Everyone knows the Earth is a pretty awesome place. (After all, it’s our home.) But most of us go through our days without really considering how amazing it actually is. We are just a tiny dot in a great big universe, but this tiny dot has got some pretty cool stuff going on.
1.) In two hundred million years, the Earth’s continents will have shifted so much, they will become what scientists are calling “Pangea Ultima.”
2.) The poles of our planet actually switch every 300,000 years or so. The last polar shift was around 780,000 years ago – looks like we’re overdue.
3.) The Earth has a circumference of 24,901 miles or 40,075 kilometers at its equator.
4.) There is a theory that the Earth once had two moons. At some point, one collided with the other, which would explain why one side of our moon is so distinct from the other.
5.) The Earth’s core is super hot. I mean really really hot. It’s 6,100 degrees Celsius, or 11,000 °F.
6.) The deepest point on planet Earth is at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. This trench is 35,813 feet, or 10,916 meters.
7.) Our oceans contains 20 millions tons of gold. Sorry to say, most of this wealth of gold is extremely dilute.
8.) Every single day, about 100 tons of interplanetary material (primarily dust) reaches Earth’s surface.
9.) Ever wonder how far away the sun actually is? The sun is approximately 93 million miles (150 millions km) from the Earth. That’s far.
10.) At some points on the earth, you are spinning through space at 1,000 mph. The Earth itself is moving around the sun at 67,000 mph or 107,826 kph.
11.) The highest point (measured above sea-level) is Mt. Everest, standing at 29,029 feet or 8,848 meters.
12.) The Earth is pretty old (at least by our standards) and is currently estimated to be around 4.54 billion years old.
(via: listverse.com & livescience.com)
Maybe now we can all sit back and be thankful for Earth because without it, well…well we’d just be floating through infinite space, I guess.
