Greater Noida (World Desk): SpaceX and Starlink CEO Elon Musk recently shared an X post, which revealed a surprising geographical fact about the distance between the US and Russia. The post included an interesting video, titled: “The distance between the US and Russia is less than you think – Diomede Island.” This video shares a shocking information about the two countries.
Elon Musk explained in the video that most Americans are unaware of the fact that the US and Russia are very close to each other, only two miles apart. This distance is found in a strait called the Bering Strait, located in the Arctic Ocean between Russia and the US. There are two islands located within this strait—Little Diomede (which is part of the US) and Big Diomede (which is part of Russia). The distance between these two islands is only 2.4 miles (about 3.8 kilometers).
Geographic Importance of Diomede Islands
Despite these two islands of America and Russia being very close to each other, their time zones are completely different. These islands are located on both sides of the International Date Line, giving them a unique geographical position. This is why these islands are geographically close on one hand, but feel very far from each other in terms of time and space.
The history of Diomede Islands is very interesting. In 1648, Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnev first discovered these islands and identified it as the strait separating Eurasia and North America. Subsequently, in 1728 Vitus Bering traveledthrough this strait and this passage was named Bering Strait.This strait has now become a part of the 30-mile long border between Russia and America, which was fixed in 1867 after Russia sold Alaska to America.
User reactions
This video shared by Elon Musk created a stir on social media. So far, this video has been viewed more than 77 million times, and more than 11,000 users have given their reactions on it. Apart from this, about 4 lakh people have also liked this video.
Many users gave interesting reactions to the video. One user said, “This is strange. America and Russia are neighbors to each other, and they should naturally be allies.” At the same time, another user thanked Elon Musk and said, “Very interesting! I never knew that America and Russia are so close. Thanks for posting this, Elon.” This video of ElonMusk was not only interesting from a geographical point of view, but it also took a new look at the international politics and geographical situation between America and Russia. After this video, many people were forced to think that if these two countries are so close, then perhaps there can be better relations between them.
