Ballpark

Puzzle #11 · 30 September 2026

The five questions from that day's Ballpark, each with its answer, the fact behind it and a link to the source. Rather play it first? It is in the archive.

1. About how many Allied troops landed in Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944, by sea and air combined?

156,000 troops

Around 156,000: 73,000 American and about 83,000 British and Canadian, including some 23,400 airborne. Source

Image: Robert F. Sargent, US Coast Guard · Public domain

2. What was the maximum take-off weight of the Antonov An-225 Mriya, the heaviest aircraft ever built?

640 metric tons

640 tonnes (1.41 million lb). Built to carry the Soviet space shuttle Buran, it first flew on 21 December 1988 and had an 88.4 m wingspan. Source

Image: N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

3. How tall is Mount Everest above sea level?

8,849 meters

8,848.86 m, per the joint Nepal–China survey announced in December 2020 — 86 cm more than Nepal's old figure. Source

Image: Luca Galuzzi · CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

4. How much does the water in a typical 1 km³ cumulus cloud weigh?

500 metric tons

About 500 t (1.1 million lb) of droplets at 0.5 g per cubic meter, per USGS. It floats anyway. Source

Image: Glg · CC BY-SA 2.0 de, cropped

5. How much crude steel did the world produce in 2024, according to the World Steel Association?

1.88B metric tons

1,882.6 million tonnes. China alone made 1,005 million tonnes, more than half of the total; India was second with about 150 million. Source

Image: Blast furnace chip worker · CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped