How we know.
Nothing we can’t source is printed. Every line says how precise it is.
Somewhere else
What was true at your minute and almost no other. We offer a line only if it is true of fewer than one moment in a hundred.
More
The sun or the Moon on the horizon of a famous place (Astronomy Engine), sunset where a rover stands on Mars (the clock in NASA’s Mars24), an eclipse, an hour gained or lost (the time zone database), a rocket leaving for orbit (data from GCAT, J. McDowell), the Earth shaking (US Geological Survey). A print of three moments carries a line of another kind: what the world did between the first moment and the last. How far the Earth went round the Sun and how often the Moon was full are from Astronomy Engine, and how many more people were alive from the UN.
Your sky
Astronomy Engine, for your place and time.
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Where the photo says exactly where, an elevation model for the hills and the sea. Behind your photo, the color of a clear sky with the sun where it was, not the weather; for a part of the day, at one hour in it.
The weather
ERA5, from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, since 1940. Rounded.
The No. 1 song
The weekly US singles chart.
The news
Our own words, checked against two independent reports.
Everyone alive
UN World Population Prospects 2024.
The place
Where the photo was taken, or the town you search for (GeoNames).
- We never make up a fact.
- We never guess a time you don’t know. Only the day known, the print says “that day”.
- You see every line, and where it comes from, before you pay.
- We leave out news that would be wrong for a happy day.
- A fact on your print is wrong? We reprint it free.
Credits
Places: GeoNames, CC BY 4.0, and Wikidata. Launches: data from GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org/space/gcat), CC BY. Earthquakes: US Geological Survey. Elevation: Copernicus DEM, © DLR e.V. 2010–2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014–2018, provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA. Weather: contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information; neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use that may be made of the Copernicus information or data it contains. Dataset: ERA5 hourly time-series data on single levels from 1940 to present, Copernicus Climate Change Service Climate Data Store, DOI 10.24381/1cf1ad76. Population: UN DESA, World Population Prospects 2024.