Fun Facts About Earth

It is believed by many, that Earth’s shape is a sphere. This belief remained intact for a long time, but continuous research work on space travel and modern astronomy has led to an understanding that Earth is a oblate spheroid (flattened sphere).

This shape is quiet  similar to a sphere, but Earth is flattened at the poles while it bulges at the equator. This bulge is caused due to Earth’s rotation.

Even if you feel like you’re in still position, you’re not. Infact, you are on a run along with planet Earth.

It actually depends on your current position on the globe. You could be spinning at a speed of over 1,000 miles per hour. People who are closest to the equator move the fastest, while some others standing on the North or South pole would be nearly still.

El Azizia, Libya, is considered to be hottest place on Earth . According to NASA Earth Observatory, weather stations has  revealed the highest temperature of 136 degree Fahrenheit (57.8 degrees Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922 . There have likely been hotter locations beyond the network of weather stations.

This is still dicey and just in theory that Earth may once have had two moons. A tiny second moon — extending over about 750 miles (1,200 km) wide — may have orbited Earth before it slammed into the other one.

A lake bed called Racetrack Playa in Death Valley is known to have this astonishing sighting where rocks can walk! The strongest storms in the valley can move rocks weighing even tens and hundreds of pounds. This phenomenon, most likely, is the result of ice-encrusted rocks inundated by ice melting from the hills over lake Playa.

The coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. These Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. They play a vital role in supporting most species for our planet’s ecosystem. These are community of connected organisms, large enough to be visible from space as well.

Well, according a microbial geneticist, Shil DasSarma, Earth could have been purple.

Microbes present during ancient times could have used a molecule other than chlorophyll to trap and use the sun’s rays, one that gave the organisms a violet hue

Almost daily, more than 100 tons of spatial material sprinkles and drifts down to Earth’s surface. This dust is released by the comets as their ice vaporized due to sun’s heat.

Covering an area of about 59 million square miles (155 million square kilometers), the Pacific Ocean is by far Earth’s largest ocean basin . The Pacific ocean contains  more than half of the free water on Earth, according to NOAA.

This is large enough to fit in all the 7 continents.

There are approximately 40,000 artificial satellites that have orbited Earth till date. At present, more than 20,000 artificial satellites are still orbiting planet earth. However, only 5 percent of them are actually functioning. While around 8% of them have spent rockets while about rest of the 87 % have become inactive and fragmented. According to NASA, an average of 1 object keeps falling to Earth everyday.