Yahoo Sports 10 Little known facts about the Earth
Earlier people used to believe that Earth is a flat surface and now if you ask anyone about its shape, they’ll tell you it is round. Wrong. Earth actually has a bulge on the equator which stretches about 20 miles outwards. So it looks more rotund than round.
If you thought gravity was equally spread all over the earth’s surface, you were mistaken. There is a place in Canada by the name Hudson Bay where gravity is lesser than usual. It could be attributed to the less amount of land mass left in that area due to melting glaciers.
There is so much salt present on our planet that if you were to dissolve it in all the oceans in the world, there will still be enough left to create a 500 feet thick salt layer on the entire landmass.
Have you ever heard of rocks that can walk around? Well, apparently in a place called Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, there is a flat lakebed where rocks, big as well as small, physically move from one place to another.
It has been theorized that Earth had a smaller twin planet called Theia in the beginning of its formation. This twin planet was almost the same size as Mars, but about 5 million years ago it crashed into Earth and most of it was absorbed into Earth’s crust. Whatever was left turned into a celestial body we now call Moon.
We have been taught that Sun is our major source of heat and energy and that without it all life forms on Earth will cease to exist. But little do people know that the core of our planet is as hot as the surface of Sun. So if ever sun rays get blocked due to any unforeseen condition, we can always harness the heat present in the core to sustain ourselves.
We have reached the moon and got our satellites covering other planets, but we still haven’t fully explored our own water bodies. With information only about 210,000 species, roughly 20 million underwater species are still left to be discovered.
There are over 20 million tons of gold present at the bottom of sea. But it’s spread over such a vast area that only 13 billionth of a gram of gold can be extracted from one litre of water.
If you were to ask anyone about the largest living creature on earth, they’ll probably tell you about the Blue Whale. But there’s something bigger than that too.There is a specific type of honey mushroom in Oregon which is over 2200 acres big and spreads across all underground.
Believe it or not, the driest place on our planet is actually situated next to the biggest water body in the world. Atacama Desert in northern Chile is considered the driest place on Earth and is next to the Pacific Ocean.
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Whenever you look around, whatever you see, it’s all a gift from our mother planet Earth. Humans have gone a long way trying to explore it, utilize it and make it a more comfortable place to live in. In this process, we have exceeded our limits and brutally abused her. But before we consciously or unconsciously worsen the condition even more, here are 10 facts that we should all know about this life-giving magnanimous beauty.
