Ballpark

Puzzle #48 answers

Puzzle #48 · 6 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 Earth's equator?

The whole sunlit Earth seen from a million miles away by NASA's DSCOVR satellite, with Africa and Europe facing the camera

40,075 kilometers

40,075 km (24,901 miles). Earth bulges at the equator, so a lap over the poles is slightly shorter. Source

Image: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio · Public domain

2. How much prize money came with each Nobel Prize when the prizes were first awarded in 1901, in Swedish kronor?

Black-and-white portrait of Alfred Nobel, bearded, resting his cheek against his hand

150,782 Swedish kronor

150,782 kronor, which the Nobel Foundation equates to about 10.5 million kronor in 2023 money. The 2023 prize was 11 million kronor. Source

Image: Gösta Florman · Public domain

3. How far below sea level is Badwater Basin in Death Valley, the lowest point in North America?

Cracked white salt polygons stretching to dark mountains under a pastel dusk sky in Death Valley

282 feet

282 ft (86 m) below sea level. Its salt flats, mostly ordinary table salt, cover nearly 200 square miles. Source

Image: Joe Parks · CC BY 2.0, cropped

4. How much did the Apple-1, Apple's first computer, sell for in 1976?

An original Apple-1 computer with its keyboard, housed in a wooden case with 'Apple Computer' carved on it

667 US dollars

$666.66, for a single circuit board with 4K of RAM. Buyers had to add their own power supply, keyboard, storage and display. Source

Image: Ed Uthman · CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

5. How long is the world's longest railway platform, at Hubballi in India, as verified by Guinness World Records in 2023?

1,507 meters

1,507 meters, just short of a mile. Guinness verified the platform at Hubballi station in Karnataka in January 2023. Source

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