Most Interesting Facts About The Earth Planet Earth. That shiny blue marble that has fascinated humanity since they first began to...
Most Interesting Facts About The Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and largest of the terrestrial planets. Surprisingly, while it is only the fifth largest planet in terms of size and mass, it is the densest (5,513 kg/m3) of all the planets. Earth is the only planet in the solar system not named after a mythological being. Instead, its name is derived from the Old English word "ertha" and the Anglo-Saxon word "erda" which means ground or soil
Earth was formed somewhere around 4.54 billion years ago and is currently the only known planet to support life - and lots of it.
But how much does the average person really know about the planet Earth? You’ve lived on Planet Earth all of your life, but how much do you really know about the ground underneath your feet? You probably have lots of interesting facts rattling around in your brain, but here are 20 more interesting facts about Earth that you may, or may not know.
Earth Facts
| Age |
About the same age as the Sun: 4.5 billion years
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| Location |
Solar system
|
| Avg. distance from the Sun |
149,600,000 km (92,960,000 miles)
|
| Diameter |
12,760 km (7926 miles)
|
| Mass |
5.972 x 1024 kg
|
| Orbital period around the Sun |
1 year (365 days)
|
| Number of moons |
1
|
| Distinguishing features |
Earth is the only planet to have liquid water on its surface. Liquid water covers 71% of the surface. Its atmosphere is 77% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with traces of other gases. White clouds of water vapor hide much of Earth's surface
|
Fact #1:The Earth was once believed to be the centre of the universe
They believed this because of the apparent movement on the Sun and planets in relation to their viewpoint. In 1543, Copernicus published his Sun-centered model of the Solar System which put the Sun at the centre of our solar system For 2000 years ancient astronomers believed that the Earth was static and had other celestial bodies travelling in circular orbits around it
Fact #1:The Earth was once believed to be the centre of the universe
They believed this because of the apparent movement on the Sun and planets in relation to their viewpoint. In 1543, Copernicus published his Sun-centered model of the Solar System which put the Sun at the centre of our solar system For 2000 years ancient astronomers believed that the Earth was static and had other celestial bodies travelling in circular orbits around itFact #2:The Earth Is Not Round
The Earth is a sphere, but due to its gravitational forces it is not a perfect circle. In fact, there is a bulge around the equator because of this. The Earth's Polar radius is 3,949.99 miles, while its Equatorial radius is 3,963.34 miles.Many people tend to think that the Earth is a sphere. In fact, between the 6th cenury BCE and the modern era, this remained the scientific consensus. But thanks to modern astronomy and space travel, scientists have since come to understand that the Earth is actually shaped like a flattened sphere (aka. an oblate spheroid).This shape is similar to a sphere, but where the poles are flattened and the equator bulges. In the case of the Earth, this bulge is due to our planet’s rotation.
Fact #3:Earth Is The Only Planet With Plate Tectonics
The Earth is fragile. Its surface is split into plates (tectonic plates) which float on a rocky mantle – the layer between the surface of the earth, its crust, and its hot liquid core. The inside of the Earth is active andearthquakes, volcanoes and mountain building takes place along the boundaries of the tectonic plates.
Earth is the only planet in the Solar System with plate tectonics. Basically, the outer crust of the Earth is broken up into regions known as tectonic plates. These are floating on top of the magma interior of the Earth and can move against one another. When two plates collide, one plate will subduct (go underneath another), and where they pull apart, they will allow fresh crust to form.
Fact #4:Earth is the only planet not named for a mythological god or goddess.
The other seven planets in the solar system were named after Roman gods or goddesses. For the five visible to the naked eye, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturnthey we named during ancient times. This Roman method was also used after the discovery of Uranus and Neptune. The word “Earth” comes from the Old English word “ertha” meaning ground or land.
Fact #5:70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water
The remainder consists of continents and islands which together have many lakes and other sources of water When astronauts first went into the space, they looked back at the Earth with human eyes for the first time. Based on their observations, the Earth acquired the nickname the “Blue Planet:. And it’s no surprise, seeing as how 70% of our planet is covered with oceans. The remaining 30% is the solid crust that is located above sea level, hence why it is called the “continental crust”.
The Earth is a sphere, but due to its gravitational forces it is not a perfect circle. In fact, there is a bulge around the equator because of this. The Earth's Polar radius is 3,949.99 miles, while its Equatorial radius is 3,963.34 miles.Many people tend to think that the Earth is a sphere. In fact, between the 6th cenury BCE and the modern era, this remained the scientific consensus. But thanks to modern astronomy and space travel, scientists have since come to understand that the Earth is actually shaped like a flattened sphere (aka. an oblate spheroid).This shape is similar to a sphere, but where the poles are flattened and the equator bulges. In the case of the Earth, this bulge is due to our planet’s rotation.
Fact #3:Earth Is The Only Planet With Plate Tectonics
The Earth is fragile. Its surface is split into plates (tectonic plates) which float on a rocky mantle – the layer between the surface of the earth, its crust, and its hot liquid core. The inside of the Earth is active andearthquakes, volcanoes and mountain building takes place along the boundaries of the tectonic plates.
Earth is the only planet in the Solar System with plate tectonics. Basically, the outer crust of the Earth is broken up into regions known as tectonic plates. These are floating on top of the magma interior of the Earth and can move against one another. When two plates collide, one plate will subduct (go underneath another), and where they pull apart, they will allow fresh crust to form.
Fact #4:Earth is the only planet not named for a mythological god or goddess.
The other seven planets in the solar system were named after Roman gods or goddesses. For the five visible to the naked eye, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturnthey we named during ancient times. This Roman method was also used after the discovery of Uranus and Neptune. The word “Earth” comes from the Old English word “ertha” meaning ground or land.
Fact #5:70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water
Fact #6:ATMOSPHERE
The ability for Earth to possess life is dependent in many ways on its atmosphere. The composition of the atmosphere is roughly 78% nitrogen (N2), 21% oxygen (O2), 1% argon, with trace amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases. Nitrogen and oxygen are essential to DNA and biological energy production, respectively, without which life could not be sustained. Additionally, the oxygen found in what is known as the ozone layer of the atmosphere protects the surface of the planet by absorbing harmful solar radiation.
Fact #6:ATMOSPHERE
Fact #7:ORBIT & ROTATION
At roughly 365 days, the Earth’s orbit around the Sun is familiar to us. The length of our year is due in large part to the Earth’s average orbital distance of 1.50 x 108 km. What many people are not familiar with is that at this orbital distance it takes sunlight, on average, about eight minutes and twenty seconds to reach the Earth.With an orbital eccentricity of .0167, the Earth’s orbit is one of the most circular in all the Solar System.A second commonly know charecteristic is that the Earth takes approximately twenty-four hours to complete one rotation. This is fastest among the terrestrial planets, but easily slower than that of all the gas planets
Fact #8:Earth Had a Twin Planet Called Theia
Scientists now believe that we were once not alone in our orbit around the Sun – we had a “twin” planet we call Theia, which was the size of Mars and was 60 degrees either in front or behind our Big Blue Ball. One afternoon about 4.533 billion years ago, Theia crashed into the Earth; most of the planet was absorbed, but a large chunk blew off and combined with materials from our planet to create the Moon. Why do we think this? It's because our Moon is unusually large for a planet of our size and has metallic isotopes similar to those on Earth.
Fact #9:The Earth is slowing down
Talking about the rotation of Earth on its axis, Earth is slowing down. It is quite likely the Earth will stop revolving on its axis one day but, it will take millions of years as the deceleration of Earth is quite slow. The Earth is slowing down by 1.7 milliseconds per hundred years.
. Eventually this will lengthen our days but it will take around 140 million years before our day will have increased from 24 to 25 hours.
Fact #10:The coldest place on Earth
While the coldest place on Earth is Antarctica (-100 degrees F) the coldest spot was recorded on July 21, 1983 at Vostok Station in Anarctica, where sensors recorded –128.6 degrees F. (That's a cold summer!) The hottest spot recorded? On Sept. 13, 1922 El Azizia, Libya registered 136 degrees F.
Fact #11:Earth's gravity is not uniform!
Gravity is not distributed equally on Earth's surface. Places like Hudson Bay in Canada have less gravity than other regions of the globe. This is due to the fact that there is less land mass on that part of the planet owing to retreating glaciers on the surface and swirling magma in the core.
Earth has high mountains, deep valleys and other different features. If it were as smooth as a pool ball, gravity on Earth would be the same everywhere. GRACE is a special mission involving a satellite that maps out the gravity across the Earth’s surface showing the differences in gravity
Fact #12: Earth Doesn’t Take 24 Hours to Rotate on its Axis:
Fact #7:ORBIT & ROTATION
At roughly 365 days, the Earth’s orbit around the Sun is familiar to us. The length of our year is due in large part to the Earth’s average orbital distance of 1.50 x 108 km. What many people are not familiar with is that at this orbital distance it takes sunlight, on average, about eight minutes and twenty seconds to reach the Earth.With an orbital eccentricity of
.0167, the Earth’s orbit is one of the most circular in all the Solar System.A second commonly know charecteristic is that the Earth takes approximately twenty-four hours to complete one rotation. This is fastest among the terrestrial planets, but easily slower than that of all the gas planetsFact #8:Earth Had a Twin Planet Called Theia
Scientists now believe that we were once not alone in our orbit around the Sun – we had a “twin” planet we call Theia, which was the size of Mars and was 60 degrees either in front or behind our Big Blue Ball. One afternoon about 4.533 billion years ago, Theia crashed into the Earth; most of the planet was absorbed, but a large chunk blew off and combined with materials from our planet to create the Moon. Why do we think this? It's because our Moon is unusually large for a planet of our size and has metallic isotopes similar to those on Earth.
Fact #9:The Earth is slowing down
Talking about the rotation of Earth on its axis, Earth is slowing down. It is quite likely the Earth will stop revolving on its axis one day but, it will take millions of years as the deceleration of Earth is quite slow. The Earth is slowing down by 1.7 milliseconds per hundred years.
. Eventually this will lengthen our days but it will take around 140 million years before our day will have increased from 24 to 25 hours.
Fact #10:The coldest place on Earth
While the coldest place on Earth is Antarctica (-100 degrees F) the coldest spot was recorded on July 21, 1983 at Vostok Station in Anarctica, where sensors recorded –128.6 degrees F. (That's a cold summer!) The hottest spot recorded? On Sept. 13, 1922 El Azizia, Libya registered 136 degrees F.
Fact #11:Earth's gravity is not uniform!
Gravity is not distributed equally on Earth's surface. Places like Hudson Bay in Canada have less gravity than other regions of the globe. This is due to the fact that there is less land mass on that part of the planet owing to retreating glaciers on the surface and swirling magma in the core.
Earth has high mountains, deep valleys and other different features. If it were as smooth as a pool ball, gravity on Earth would be the same everywhere. GRACE is a special mission involving a satellite that maps out the gravity across the Earth’s surface showing the differences in gravity
Fact #12: Earth Doesn’t Take 24 Hours to Rotate on its Axis:
It actually takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds for the Earth to rotate once completely on its axis, which astronomers refer to as a Sidereal Day. Now wait a second, doesn’t that mean that a day is 4 minutes shorter than we think it is? You’d think that this time would add up, day by day, and within a few months, day would be night, and night would be day.
But remember that the Earth orbits around the Sun. Every day, the Sun moves compared to the background stars by about 1° – about the size of the Moon in the sky. And so, if you add up that little motion from the Sun that we see because the Earth is orbiting around it, as well as the rotation on its axis, you get a total of 24 hours.
Fact #13: Earth is the Only Planet Known to Have Life
We’ve discovered past evidence of water and organic molecules on Mars, and the building blocks of life on Saturn’s moon Titan. We can see amino acids in nebulae in deep space. And scientists have speculated about the possible existence of life beneath the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Titan. But Earth is the only place life has actually been discovered.
Fact #14:The highest point found on Earth is Mount Everest
which reaches a height of 8.8 km.
- Everest is 29,035 feet or 8848 meters high.
- The summit is the border of Nepal to the south and China or Tibet on the north.
- It is over 60 million years old.
- Everest was formed by the movement of the Indian tectonic plate pushing up and against the Asian plate.
- Everest grows by about a quarter of an inch (0.25") every year
Fact #15:The lowest point on Earth is called Challenger Deep
The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the deepest known point in Earth's oceans. In 2010 the United States Center for Coastal & Ocean Mapping measured the depth of the Challenger Deep at 10,994 meters (36,070 feet) below sea level with an estimated vertical accuracy of ± 40 meters. If Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth, were placed at this location it would be covered by over one mile of water.
The first depth measurements in the Mariana Trench were made by the British survey ship HMS Challenger, which was used by the Royal Navy in 1875 to conduct research in the trench. The greatest depth that they recorded at that time was 8,184 meters (26,850 feet.
Fact #16:The Mid Ocean Ridge System
The longest mountain range on Earth is actually underwater. It is called the mid ocean ridge system. It stretches for 80,000 km all around the world and is nearly 20 times longer than the longest range on the surface, the Andes Mountains. Not only that, the whole thing is completely volcanic.
The first life on Earth developed in the oceans through a process called abiogenesis or biopoiesis. This is a natural process in which life grows from non-living matter like simple organic compounds
Fact #17:Earth has 1 Moon and 2 Co-Orbital Satellites:
As you’re probably aware, Earth has 1 moon (aka. TheMoon). Plenty is known about this body and we have written many articles about it, so we won’t go into much detail there. But did you know there are 2 additional asteroids locked into a co-orbital orbits with Earth? They’re called 3753 Cruithne and 2002 AA29, which are part of a larger population of asteroids known as Near-Earth Objects (NEOs).
The asteroid known as 3753 Cruithne measures 5 km across, and is sometimes called “Earth’s second moon”. It doesn’t actually orbit the Earth, but has a synchronized orbit with our home planet. It also has an orbit that makes it look like it’s following the Earth in orbit, but it’s actually following its own, distinct path around the Sun.
Fact #18:The hottest and coldest spots on the Earth
The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth's surface was 136 degrees F or 57.8 degrees C in El Azizia, Libya in the year 1922.
The coldest spot was recorded at Antarctica's Vostok station with a temperature fall of minus 128.6 degrees or minus 89.2 degrees C. Antarctica also contains about 70 percent of Earth's fresh water and 90 percent of its ice.
Fact #19:The Earth’s Molten Iron Core Creates a Magnetic Field:
The Earth is like a great big magnet, with poles at the top and bottom near to the actual geographic poles. The magnetic field it creates extends thousands of kilometers out from the surface of the Earth – forming a region called the “magnetosphere“. Scientists think that this magnetic field is generated by the molten outer core of the Earth, where heat creates convection motions of conducting materials to generate electric currents.
Fact #20: Earth is Mostly Iron, Oxygen and Silicon:
If you could separate the Earth out into piles of material, you’d get 32.1 % iron, 30.1% oxygen, 15.1% silicon, and 13.9% magnesium. Of course, most of this iron is actually located at the core of the Earth. If you could actually get down and sample the core, it would be 88% iron. And if you sampled the Earth’s crust, you’d find that 47% of it is oxygen
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