Prophecies in ink and orbit
Synchronized lives and twin destinies
Surviving the impossible
The science of the impossible
misslily Match written prophecies with planetary orbits to discover history's most uncanny coincidences.
misslily Born as the comet streaked across the sky in 1835, Twain died of a heart attack one day after its April 1910 perihelion.
In what year did Mark Twain correctly predict he would pass away alongside the return of Halley's Comet?
How many years does it take for Halley's Comet to complete one orbit around the Sun and return to Earth's view?
misslily Starving survivors of the 1884 Mignonette shipwreck ate cabin boy Richard Parker
Which famous author wrote the 1838 novel featuring the fictional cabin boy Richard Parker?
What was the name of the real-life yacht that sank in 1884, leading to the cannibalism of cabin boy Richard Parker?
Halley's Comet: It is the only short-period comet that is regularly visible to the naked eye from Earth, meaning a human can see it twice in a lifetime.
In which month did both the fictional Titan and the real Titanic strike their fateful icebergs?
What was the name of the fictional ship in Morgan Robertson's 1898 novella that closely mirrored the Titanic?
The curved path of a celestial object or spacecraft around a star, planet, or moon. In 1726, Jonathan Swift detailed the orbital periods of Mars's moons, long before astronomers officially discovered them.
Who was the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty, crowned at the Ipatiev Monastery in 1613?
In which Russian city was the Ipatiev House, where the Romanov family was executed in 1918, located?