SortStack #67 — 2026-08-15

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A single wingbeat of a honeybee 4.4 ms

   Bees beat their wings about 230 times per second — that frequency is exactly what produces their signature buzz.

2. Sunlight travelling from the Sun's surface to Earth 8.3 min

   If the Sun vanished right now, we'd keep seeing it — and orbiting it — for another 8 minutes and 20 seconds before noticing anything.

3. A performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony 74 min

   Legend says the CD was designed to hold 74 minutes specifically so the Ninth would fit on a single disc — a Sony executive's favourite piece.

4. NASA's Perseverance rover travelling from Earth to Mars 203 days

   The 480-million-km cruise ended with the 'seven minutes of terror' landing — and the rover carried a small helicopter, Ingenuity, strapped to its belly.

5. One orbit of Pluto around the Sun 247.9 years

   Pluto hasn't completed a single orbit since its discovery in 1930 — it won't finish its first 'observed year' until 2178.

6. The Holy Roman Empire, from Otto the Great to its dissolution 844 years

   Voltaire quipped it was 'neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire' — yet it lasted 844 years before Napoleon finished it off in 1806.

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