Sharks Are Older Than the North Star


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Gorgocutie Says:

Deep Space Historian (@CosmicChronicle) drops a cosmic reality check:

Tweet 1: “sharks are older than the north star” is now the worst fact i know.
Tweet 2: not as in “polaris wasn’t the north star when sharks first evolved” — the star polaris is literally just younger than sharks. i find this really upsetting.

The North Star (Polaris) is about 45 million years old. Sharks have been swimming for 400+ million. Polaris hasn’t even been burning hydrogen long enough for a single shark to evolve into a megalodon.

Mythology angle: Polaris is the tip of Ursa Minor’s tail — from the myth of Callisto and Arcas. Ancient navigators treated it as eternal. Turns out it’s younger than a Great White.


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