Earth is the mother to billions of people and countless other living things, from bacteria hidden to the human eye, to multi-ton giants such as elephants. Predators, herbivores, insects, fish and birds have inhabited forests, deserts, steppes and seas for millions, billions of years, creating and changing the face of the planet, changing the landscape and evolving, developing and multiplying. But our common home is changing, growing, surprising and inspiring, giving life and taking it away.
We present to you a list of 10 interesting facts about the Earth: the latest and most amazing information about the planet for 2019-2020 - riddles and earthquakes that influenced the development of the world. Some of them are well-known and studied at school, and some will be a real discovery for you.
10. The most arid place on the planet - Atacama Desert
The driest place on Earth is the Atacama Desert, where water for local residents is worth more than gold, because in order to get it and defeat the main enemy of this place - thirst, you need to dig deeply, because in real hell on earth it goes into aquifers of scorched soil.
Instead of the usual rainfall, desert is attacked by sandstorms of violent force, and rainfall is a rarity that some parts of Atakama have not seen for decades.
The air here has the lowest humidity indicators - zero percent. It is almost impossible to breathe. This and not only factor made life difficult, therefore the strongest survive, for example, cacti, and the birds that feed on fish off the ocean dominate from the animal world
9.97% of the water on Earth is salt water
The planet’s most valuable resource is water. This fact is known to all preschoolers. A person consists of it at 80% and if he does not drink, death will not keep itself waiting. But you can not drink all the water that is on Earth, especially since 97% of it is salty, which will not relieve thirst, but only increase the desire to drink, will bring death and cause irreparable harm, not to mention the fact that it tastes disgusting.
Drinking water is exceptionally fresh, which is concentrated in glaciers, lakes. Not all the inhabitants of the planet have access to it, and even in developing countries there is an acute shortage of it, which takes thousands of lives every year.
8. The orbit of the moon affects the tides
The moon is the only satellite of the Earth that from time immemorial influences the minds of people, on romantic trends and impulses. But besides human feelings The moon also affects the movement of the waters of the world's oceans, namely the ebbs and flows. Because of its movements around the earth's axis, the seashore can be exposed for hundreds of meters, returning to a destructive natural phenomenon that takes thousands of human lives and causes losses for many millions of dollars - the tsunami.
For thousands of years, people have been following the phases of the moon and composing all kinds of graphs and calendars. The moon, with its gravitational field, acts on the Earth’s biosphere and, in particular, causes changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.
7. There are boiling rivers on Earth
Most boiling rivers have this temperature due to their proximity to volcanoes. But there is an exception - boiling river in Peru. Its length is only 6.5 kilometers and it is filled with real boiling water at 91 ° C.
There is a special project that was created to protect this facility. All living creatures that fall into the water are boiled alive, and if a person dips his hand there even for a second, then he will have a serious burn. In the hottest places the river is almost 100 ° C.
6. 90% of living things on the planet died at the end of the Permian period.
Scientists consider great Perm extinction was the largest of all. In just a few thousand years, more than 90% of the animals that inhabited the planet at that time, including animals and sea creatures, disappeared.
According to official theory, a large amount of carbon dioxide was thrown to Earth, which changed the climate of the planet. At the same time, there was a volcanic eruption in Siberia, many believe that lava is implicated in the disappearance of many animal species.
According to another version, living things died instantly. Extinction began 251 million 939 thousand years ago, of the five major disasters, this was the largest that caused such death of animals.
5. Cosmic dust settles on Earth
Cosmic dust slowly settles on Earth, this is due to gravity. Cosmic dust is formed for various reasons. These may be the remains of decaying comets or substances ejected by the Sun.
First, dust was found on the tops of the mountains and began to be carefully studied. Also, cosmic dust is called the remnants of the "shooting stars" that burn up before reaching our planet. But there are meteorites that still flew to the Earth.
According to one hypothesis, it is possible that a meteorite will not fall, but a large cloud of cosmic dust. The settling cosmic dust annually makes the weight of our planet hundreds, even thousands tons.
4. The oceans occupy about 70.8% of the planet’s surface
From school age, everyone knows that most of our planet is water. The oceans are the main part of the hydrosphere, but not continuous. But from space, the planet looks like a single body of water with small separate islands.
The oceans occupy 361 million square meters. km is more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. But if we take into account the water, which is concentrated on the bottom of the ocean, then we can safely add another 10% to this figure. The waters of our planet are unevenly distributed, most of them are in the Southern Hemisphere.
The ocean is a storehouse of minerals, secrets and secrets, a haven for dead ships and a refuge for fish, mammals and other marine reptiles, treasures and mysteries.
3. Earth has the strongest surface gravity among rocky objects in the solar system
Surface gravity is the acceleration of gravity. It is the Earth that is the densest planet of all in the Solar System. This is due to the large amount of heavy substances in the composition. Thereby our planet has the strongest surface gravity among all rocky objects.
2. Most of the planet has not yet been explored.
Practically every day we hear on the news about incredible discoveries in different areas. The study of all layers of the Earth has been engaged for more than one century, but so far most of the planet has not been studied. This is especially true of the sea and ocean depths..
There are many places where no man has gone before. So, we are waiting for even more incredible discoveries. This is used by writers and cinematographers, science fiction films that suggest what is located at kilometer depths appear on the screen.
To date, only about 7% of the ocean floor and only 1% of the ocean thickness have been studied. In addition to the ocean, there are hectares of jungle where the local flora and fauna have not seen and do not know about the existence of higher primates - man.
1. Earth - one of the four planets of the "earth group"
The terrestrial planets are as close as possible to the Earth in composition and structure. It also includes Mercury, Venus and Mars.. All of them consist of similar elements and have a high density. All of them are considered favorable for the formation of life, therefore, it is on these planets that an active search for organisms takes place.