Earth is the third planet from the Sun, the fifth largest in the Solar System and so far the only one in our galaxy where life is raging at a frantic pace. Although man has been trying to conquer cosmos for more than one decade, there is still much that remains unexplored on our native Earth.
In this article you will find many answers to the questions that concern each of us. But before moving on to the most interesting, we suggest recalling some general statistics about planet Earth:
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- Average distance from the Sun: 149,600,000 km.
- Earth’s rotation period around the Sun 365.24 days
- Total surface area: 510 million km. sq.
- Equator length: 40,075 km.
- Total land area: 148 million square kilometers. (29%).
- Total area of oceans and seas: 671 million km. sq. (71%).
- The highest mountain peak: 8,848 m, Mount Everest (Jomolungma).
- Greatest ocean depth: 11,034 m, Mariana Trench
- Age: 4.6 billion years (only at the age of 4.3 billion years the Earth cooled to 1000 degrees Celsius, also in this time the first rains passed over it).
15 facts about planet Earth
Planet Earth hides many secrets. Some have been known for a long time, the rest will have to be solved by future generations. We have prepared for you interesting facts about our planet that everyone should know:
- Our planet was born long before suitable conditions for life appeared on it, not to mention living beings themselves. So, if we imagine that the age of the Earth is 24 hours, then the first life appeared on it at 4 o’clock in the morning; plants only at 22:24; about an hour later, at 11:41 p.m., all the dinosaurs died out. And only at 23:58 a person appeared on the planet.
- Many scientists believe that life on our planet did not appear by chance. The fact is that the Earth is in the most favorable place at a distance from the Sun – this allows the planet to maintain the temperature at which water is in a liquid state.
- How long is a day on planet Earth? If you say 24 hours, you are wrong, it is a little shorter. The planet makes a full rotation around its axis in just 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. Scientists call this time required by the Earth for a full revolution a sidereal day.
- Here comes another shocking fact: the Earth year is actually longer than 365 days and lasts 365.2564 days – that’s how much time the Earth needs to make a complete revolution around the Sun. It is because of this ten-thousandth part of 0.2564 that such a phenomenon as a leap year (a year when February has not 28 days, but 29) arose.
- Every year, the speed of the planet Earth around the Sun slows down, and the speed of rotation around its axis increases. This is caused by many factors at once: the action of the Moon, the Sun, the shift of matter in different parts of the planets of our Solar System, etc.
- The shape of the planet Earth is not round – it is ellipsoidal (or geoid). Our planet has a small bulge closer to the equator and flattening at the poles – this is due to the rotation of the Earth itself around its axis, which is tilted at an angle of 66 degrees.
- Planet Earth consists not only of solid rocks (crust) on which we walk and oceans. At a depth of 5 to 70 kilometers under the Earth’s crust, there are red-hot rocks and metals – the mantle. By the way, these rocks are poured onto the Earth’s surface during volcanic eruptions. And the deeper to the Earth’s core, the hotter and denser the mantle becomes.
- Each planet in our solar system has gravity (which is true, it is different for each planet, depending on its mass). Gravity is the gravitational force that attracts objects to the surface of the planet. The closer an object is to the Earth’s surface, the stronger the gravity. That is why on top of a mountain (for example, Everest) gravity is somewhat less than at the bottom.
- The next time you see a shooting star, take your time to make a wish. In fact, it is not a star at all, but the dust and stones of an asteroid burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed. According to the website space.com, about 30 thousand tons of such interplanetary dust enters the atmosphere of our planet every year.
- Another interesting fact: in theory, a person can get from one point of the planet to the opposite in just 42 minutes. This is possible if you drill a through tunnel in the Earth and jump into it. Hardly after yes after a jump, a person will be able to return alive, but, let’s face it, the theory is quite interesting.
- The total distance from planet Earth to the nearest source of light and heat – the Sun – is 149.6 million kilometers. Sunlight can travel this way in just 8.3 minutes. Therefore, if the Sun suddenly went out, we on Earth would not know about it immediately, but only after some time.
- Even if it seems to you that you live in a relatively calm region from natural disasters, it does not mean that everywhere is like that. It is interesting that every day on our planet here and there there are thunderstorms – on average about 750 in one day! In addition, every year the Earth suffers from half a million earthquakes (that is, an earthquake occurs every 5 days, which can lead to various types of destruction).
- As of the end of 2022, about eight billion people live on planet Earth. Nevertheless, if you take a spoonful of fertile black soil, you can find more living things on it than all the people on our planet.
- The main part of the Earth’s surface is occupied by seas and oceans – about 70.8%. But if you weigh all the water on our planet, it will make up only 0.07% of the mass of our geoid and 0.4% of the volume of the planet.
- In percentage terms, the composition of planet Earth can be divided as follows: 32.1% is iron, 30.1% is oxygen, another 15.1% is silicon, and only 13.9% is magnesium. The main part of all the iron of our planet is in its core.
Which of the above facts about planet Earth surprised you the most? Write in the comments:
