50 facts about the Earth Bashny.Net

1. These different colors of the sky

Aurora appears when charged particles emanating from the sun, get to the magnetic field of our planet and are destroyed in the upper atmosphere near the poles. Particles become more active in the period of maximum solar activity, which occurs cyclically every 11 years. Near the south pole aurora people less likely to be observed due to the fact that rarely appear off the coast of Antarctica.

2. There are other planets like our

Scientists suggest that in the universe there are many planets similar to ours. There was evidence that Earth-like planets, orbiting distant stars. For example, a planet called Kepler 22-b orbits the star at the same distance from it, as well as our planet from the Sun, and this indicates that this planet may be favorable for life. While there is life on these planets - is still the subject of debate in the scientific world.

3. Who made it to the South Pole?

The first person to successfully crossed the Antarctic wilderness to reach the South Pole was Norwegian Roald Amundsen. He and another 4 people using sledges pulled by dogs, reached the pole in December 1911. Amundsen said that his luck through careful planning.

4. driest place

The driest place on the planet where sometimes there is a person - the Atacama Desert in Chile and Peru. In the center of this desert there are places where there was never recorded rain. Although the Dry Valleys of Antarctica rain was not observed for millions of years.

5. Open spaces

People who sometimes like to be alone, it is advised to go to Greenland. On this island, the lowest population density in the world. So in 2010 on an area of ​​2,166,086 square kilometers lived all 56534 person. Most of the residents of Greenland can be seen off the coast.

6. The most populous city

Do not like the densely populated city? Then do not advise you to go to Manila. This city - the capital of the Philippines - is the most populous city of the world where a relatively small piece of land are forced to live most of the population. According to the census in 2007, 38, 55 square kilometers placed 1,660,714 people!

7. Most tiny mammal

Earth is home to a large number of tiny creatures, some of their body consists of only one cell. But most small animals, mammals can nazvatsvinonosuyu bat. This vulnerable species of bats lives in Southeast Asia. Mice reaching a length of about 3-3 centimeters and 3 weighs approximately 2 grams. This bat can compete with the Etruscan shrew, which is roughly the same size.

8. The largest organisms

The largest organism on the planet can be called, oddly enough, mushrooms. Most of the fungal organism is hidden under the ground. In 1992, scientists reported in the journal Nature that the estimates of location in Oregon occupied an area of ​​0, 89 ha.

9. Breathable giants

When we try to think about the largest living things on the planet, come to mind whales and elephants. Giant sequoia "General Sherman" is the volume of the largest tree in the world, which grows in the National Park "Sequoia", California. Tree trunk contains 1486, 6 cubic meters of material.

10. The largest pool

The largest ocean basin on the planet is considered Pacific, which covers an area of ​​155 million square kilometers and contains more than half of all the water on Earth. It is so big that all the continents could fit in the same space.

11. Human coastlines

Coastlines occupy only 20 percent of the United States, excluding Alaska and are home to more than 50 percent of Americans, that is, the majority prefers to live by the sea.

12. The most powerful volcanic eruption

The strongest eruption was witnessed by man, happened in April 1815 on Mount Tambora in Indonesia. On a scale of VEI this eruption reached 7 points, and the uppermost point of the scale is the figure 8. According to eyewitnesses, the eruption was so powerful that the sound of rumbling volcano could be heard even on the island of Sumatra in 1930 kilometers. The eruption killed about 71 thousand people, black smoke could be seen on the islands, located quite far from the volcano.

13. The most active volcano

The most active volcano can be called Stromboli volcano, which is located on the volcanic island in the Mediterranean Sea, south-west of Italy. Over the past 20 thousand years the volcano has erupted almost continuously. In the dark, thanks to the illuminated lava volcano can be seen from the sea, so it is sometimes called the "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean».

14. Education mountains

While moving layers of rock, which are called tectonic plates, hidden from our eyes, the results of their movement, we can see on the surface of the planet. Between India and Tibet Himalayas located that extend over a distance of 2,900 kilometers. This long mountain range formed approximately between 40 and 50 million years ago, when India and Eurasia due to the movement of plates connected.

15. supercontinent

It is believed that 4, 5 billion years of our planet Earth's continents once joined to become a single continent, and then separated again. The most recent one was a continent Pangaea, which began to be separated into its component parts about 200 million years ago. Scientists suggest that the future of the continent will come together again.

16. Formation of the Moon

Many researchers believe that some of the major sites of yore collide with Earth, causing the planet to split a fragment of which later formed the Moon. While it is not clear whether this object is another planet, asteroid or comet, but some scientists suggest that the culprit was the planet Theia, the size corresponding to Mars.

17. The distance to the star

Earth is about 150 million kilometers from the sun. In order to reach the surface of our planet, sunlight is necessary to 8 minutes 19 seconds.

18. Stardust

Every day on the surface of our planet crumbles cosmic dust: about 100 tons of interplanetary material (mainly in the form of dust). The smallest particles emit a comet when their ice begins to evaporate with the approach to the sun.

19. Wealth planet

In the largest seas of the planet contains more than 20 million tons of gold, but to get it is not so simple. Gold is so dissolved in seawater, in each liter of the average can be detected only 13-billionth of a gram of gold. Gold undissolved hidden deep within the rocks on the ocean floor, so get it is not yet possible. But if it happened, everyone on the planet could be a potential owner of 4, 5 kilograms of precious metal, but if he was still precious?

20. Water World

Oceans cover about 70 percent of the earth's surface, but people have learned while only 5 percent. The remaining 95 percent of the ocean man has ever seen.

21. Natural electricity

Thunder and lightning - one of the worst natural phenomena. A single lightning strike can heat the air up to about 30,000 degrees Celsius, which causes the air to expand strongly and creates a blast wave, as well as a strong rumble that we call thunder.

22. It was purple

Once upon a time the Earth was purple, but today changed to green, suggests Scheele Dassarma (hil DasSarma), a microbial geneticist at the University of Maryland. Ancient microbes, according to him, could not use chlorophyll and other molecules in order to curb the sun's rays. Such molecules could give them a purple hue.

Dassarma believes that chlorophyll appeared after another light-sensitive molecule called retinal, which already existed on the young planet. Retinal today can be found on the membranes of photosynthetic microbe plum halobacteria, it absorbs green light and reflects red and purple, and when mixed appears violet light.

23. Measuring the age glaciers

People leave their mark on the world in different ways. For example, the testing of nuclear weapons in the 1950s led to the release of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which eventually fell with rain and snow. These sediments have settled in the glaciers, where they formed layers, which scientists are trying to figure out the age of the ice.

24. The loss of water

With climate change, glaciers are losing ice, which leads to rising sea levels. As it turned out, that if a single glacier melts, it will raise the amount of melt water by 10 percent. Canadian glacier between 2004 and 2009, has already lost a lot of ice, which turned into water by volume equal to 75 percent of Lake Erie.

25. Explosion Lakes

Lakes can also explode. In Cameroon, on the border with Torn and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are 3-threatening lakes Nyos, Monun and Kivu. All these lakes are the crater, they are located on the top of the volcano. Magma beneath its surface releases carbon dioxide, which accumulates in layers under the bed of the lake. If carbon dioxide break free, to anyone who will be nearby, nothing to breathe.

26. The lowest point of land

To the lowest point on land is easily accessible. This is the Dead Sea, located between Jordan and Israel. The water level at 423 meters below sea level, and it continues to fall by about 1 meter per year.

27. The deepest point

How deep in the bowels of the earth is able to reach people? Deepest point in the world is the Mariana Trench, the depth of which 10,916 meters below sea level. The deepest point of the world not covered by the ocean, at a depth of 2555 meters below sea level, but there can hardly be reached. This depression Bentley in Antarctica, which is filled with a thick layer of ice.

28. The richest ecosystems

Coral reefs attract the greatest number of living beings per unit area than any other planet's ecosystems. They can compete unless the rainforests. Reefs are made up of tiny coral polyps that build calcareous structures. They are the largest living structures on the planet that can be seen even from space. Unfortunately, because of the perishable environment and climate change coral reefs die faster.

29. The longest mountain chain

If you would like to see the longest mountain chain, you would have to go down deep into the water. Underwater chain stretches over a distance of 65,000 kilometers - is a chain of underwater volcanoes that surrounds the Earth. Lava erupts on the ocean floor, forming seamounts.

30. Conquering the peaks

May 8, 1978 Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler together to reach the summit of Mount Everest, to climb to the highest point on the planet without the use of oxygen.

31. Stones are able to walk

Stones are able to move across the surface of the planet, at least on the surface of dry lake Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California. Sometimes the wind is able to budge stones weighing dozens or even hundreds of pounds. Most likely, the clay surface charge becomes more slippery when in nearby mountains, the snow melts. This allows the wind to push and move the stones on the surface.

32. The Earth may be another moon

Some scholars argue that the Earth has another satellite, in addition to the moon. According to studies, the results of which were published last year in the Journal of ICARUS, the outer body of at least 1 meter rotates the Earth's orbit at any time. That is, it is not always one and the same body, and the so-called "temporary moon," the researchers say. According to their theory, the gravitational field of the Earth can capture asteroids that pass close to our planet revolving around the sun. When such an asteroid approaching Earth, he begins to revolve around her and makes 3 turns, staying in orbit about 9 months and then removed again.

33. Two Moons?

Once the Earth had two major satellite - two moons. The second satellite with a diameter of about 1200 kilometers, according to scientists, revolved around the planet until it collided with the moon. This disaster may explain why the two sides of the moon today are so different from each other.

34. Changing the direction of the magnetic field

Over the past 20 million years on this planet every 200-300 thousand years is a change in the magnetic field direction, although this process has no particular periodicity. Changes can not happen overnight. This process requires hundreds or thousands of years.

35. The highest mountains

Mount Everest, or, as it is called, Mount Everest is the highest mountain. Its peak is located at an altitude of 8848 meters above sea level. However, if we measure the hill from the bottom to the top of her - she reaches 17,170 meters.

36. The magnetic field

The Earth has a magnetic field due to the ocean and the hot liquid metal, which is concentrated around its solid iron core. This stream of molten metal produces an electrical current, which in turn forms a magnetic field. Since the beginning of the 19th century, the Earth's magnetic north pole has moved to the north for 1,100 km, according to NASA researchers. The speed of movement is increased, thus, currently north pole moves at a speed of 64 kilometers per year. In the 20th century it was moving at a speed of 16 km / year.

37. Strange gravity

Due to the fact that our planet is not a perfect sphere, its weight is unevenly distributed. Weight fluctuations cause fluctuations in gravity. One example is the anomalous gravity Hudson Bay in Canada. In this area, gravity lower than in other parts of the planet. In 2007, scientists discovered that the reason thawed glaciers. Ice that during the last glacial period covered the area, melted, but the planet does not have time to recover from this burden.

38. The largest stalagmite

The world's largest stalagmite found in Cuba. This formation has a height of 67 m 2.

39. Extreme continent

The southernmost continent - Antarctica is the edge of the Earth. Antarctic ice cap contains 70 percent of fresh water on the planet and 90 percent of the world's ice.

40. The coldest point

It would not be a big surprise to learn that the coldest place on the planet is in Antarctica. However, there is a thermometer thermometer drops to an unprecedented amount. In winter, temperatures can reach minus 73 degrees Celsius. But the most extreme low temperature was recorded July 21, 1983 at the Russian Vostok station and was minus 89, 2 degrees Celsius.

41. The hottest place

The hottest places on the planet is Libya, where the thermometer showed 57, 8 degrees Celsius above zero in September 1922. Maybe somewhere in the desert there are more hot point, but they are outside the observation stations.

42. The most powerful earthquake

The most powerful earthquake, which occurred in the United States - was an earthquake measuring 9, 2 points, which occurred in Alaska, March 28, 1964. But the strongest earthquake that seismologists recorded date, it is considered an earthquake in Chile, which occurred May 22, 1960. Its capacity was 9, 5 points.

43. moonquake

Moonquakes or "earthquake on the Moon", also sometimes happen, but not often and not with the same intensity as in the world. Scientists believe that moonquakes related to the tidal forces of the Sun and the Earth, as well as some other reasons. Moonquakes may occur in deep water between the surface of the Moon and its center.

44. The Age of the Earth

Scientists have calculated the age of the Earth, exploring the oldest rocks and meteorites that were discovered on the planet. Meteorites and the Earth were formed around the same time when the solar system was formed. According to scientists, the Earth has 4, 54 billion years.

45. The movement of rocks

The land on which we walk, made of recycled materials. During certain cycles volcanic rocks turn into sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks, and then all over again. This cycle is not perfect: the magma from the earth rises and cools and turns into volcanic rock. Tectonic processes raise the rock to the surface, where erosion destroys it. Tiny fragments are added, and the pressure compresses them, and makes a sedimentary rock, such as sandstone. If sediments accumulate even deeper, they can turn into metamorphic rocks under high pressure and high temperature. During the process of sedimentary rocks can collapse, and metamorphic rocks rise above.













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