the country, which had previously been one of the poorest in the world. The country's annual oil output peaked at 1.65 million barrels per day in 2010. Oil and petroleum products account for the majority of the country's exports and government revenue today. It is also one among Africa's 15 most prosperous economies, including South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, and Cameroon, among others. Nonetheless, the country's unpredictable political situation has caused worldwide oil price changes in recent years.

While Pluto's icy neighbours are to blame for the planet's demise, they are also part of what makes the New Horizons mission so interesting. Pluto contains hills and tiny mountains that virtually float across its surface, according to the most recent finding. It's strange and strange, but we're dealing with a very foreign place on the boundaries of the Solar System, after all.

Disney's Pluto the dog debuted the same year as the former planet, although, contrary to common perception, the dog was named after Pluto the (ex)-planet, not the other way around. Walt Disney may have chosen the moniker to capitalise on the excitement around the new planet, according to Disney animators.

The $700 million New Horizons probe is just the size of a grand piano, weighing in about 1,000 pounds. On Tuesday morning, it completed the nine-year, 3-billion-mile trek to Pluto, passing within 6,000 feet of the dwarf planet at 31,000 mph and taking the closest images of Pluto ever taken.

NASA images published on Tuesday reveal a heart shape measuring around 1,000 kilometres broad. Much of the heart's inside is strikingly featureless–possibly an indication of ongoing geologic processes, according to NASA.

The news of Pluto’s larger than expected size on Monday was particularly exciting to Pluto partisans because many believe the outsider was stripped of its planetary status because it was too small. However, Pluto was actually downgraded to dwarf planet because it’s simply not unique. Pluto is merely the brightest member of the Kuiper Belt, a mass of objects that orbit the sun beyond Neptune.
 

While Pluto's icy neighbours are to blame for the planet's demise, they are also part of what makes the New Horizons mission so interesting. "Pluto may be the star witness to the entire third zone of the solar system," NASA's Jeff Moore told TIME. The solar system was thought to be divided into two zones until the Kuiper Belt was discovered: the inner zone, which contained the rocky planets from Mercury to Mars, and the outer zone, which contained the gas giants from Jupiter to Neptune. Pluto, on the other hand, introduced astronomers to the third zone of our solar system, which Moore described as a "vast region of ice planets."

Clyde Tombaugh, a 24-year-old research assistant at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, was the first to spot photographic evidence of the former eighth planet. The ashes of Tombaugh are on board the New Horizons spacecraft, which flew by Pluto on Tuesday. Pluto's existence was predicted 15 years before Tombaugh's discovery, with astronomer Percival Lowell even calculating its approximate position based on the irregularity of Neptune's orbit.

Venetia Burney suggested the name Pluto after the Roman god of the Underworld after her grandpa informed her about the newly found planet. Pluto the planet, like the God, sat in the furthest ends of the solar system, thus it felt appropriate. Her grandpa was taken with the name and proposed it to a friend, who happened to be an Oxford University astronomy professor. Pluto piqued the interest of astronomers since the first two letters of the name are Percival Lowell's initials.

According to current New Horizons observations, Pluto has a diameter of 1,473 miles, whereas Earth's moon has a diameter of 2,160 miles. Pluto is 18.5 percent of Earth's size.

Temperatures on the Sun's surface reach 6,000 Kelvin. However, this is far less than the atmosphere of the Sun. The chromosphere is a region of the atmosphere located above the Sun's surface, with temperatures reaching 100,000 K. That, however, is insignificant. The corona, which extends to a volume larger than the Sun itself, is an even more distant region. The corona can reach temperatures of one million degrees Celsius.

The Sun, unlike the planets, is a massive sphere of hydrogen gas. As a result, different parts of the Sun rotate at different rates. Tracking the movement of sunspots across the surface allows you to see how fast the surface rotates. It takes 25 days for regions near the equator to complete one rotation, while features near the poles can take 36 days. And it appears that the inside of the Sun takes about 27 days.

The Sun appears to be a burning ball of fire, but it has an internal structure. The visible surface is known as the photosphere, and it heats up to approximately 6,000 degrees Kelvin. The convective zone lies beneath that, where heat slowly moves from the inner Sun to the surface and cooled material falls back down in columns. This region begins at 70% of the radius of the Sun. The radiative zone lies beneath the convection zone. Heat can only travel through radiation in this zone. The Sun's core extends from the Sun's centre to a distance of 0.2 solar radii. Temperatures reach 13.6 million degrees Kelvin here, and hydrogen molecules fuse to form helium.

The Sun appears to have existed in perpetuity, unchanged, but this is not the case. The Sun is gradually heating up. Every billion years, it becomes 10% more luminous. In fact, within a billion years, the Sun's heat will be so intense that liquid water will no longer exist on Earth's surface. Life on Earth as we know it will cease to exist. Bacteria may still exist underground, but the planet's surface will be scorched and uninhabitable. It will take another 7 billion years for the Sun to reach its red giant phase, at which point it will engulf the Earth and destroy it entirely.

Astronomers believe the Sun (and the planets) formed around 4.59 billion years ago from the solar nebula. The Sun is currently in the main sequence, slowly depleting its hydrogen fuel supply. However, the Sun will eventually enter the red giant phase, where it will swell to consume the inner planets, including Earth, in about 5 billion years (probably). It will shed its outer layers before contracting to the size of a white dwarf.

Have you ever wanted to land on the moon but couldn't figure out how to do it because of rocket science? The beautiful settlement of Lamayuru, around 130 kilometres from Leh, is designed to look exactly like the moon's white surface! This breathtaking scenery, complete with a lovely Buddhist temple above, is a visual feast for the eyes. Two big festivals are held each year.

Whether you're with friends or strangers, Ladakh never fails to leave you with a strong sense of its culture. Hemis, Losar, and the Tak-Tok festivals all sing songs of endless pleasure and delight. Their ceremonies and dances are definitely worth seeing.

If you disassembled the Sun and piled up its various elements, you'd discover that hydrogen accounts for 74% of its mass. With a helium content of 24% The remaining 2% consists of trace amounts of iron, nickel, oxygen, and all of the other elements found in the Solar System. To put it another way, the Solar System is mostly made of hydrogen.

The Magnetic Hill, sometimes known as the 'gravity slope,' is an upward-pulling hill. Are you curious in the science behind it? The slope is, after all, a downhill road. The surrounding slopes have been cut out to provide the appearance of an uphill road! It is situated on the well-maintained Srinagar-Leh route. While you're there, stop by the Indus Zanskar Conference, the Hall of Fame, and Gurudwara Patthar Sahib.

The Bailey Bridge, which spans the flowing Dras and Suru rivers, is the world's tallest. It was designed by the military to help them move fast through rivers during battle. A hydro-electric dam can be found to the left of the bridge, and a lake can be found to the right.

Prepare to be met by a swarm of unique twin-humped Bactrian camels as you travel through Ladakh's Nubra valley. The Gobi desert is home to these twin-humped Bactrian camels. Another fascinating feature of these camels is that they can survive in temperatures as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Kung Fu nuns dress up in pyjamas and yellow sashes to sing for you when you visit the Drukpa monastery. This is a 2,000-year-old custom among them. They also offer a variety of events, one of which is the Eco Pad Yatra, which involves picking up rubbish and educating villagers about the environment across a distance of 400 miles on foot.

It is true that "gods reside in the mountains," as you may have heard. At an incredible height of almost 4500 metres, the Indian Astronomical Observatory in Ladakh houses Asia's biggest telescope. As a result, Ladakh has become a mecca for astronomers and astrophotographers! It is India's first robotic telescope and the world's biggest. It's in Hanle, a little town in the middle of nowhere.

Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth largest in the world. Three time zones are covered by the nation! Brazil is also the most populous country in the Southern Hemisphere, outnumbering Australia.

Except for Chile and Ecuador, the biggest Latin American country shares boundaries with every other South American country. The longest border, which runs 3,400 kilometers/2,113 miles, is shared with Bolivia.