Lots of people would happily lose an afternoon to smooching their partner – assuming they hadn’t just devoured some sour cream and onion chips – but actual attempts for the world’s longest kiss had to be scrapped by Guinness World Records for a concerning reason.

Once upon a time, the ‘World’s Longest Kiss’ record was up for grabs, ready to be bestowed upon whichever two people could successfully keep their lips locked the longest.

In 2013, those two people were Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat; a Thai couple who had entered a competition for the world’s longest kiss held by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Pattaya, Thailand.

Ah, romance (PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP via Getty Images)

The rules of the record

As per Guinness World Records, were as follows:

• The kiss must be continuous and the lips must be touching at all times. If the lips part, the couple are immediately disqualified.
• Contestants may consume liquids via a straw during the attempt, but again, the lips must not part.
• The couple must be awake at all times.
• The contestants must stand during the attempt and cannot be propped together by any aids.
• No rest breaks are allowed.
• Adult nappies/diapers or incontinence pads are not allowed to be worn.

Couples attempting to break the record were allowed to take trips to the toilet, but they had to remain kissing the whole time while also being monitored by a referee.

It’s probably not the kind of scenario many couples would be prepared to encounter during their relationship, but these contestants were obviously OK with it.

Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat are the last record holders (PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP via Getty Images)

The event kicked off on February 12, 2013, with nine couples – including one couple in their 70s, who dropped out after an hour and 38 minutes because the husband couldn’t stand up any longer.

But Ekkachai and Laksana stayed strong, and 58 hours and 35 minutes later, they officially held the record for the world’s longest kiss. The couple won the grand prize of 100,000 Thai Baht ($2,967), as well as two diamond rings also worth 100,000 Baht.

It’s an incredible feat – especially with the logistics of going to the bathroom – but after Ekkachai and Laksana set the record Guinness realized that it was too risky to continue.

Kissing comes with some health risks (Getty Stock Image)

Why? Well, as determined contestants fought to continue their kiss, they became subject to dangers associated with sleep deprivation, such as psychosis.

One example of this occurred in 1999, when record holders Karmit Tzubera and Dror Orpaz almost fainted after securing the record with a kiss which lasted 30 hours and 45 minutes and had to be rushed to the hospital to be treated for fatigue.

In 2004, another contestant suffered muscle cramps during the attempt and needed his partner to massage him to help him deal with the pain. After 31 hours and 18 minutes of kissing, he then had to be resuscitated with oxygen.

So Guinness scrapped the record for the sake of people’s health – but if you still fancy trying to secure a title for tonsil tennis, there is the ‘longest kissing marathon’ record, which does permit rest breaks.

NASA has shared the timeline for when the $10,000 quadrillion asteroid will be brought down to our planet.

Last year, the space agency announced that it was going to set off for the faraway asteroid named 16 Psyche, which is thought to contain precious metals, including gold, iron and nickel, worth an eye-watering amount.

“Teams of engineers and technicians are working almost around the clock to ensure the orbiter is ready to journey 2.5 billion miles to a metal-rich asteroid that may tell us more about planetary cores and how planets form,” NASA said in a statement released last July.

The spacecraft was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on October 13, 2023.

After the exciting moment occurred, NASA shared a timeline for when the $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 asteroid will be brought to Earth.

The vessel has been travel a journey of 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion km) through space and is expected to reach the asteroid in August 2029.

The mission began in October, 2023. (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have spent much of the past few months checking over the spacecraft’s system, and consistently assessing whether it is still fit to travel into deep space.

Once it reaches the asteroid in it’s location in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the vessel will then orbit the Psyche for just over two years, all while measuring its gravity, magnetic proprieties and composition with a collection of specially selected instruments.

The spacecraft is then programmed to approach Mars in May 2026 for a small gravity assist intended to boost its momentum.

This will put the spacecraft in trajectory for its final destination – with the mission planned to reach its conclusion in November 2031.

The timeline is a long one. (Getty Stock Photo)

According to NASA, the asteroid measures a whopping 173 miles (280 km) across and 144 miles (232 km) long, while its surface area is 64,000 square miles (165,800 square km).

And it’s the asteroid’s enormous size that made NASA decide to go ahead with the mission.

Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, explained: “Psyche is by far the largest, and that’s why we want to go to it.

“Because the smaller ones are more likely to have been changed by things impacting them, whereas the big one, we think, is going to be completely unchanged.”

Despite the idea of a ‘flat Earth’ being scientifically disproven, thousands of conspiracy theorists across the globe are still convinced our planet is a smooth plane.

The specific cohort of people who think our home is totally flat and has an edge you could fall off from are called ‘Flat Earthers’.

But this wild theory isn’t new, in fact, ancient poets such as Homer and Hesiod, as well as several pre-Socratic philosophers, have all previously described the Earth as ‘flat’ in their archaic writings.

According to the Carsey School of Public Policy, around 10 percent of US residents agree with these conspiracy claims – but one daredevil wasn’t just content with nodding along.

Instead, the late ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes wanted to go the extra mile after professing his pseudoscientific beliefs in 2016.

The Californian limo driver – who believed the world was ‘shaped like a Frisbee’ – announced he would be making multiple trips to the stratosphere in a homemade rocket.

While up in space, he would take a picture of the entire planet as a flat disk to prove the naysayers wrong.

Ahead of his experiment, Hughes claimed he was well aware of how dangerous his mission would be.

‘Mad’ Max Hughes wanted to prove his ‘flat Earth’ theory correct (CBS)

“It’s scary as hell. But none of us are getting out of this world alive,” he told the Associated Press in 2018, as quoted by Sky News.

Despite some initial run-ins with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Albert Okura, who owned Amboy, granted Hughes permission to launch and land in his privately owned town.

After a successful fundraising attempt, the self-taught rocket man blasted off from Earth in March 2018, launching 1,875 feet in the air.

During the flight, he reached a speed of around 350mph before pulling out not one, but two parachutes, and landing hard in the Mojave Desert, injuring his back in the process.

According to the Independent, the rocket broke it’s nose in two places when he hit the ground, but stated he was ‘glad’ to have made it up in the air.

“This thing wants to kill you 10 different ways. Am I glad I did it? Yeah, I guess. I’ll feel it in the morning. I won’t be able to get out of bed.” he said. “At least I can go home and have dinner and see my cats tonight.”

Hughes, who’d planned to run for governor of California one day, never managed to take his ‘flat Earth’ image though as he died during the launch of another homemade rocket in 2020.

The daredevil died ‘trying to prove’ his ‘Frisbee’ theory. (YouTube/@JustinChapman15)

It’s reported that the star was filming as part of Homemade Astronauts, a TV series about amateur rocket makers which aired on the US Science Channel and Discovery+ in 2021, according to the BBC.

Space.com reports that Hughes was trying to reach an altitude of 5,000ft while riding his steam-powered rocket but that a parachute was deployed too early.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that a man was ‘pronounced deceased after the rocket crashed in the open desert’ while Hughes’ publicist confirmed it was his client who had met his fate.

Despite never proving his flat Earth theory correct, the specialist did manage to set a Guinness World record in 2002.

He wrote his name in the history books by performing the longest limousine jump – over 103 ft in a Lincoln Town Car stretched limo.

An out-of-control satellite will crash into Earth later this week, almost 30 years after it was first launched.

Of course, this news has prompted concerns among many, as scientists have no idea where it will actually land.

According to NASA, there is a one in 2,500 chance it could land on someone’s head – something that is obviously quite slim in probability.

The satellite, known as ERS-2, is expected to break up into many pieces on reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, the majority of which will burn up.

The European Space Agency (ESA) said ERS-2’s reentry is ‘natural’ as they can no longer control the satellite.

The only force impacting the satellite’s return to Earth is atmospheric drag, something which is influenced by unpredictable solar activity.

Getty Stock Photo

The ESA states: “While we can forecast the reentry to within a few days, it is not possible to predict exactly when and where the satellite will reenter prior to its final few orbits.

“As we approach the day of reentry, we will be able to predict a time and location with increasing certainty.

“During reentry, the satellite will break up into pieces, the majority of which will burn up. The risks associated with satellite reentries are very low.”

Photos of the satellite tumbling towards Earth’s atmosphere were released by the ESA on Monday (19 February).

The intriguing snaps were taken between 14 January and 3 February, with the ERS-2 altitude at that stage sitting at over 300km.

Currently, the satellite sits at an altitude of about 200km, as it continues to fall more than 10km every day.

However, the speed of its descent has been increasing rapidly.

HEO

Currently, the European Space Agency (ESA) is predicting that the satellite will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere at 7.10am EST or 4.10am PST on Wednesday (21 February).

Previously, experts had predicted the satellite would land some hours beforehand, so that time could certainly change again before Wednesday.

The ESA’s prediction has a margin of error of a whopping 26 hours either side.

When the ERS-2 reaches around 80km in altitude, it will start to break and then burn up.

The ESA states that some of these fragments could make it to Earth, but will most likely land in the ocean.

The ERS-2 launched in 1995, something that made a lot of headlines at the time.

Mirko Albani, head of ESA’s Heritage Space Programme, said: “It provided us with new insights on our planet, the chemistry of our atmosphere, the behaviour of our oceans, and the effects of humankind’s activity on our environment.”