Here comes Santa Claus, at 5 million mph for on-time gift delivery

Although little is known about Santa's annual Christmas Eve late-night shift, except that it requires lots of cookies, aerospace engineers at North Carolina State University are piecing together the logistics. To deliver presents to all the girls and boys in the world (200 million, with an average of 3 per household — we'll leave aside the naughty ones for now), Santa has to visit 75 million homes covering an estimated 122 million miles. Even allotting 24 hours for delivery, Santa's sleigh would have to travel 5,083,000 mph. Flying at those speeds, it's no surprise he's so rarely spotted in the night sky. But feel free to tease younger relatives by shouting "There he goes! Awww, you missed him." [Source]

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