Our world is an amazing place. As far as we know, there is only one planet that can sustain life the way that planet Earth does. It has the perfect climate to foster living things and an atmosphere and gravitational force that are hospitable.
While holding all the things that make life possible, our world provides a wide range of resources. Many biomes make life possible for a variety of species. Some regions remain untouched by humans, while others have been built up to the sky. With a world so vast and diverse, there are bound to be some pretty remarkable facts about the blue planet. Here are 21 of my favorites:
1.
The longest mountain range on Earth is largely underwater. Known as the mid-ocean ridge, the world's longest mountain range is a system of volcanoes deep undersea. It stretches a large portion of the globe, clocking in at 40,389 miles total. To put this in perspective, some of the longest above-water mountain ranges, the Andes, Rockies, and Himalayas, are about four times shorter than the Mid-Ocean Ridge System when their lengths are combined.
2.
Antarctica is considered a desert, and the world's largest desert at that. A desert isn't necessarily an expanse of hot, sandy land; rather, a desert is defined by rainfall rather than temperature. In total, Antarctica sees less than ten inches of precipitation every year. Not only is Antarctica the largest desert in the world, but it's also the coldest, recording colder temperatures than the globe's other frozen desert: the Arctic.
3.
A day on Earth used to be shorter billions of years ago. The birth of the Moon impacted the Earth's spinning, altering the length of a day. Shortly after the birth of the Moon, the Earth was superheated, with surface temperature reaching about 3,680 degrees Fahrenheit. Over the next hundred million years, the Earth cooled down, and a micro-organism known as the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) emerged. During LUCA's time on Earth, the typical day was only about ten hours in length. At the birth of photosynthesis, the day had stretched to about 12 hours. About 1.8 billion years ago, when the first complex organisms began to roam the Earth, the day lasted about 19 hours. In the scheme of Earth's history, humans only arrived recently; over the last few million years, as we came around, the day grew closer to the current 24-hour period.
Scientists have recently estimated that the Earth's spin on its axis is slowing, getting about 1.35 seconds slower every 100,000 years. If we scale that up, in a billion years, days on Earth could be about 27.75 hours long.
4.
Earth sticks out amongst its planetary peers. This isn't just because Earth is the only planet in our solar system known to support life, but also because of its name. The other seven planets (and even Pluto, too) have English names that come from either Greek or Roman mythology. The name "Earth" doesn't come from mythology, but rather has roots in Old English and German. The roots most simply translate to "ground/soil." This name was thought of because people wandered the Earth on its ground/soil.
5.
The Hawaiian Volcano, Mauna Kea, is taller than Mount Everest — that is, it's taller if you measure it from its true base, which is under the ocean. Mount Everest is the tallest mountain above sea level. Mauna Kea sits at 4,205 meters above sea level; however, the mountain is said to extend approximately 6,000 additional meters below the Pacific Ocean's surface. Its total height is approximately 10,211 meters. Using that measurement, Mauna Kea would be about 1,300 meters taller than Everest.
6.
Earth's continents are constantly moving. This is due to the tectonic plates hidden beneath them; these plates are always shifting, causing the continents to move very slightly at all times. The continents are estimated to move somewhere between 1.5–5 centimeters every year. To put that into perspective, that rate is about the same as the annual growth of a human fingernail.
7.
There was once a global supercontinent known as Pangea. The name Pangea has Greek origins and means "all the Earth"; it was surrounded by a super-ocean called Panthalassa. Pangaea formed approximately 335 million years ago and broke up around 200 million years ago. When it first broke up, it formed two continents called Laurasia (in the north) and Gondwana (in the south). The two continents then further broke up between 180 and 150 million years ago.
8.
Earth's atmosphere is mostly made up of nitrogen. Nitrogen makes up approximately 78% of the gases in our atmosphere, while oxygen makes up only 21% of the atmosphere, along with argon making up just under one percent and trace gases making up less than a tenth of a percent.
9.
Earth isn't truly a perfect sphere. Looking at a globe, you might think that our planet is perfectly round, but it's actually a shape called an oblate spheroid. The flattening that makes the planet not a perfect sphere is only about 0.3%, so the flattening is nearly imperceptible. When comparing the equatorial radius (side to side) and the polar radius (top to bottom), the equatorial radius is about 13 miles larger.
10.
If you're looking to stand atop the spot on Earth furthest from its center, you shouldn't head to Mount Everest. Instead, head to Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. While Everest is the tallest above sea level, the Earth's equatorial bulge means Mount Chimborazo's summit is about 2,072 meters farther from the Earth's center than Everest's.
11.
The ocean is so vast and complex that scientists have only mapped about a quarter of the ocean floor. Scientists have been working to gain high-resolution mapping of the entire ocean, but have only managed to map out 26% of the total surface of the ocean floor. The ocean averages 3,682 meters deep and is not uniform, with many dips, peaks, and trenches.
12.
To build on the idea of how vast and uneven the ocean floor is, there is a trench in the Pacific Ocean that is deeper than Mount Everest is tall. The trench is known as the Mariana Trench (with its deepest point being called Challenger Deep) and has a maximum depth of about 7 miles. Despite its depth and cold temperatures, some animals are able to survive life in the trench. In 2012, James Cameron took a single-occupancy submarine down into Challenger Deep, becoming the first person to venture to that depth solo, and still one of only people to do so. The trench was formed due to the subduction of two tectonic plates, forcing one plate below the other.
13.
While the Pacific Ocean is currently the largest ocean on the planet, it's shrinking, and the Atlantic Ocean is growing. Now, don't expect the Atlantic Ocean to claim the biggest ocean title anytime soon. The Pacific is only shrinking about one inch every year. This means that it would take somewhere between 200 and 300 million years for the ocean to disappear at the current rate of shrinkage. Scientists say that this is part of the natural movement cycle that brought Pangea together and then broke it up. According to scientists, we're actually overdue for our next supercontinent, as one should occur every 600 million years or so.
While the Pacific shrinks at a rate of about one inch annually, the Atlantic Ocean grows at about the same rate due to the process of seafloor spreading.
14.
There are geological structures visible today that are here as a result of massive geological events millions of years ago. One well-known example is the pinnacles that can be found as part of the Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona. The pinnacles were created using material produced in a massive volcanic eruption approximately 27 million years ago. The volcanic eruption created a caldera, known as the Turkey Creek Caldera, that sits slightly south of the pinnacles. The ash and debris left by the eruption then began to fall to the ground, compact, and create a layer of rock that is called rhyolite tuff. After many years of formation, and then many more years of erosion, we were left with the pinnacles we can now see today.
15.
While Old Faithful may be Yellowstone's most famous geyser, the national park has over 10,000 hydrothermal features in total. Of those 10,000, about 500 are geysers, meaning more than half of the world's geysers are found within Yellowstone's boundaries.
16.
Bryce Canyon is not really a canyon at all. The famous orange rocks of Bryce Canyon in Utah are actually hoodoos rather than canyons, despite their misleading name. The park also features structures like fluted cliffs, windows, spires, arches, and columns. The reason the canyon cannot truly be considered a canyon is because of the method of its formation. Canyons are, by definition, created by being carved out by flowing water, typically a river or stream.
Bryce Canyon was formed primarily from snowmelt. The snow would melt and the water would penetrate cracks in the rocks, then refreeze. Upon freezing, the meltwater would expand and force the cracks to widen, eventually forming the canyon as we know it today. Rainwater has also contributed to the shape of Bryce Canyon, as it slowly dissolves the limestone, creating unique shapes.
17.
The world's longest cave system is longer than the distance from New York City to Pittsburgh. As the crow flies, New York City to Pittsburgh is about 314 miles. The longest cave system in the world is located in Kentucky and is known as the Mammoth Cave System. It spans over 400 miles of naturally occurring caves, all interconnected. To this day, scientists are still finding additional connected passageways in the cave system, adding to the total mileage of this record-breaking system.
18.
Life in caves can be really hard, but some animals have adapted to live all — or nearly all — of their lives in the harsh world of the caves. In Mammoth Cave National Park, animals like cave shrimp and bats can be found. Cave shrimp have evolved to have no eyes; this is because of the lack of light in caves. Eyes would serve these animals no purpose, and having none means that other bodily functions can get the energy that would have been allotted to seeing. This is not uncommon, as other cave species have evolved to have no eyes. Some other animals, like the cave cricket, still have tiny eyes but have extremely poor vision. Several cave species have also evolved to be unpigmented.
19.
The shape of a valley might be able to tell you how it was formed. Often, valleys are considered either V-shaped or U-shaped. If a valley is U-shaped, it was likely created by a glacier, which carved out the land as it moved. A V-shaped valley is usually created by the flowing waters of a river.
20.
There is a region around the Pacific Ocean that is home to most of the world's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The region is known as the Ring of Fire, and it's a horseshoe-shaped region that spans about 25,000 miles. The world's southernmost active volcano, Mount Erebus, sits on the Ring of Fire, as do other volcanoes, ocean trenches, and tectonic fault lines.
It also has a higher population than Australia, Germany, Brazil, and France combined. So what's the most populous country in the world? It's India, with an approximate population of 1.47 billion people. All the other nations listed have an approximate combined population of 1.35 billion.
I truly see our amazing planet in a whole new light now. Do you have any other facts about our big blue world that blow your mind? Share your best fact in the comments!
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