Chelsea Handler Was How Old When She Learned the Sun and Moon Were Not the Same?

The 47 year old comedian opened up with Jimmy Fallon during an appearance on "The Tonight Show" last week about something most of us probably take for granted. On an African safari, though, it came as a complete shock to her.

"We were on safari," Chelsea told Jimmy. "My sister and I were riding an elephant and there was a man riding an elephant for us, because we don't know how to ride an elephant. And my older sister, Simone looked up at the sky and she said, 'Chelsea, Chelsea, look up. It's not often you get to see the sun and the moon at the same time.'"

It's a valid enough point, but most people have gotten to enjoy that spectacle at least a few times in their lives. Apparently, Chelsea had never seen such a thing, because she admitted she didn't even know it was possible.

"I didn't know until I was 40 years old that the sun and the moon were not the same thing," she told the talk show host. And this was the moment it came clear to her.

"I was like Scooby-Doo. I'm like, 'Ruh, wah?'" Chelsea said she responded to her sister in that moment. "I said, I go, 'Wait. But they're always together.' And as soon as I said that, she turned around, and she goes, 'What did you say?'"

Chelsea said she realized suddenly that she'd been wrong about how the heavens above her all this time and "tried to gloss over it," but her sister wasn't having it.

"She said, 'No. I need you to tell me what you think is happening between the sun and the moon,'" her sister demanded. So Chelsea explained how she thought it all worked.

"I was like, 'Honestly, I just assumed when the sun went down, it popped back up as the moon,'" she shared. "I'm like, 'Is that not what's happening?'"

So how did it happen that a grown woman makes it 40 years with this perception of the sun and moon? Well, she said it's all about her tolerance level, or lack thereof.

She explained taht she's not equipped to answer questions from children, and in fact isn't equipped to ask them either. "At a certain age, when you don’t know the answers to questions, it’s too embarrassing to ask questions, you know?" she explained. "You just have to pretend."

She'll get the chance to pretend all kinds of knowledge she may or may not possess when she steps in as guest host for "The Daily Show" next month.