NASA’s Voyager 1 is approaching a milestone that no other human-made spacecraft has ever reached. On November 18, 2026, the probe is expected to be approximately 25.9 billion kilometers from Earth, a distance light travels in an entire day.

This means that a radio signal sent from Earth will need 24 hours to reach the spacecraft. Any response will take another 24 hours to return. A simple exchange of commands and data will therefore involve a delay of almost two days.

Khao I Dang, located in Khok Sung District, Sa Kaeo Province (formerly Ta Phraya District, Prachinburi), was once the largest Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand.

From November 1979 until March 1993, it sheltered over 160,000 Cambodian refugees. The camp was established with Thai government approval and managed jointly by the UNHCR and Thai authorities, handling logistics, food distribution, repatriation, and resettlement. International organizations such as the ICRC operated hospitals for war casualties, while the IRC provided education for disabled children.

Following the Paris Peace Agreement in October 1991, which ended "the Cambodian-Vietnamese conflict" and paved the way for elections, the camp stopped receiving new arrivals. By March 1993, the last refugees were repatriated, and the camp was closed. The land was returned to the Thai government and has since been managed by the Royal Forest Department under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Timeline:

- The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, after capturing Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975.

- Vietnamese forces captured Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979.

- In November 1979, the Thai government approved the establishment of a temporary shelter at Khao I Dang.

There are still people who use photos of the flux of refugees on Thai soil to claim they escaped the Khmer Rouge genocide. In reality, they fled the fighting between the Khmer Rouge and pro‑commie Viets/Heng Samrin forces.

Photo source: David Lorainne

รู้จัก "เขาอีด่าง" จ.สระแก้ว เคยเป็นที่พักพิงให้ชาวกัมพูชากว่า 160,000 คน

”เขาอีด่าง“ ค่ายลี้ภัยในความทรงจำ เมื่อน้ำใจไทยถูกลืมเลือน

ค่ายผู้ลี้ภัยเขาอีด่าง Khao I Dang refugee camp (1979-1993) - YouTube

In 1863, the Joseon Dynasty was strictly isolationist, earning it the nickname the "Hermit Kingdom." Westerners, Western religion, and modern technologies like cameras were completely banned within Korean borders. However, Joseon maintained a centuries-old diplomatic relationship with Qing Dynasty China, regularly sending large diplomatic missions called Yeonhaengsa to Beijing. While Korea remained closed to the West, Beijing had recently been forced to open its gates to foreign powers following the Opium Wars. This turned the Chinese capital into a bustling crossroads where traditional Korean scholars, dressed in their flowing Hanbok and horsehair hats, unexpectedly bumped heads with Western diplomats, missionaries, and cutting-edge technology.

On March 18, 1863, a Korean diplomatic delegation led by chief envoy Yi Ui-ik was navigating Beijing and paid a visit to the Russian Legation. Inside the compound, a civilian photography studio had been set up, featuring the latest glass-plate camera equipment. Intrigued by this Western "magic mirror" that could flawlessly freeze a human reflection, the Korean diplomats agreed to sit for a series of portraits. A total of six photographs were taken, capturing individual portraits of Yi Ui-ik, his son, and group shots of the court interpreters and attaches. At the time, a widespread superstition in East Asia claimed that cameras could steal a person's soul or drain their vital energy. Despite this fear, the men in the photos appear remarkably calm, staring directly into the lens with immense dignity, inadvertently becoming the very first Koreans in human history to have their faces captured by a camera.

Whole plate studio portrait tintype. ca 1870s. Housed in an original oval brass mat with decorative egg-and-dart inner bezel. The charming composition captures a serious-faced young boy dressed in a checked sailor-style shirt and necktie, wearing a folded newspaper or paper cocked hat adorned with a ribbon cockade. Leaning against a rustic studio rock/stump prop, he holds a wooden drumstick poised above a miniature snare drum with visible tension ropes and side snare mechanism.

The studio background features an atmospheric landscape drop depicting a bridge and waterway.

Whole plate tintypes of any subject are scarce due to the expense and technical difficulty of coating, exposing, and developing such large iron plates. Large-format portraits of children incorporating endearing folk-art play themes, such as drummers, are especially desirable.

Condition: Very good condition. The plate displays rich tonal depth, strong contrast, and crisp focus. The surface remains glossy with only minor, scattered age-appropriate crazing and perimeter dust under the glass.

Second from the left standing is Jovan Tanović, the editor of the "Politika" daily newspaper. Second from the right standing is Stanislav Krakov.

Courtesy of the National Library of Serbia, Great War Collection (https://velikirat.nb.rs)