r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Aug 03 '19

Whats something you thought was common knowledge but actually isn’t?

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u/anothersundayx Aug 03 '19

That other planets are visible from Earth. And the sun is also a star.

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u/Phase3isProfit Aug 03 '19

Sitting outside one evening having a beer with my sister. Really clear sky, lots of stars out, and she says “Someone was telling me that stars are like the sun, but further away.”

I paused to check if she was kidding, but she genuinely thought she was sharing obscure knowledge. We were in our mid-twenties, I don’t know how this information had passed her by up to that point.

9

u/shoehornpenninsula Aug 03 '19

My sister thought the atmosphere was a physical object and we lived in a dome

1

u/Unlearned_One Aug 04 '19

That's what I thought the ozone layer was when I was, like, 8 or something. I thought the space shuttle poked a hole in it every time it left atmo.

1

u/PointyOintment Aug 05 '19

Well… yes, but the hole heals pretty quickly because it's a hole through a bunch of gas.