Here is Part 2 of 25 Interesting Facts About Earth. For part 1, click here.
1-5 Interesting Facts About Earth
1. Earth is only “marginally” habitable. Some of the Earth-like exoplanets might potentially be far more hospitable for life than Earth is. – Source
2. Life has existed on Earth for over 80% of its existence, and was present from nearly the moment the Earth cooled. – Source
3. All middle age scholars believed that the Earth is spherical. The myth that people in the middle ages thought that the earth is flat appears to date from the 17th century as part of the campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching. – Source
4. Hoba, the largest known meteorite left no crater on Earth. Earth’s atmosphere slowed the object to the point of terminal velocity. Hoba meteorite is also the most massive naturally occurring piece of Iron on Earth’s surface. – Source
5. The ancient Greek astronomer Eratosthenes of Cyrene, proved that the earth was round in 240 B.C. He also came up with latitude/longitude and was able to calculate the earth’s circumference, which is off by less than 2% from the modern value of 40,041 km. – Source
6-10 Interesting Facts About Earth
6. The asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs was powerful enough to send Earth rocks to Mars and even Europa. As a result, if we ever find life on those worlds it may actually have originated on our own planet. – Source
7. Sniper bullets can travel for so long, the rotation of the earth will move the target. – Source
8. Soviet scientists tried to dig a hole through the Earth’s crust in the 1970’s. The Kola Superdeep Borehole reached 40,318 feet deep before they stopped due to higher-than-expected temperatures of 356 degree Fahrenheit making the project infeasible. It is still the deepest borehole humans have ever dug. – Source
9. Even with the extremes of Mt Everest and the Mariana Trench the Earth has less deviation from an idealized spheroid than a billiard ball. – Source
10. If everyone on earth lived like a resident of the United States, we would need the resources of 4.5 planet Earths for sustainable supply. – Source
11-15 Interesting Facts About Earth
11. The most abundant mineral that comprises of 38% of the Earth had no official name until 2014 because there was no way to get a natural sample from 400 miles beneath the surface. It was named Bridgmanite and the only sample we have is from meteorites.- Source
12. Areas where it is common for people to live over 100 years are known as “Blue Zones.” There are 5 on Earth: Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; Loma Linda, California; and Icaria, Greece. – Source
13. Multicellular life only has 800 million years left on Earth, at which point, there won’t be enough CO2 in the atmosphere for photosynthesis to occur. – Source
14. When Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet during its 1910 approach, there was public fear that a gas discovered in the tail, cyanogen, would destroy all life on the planet, leading to people buying gas masks and “Anti-Comet Pills.” – Source
15. There were four mass extinction events before the one that killed the Dinosaurs. The most severe killed a staggering 97% of all species. All life on Earth today is descended from the 3% that survived. – Source
16-20 Interesting Facts About Earth
16. Only less than 4% of land has other land on the exact opposite side of the earth from it, which is called its “antipode.” There are very few spots where you could talk about digging straight through the earth. – Source
17. In 1963, the US Military created an artificial ring around the Earth, in order to serve as a man-made ionosphere. The ring was made of copper needles and was used for worldwide communications in the case that the Soviets disabled all other methods of communication. – Source
18. The Moon provides the Earth with stable climate. Without the Moon, Earth’s axial tilt with respect to the Sun could fluctuate erratically (by as much as 90 degrees), disrupting the seasons. – Source
19. When spacecraft does Earth-flybys at certain angles, they experience a small but sudden velocity increase, which is still unexplained. One of the proposed explanations is the existence of a ring of dark matter around Earth. – Source
20. 1816 is called “the year without summer” due several compounding earth events lowering Earth’s temperature and eliminating summer that year. – Source
21-25 Interesting Facts About Earth
21. The driest place on Earth is in Antarctica in an area called the Dry Valleys, which have seen no rain for nearly 2 million years. There is absolutely no precipitation in this region. – Source
22. The magnets in an MRI are up to 60,000 times stronger than the earth’s core. – Source
23. Scientist feared that the first atomic test would initiate an unstoppable chain reaction and ultimately lead to the destruction of earth. – Source
24. Due to the detonation of atomic bombs, everything on Earth was marked by a unique carbon signature. It can measure the date of anything from wine to human tissue. – Source
25. The Hairy Ball theorem dictates that, given at least some wind on Earth, there must at all times be a cyclone somewhere. – Source
There are several facts on this list that are repeated from part 1
So #13 is a direct contradiction of global warming, I mean climate change, Wait what is it this year?…..
Haha. It has nothing to do with global warming. Humans will be long gone by then(800 million years). By 600 million years, the Sun’s increasing luminosity begins to disrupt the carbonate–silicate cycle; higher luminosity increases weathering of surface rocks, which traps carbon dioxide in the ground as carbonate. As water evaporates from the Earth’s surface, rocks harden, causing plate tectonics to slow and eventually stop. Without volcanoes to recycle carbon into the Earth’s atmosphere, carbon dioxide levels begin to fall. By 800 million years, CO2 levels fall to the point that no photosynthesis will be possible.