Ballpark
Puzzle #47 · 5 November 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. How long is an adult's small intestine?
22 feet
About 22 feet. Despite the name, it is the longest part of the digestive tract. Source
2. How long does light take to travel from the Sun to Earth?
499 seconds
499 seconds, or 8 min 19 s. You always see the Sun as it was 8 minutes ago. Source
Image: NASA · Public domain
3. How much water is in the ocean, according to NOAA?
1.33B cubic kilometers
About 1.335 billion cubic km (321 million cubic miles). About 97 percent of all the water on Earth is in the ocean. Source
Image: Brocken Inaglory · CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped
4. How many years did the longest attack of hiccups on record last?
68 years
68 years. Charles Osborne of the USA started hiccupping in 1922 and did not stop until 1990, at 20 to 40 hiccups a minute. Source
5. About how many Tyrannosaurus rex lived in total over the species' whole existence, according to a 2021 UC Berkeley study?
2.5B dinosaurs
About 2.5 billion over some 2.5 million years, yet only about 20,000 adults were alive at any one time. The authors stress the uncertainty is large. Source
Image: David Monniaux · CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped