In the first half of the 19th century, parts of the Northwest Passage were explored separately by a number of different expeditions, including those by John Ross, William Edward Parry, James Clark Ros ...
Some scholars believe that the first attempts to penetrate the Arctic Circle can be traced to ancient Greece and the sailor Pytheas, a contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander the Great, who, in c. 325 ...
The availability of black powder (gunpowder) to propel projectiles was a precursor to experiments as weapons such as bombs, cannon, incendiary fire arrows and rocket-propelled fire arrows. The discove ...
Astrobiology is the interdisciplinary study of life in the universe, combining aspects of astronomy, biology and geology. It is focused primarily on the study of the origin, distribution and evolution ...
The exploration of Jupiter has consisted solely of a number of automated NASA spacecraft visiting the planet since 1973. A large majority of the missions have been "flybys", in which detailed observat ...
History of exploration in the 20th century See also: Timeline of space exploration, History of astronomy and Timeline of first orbital launches by countryMost orbital flight actually takes place in up ...
Tasmania has a vibrant and growing literary culture. Notable titles include For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan, ...
Tasmania has a cool temperate climate with four distinct seasons. Summer lasts from December to February when the average maximum sea temperature is 21 °C (70 °F) and inland areas around Launceston ...
The state is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island "Anthony van Diemen's Land" after his spon ...
Abel Tasman was born in 1603 in Lutjegast in what is now the province of Groningen, the Netherlands. In 1633, Tasman went to Batavia in service of the VOC; four years later he was back in Amsterdam. T ...
The strait links the Coral Sea to the east with the Arafura Sea in the west. Although it is an important international sea lane, it is very shallow, and the maze of reefs and islands can make it hazar ...
Nothing is known of Willem Janszoon's early life. He is first recorded as entering into the service of the Oude compagnie, one of the predecessors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), as a mate aboa ...
Captain Luis Váez de Torres was recorded as a "Breton" in reports of the 1606–1608 voyage, which points to an origin in the northwest province of Spain, i. e., Galicia. Most contemporary historians ...
With some 786,000 km? of tropical land — less than one-half of one percent (0.5%) of the Earth's surface — New Guinea has an immense biodiversity, containing between 5 and 10 percent of the total s ...
The island has been known by various names.The name Papua was used to refer to parts of the island before contact with the West. Its etymology is unclear; one theory is that it is from Tidore, the lan ...
