Welcome to our new post! In this article, I will introduce you to some curiosities about the planet Earth. Get ready to learn amazing things about the third planet of our solar system and surprise your friends with these interesting facts.
Our planet is considered terrestrial, small and rocky with a dynamic surface. Water covers 70% of the Earth's surface. We inhabit the third planet of our solar system, located between Venus and Mars.
The name Earth has its origins from the Latin Terra. Although our planet is the only one in our solar system not literally named after a deity, in Greek mythology there is a goddess named Gaia who personifies the Earth. In Egyptian mythology you can also observe a god named Geb.
The Earth is not perfectly round, it has various bumps and variations in its shape. That is why its shape is called a geoid. These imperfections in the distribution of the planet's mass cause small variations in the gravitational field. It is the fifth largest planet in our solar system.
In addition to oxygen, the Earth's atmosphere contains large amounts of nitrogen. Our atmosphere also has a protective function and disintegrates a large part of the meteoroids that approach it. Thanks to the atmosphere, the planet manages to maintain its temperatures, which allows life.
Up to the present moment, the Earth is the only known planet that has all the necessary characteristics for life. It is also the only one that up to now has water in a liquid state on its surface.
Did you know that the largest living structure on Earth is coral reefs?
The inner portion of the Earth has a semi-solid consistency due to high pressures and temperatures.
The Earth is 4.55 billion years old, but life only existed after a billion years. Both the ozone layer and the magnetic field help protect us from harmful radiation from the sun. It is thought that life on this planet will continue to exist for another 500 million years, then the luminosity of the sun will grow to such an extent that it will affect the biosphere and end up destroying it.
Not only is the Earth's surface constantly changing, but the mantle is also altering. An example of this is the postglacial rebound. When glaciers covered the ground in the last Ice Age, the mantle had more weight on it and so it sank. Now that the ice has melted, the mantle is moving back into position and raising the ground. This phenomenon can be observed in Canada, Greenland and Scandinavia.
Have you already wondered why every 4 years we have a leap year? It turns out that a day on Earth is not exactly 24 hours and 1 year on Earth is not 365 fixed days either. Actually a year is 265.25 days and leap years are used to correct this margin. 365.25 solar years is equivalent to one sidereal year.
The moon moves away from Earth 4 cm every year. Our planet is the only one that only has one moon, the other planets either have none or several. Although the Moon is the only natural satellite that orbits our planet, there are more than 10 orbital elements around the Earth, with 2020 CD3 being a temporary Earth natural satellite. In other words, this small asteroid entered Earth's orbit indefinitely and will cease to be a satellite at some point.
The magnetic North Pole is not fixed like the geographic one. In 1990 it was identified that the position of magnetic North was in Canada and it moved at a speed of 15 kilometers per year. Since then it has been noticed that this speed has been increasing, reaching approximately 55 kilometers a year and going in the direction of Siberia.
We have all heard that the lungs of our planet are the forests, but did you know that the greatest amount of oxygen actually comes from the oceans? Phytoplankton are the cellular organisms that produce between 50 and 85% of the oxygen that is released into the atmosphere.
Earth's primordial atmosphere was produced by volcanic activity and crustal outgassing. Our planet is the only terrestrial planet that has active tectonic plates. The biosphere houses all the biomes of our planet and is seen from an integrated global perspective.
What separates our atmosphere from space is the so-called Kármán Line and it is located at an altitude of 100 kilometers. Iron is the most present element (32%), followed by oxygen (30%), and silicon (15%).
How did life begin to form on Earth?
Chemical processes are thought to have given rise to a self-replicating molecule portrayed as a universal common ancestor. Photosynthesis allowed organisms to survive on energy from the sun and release oxygen into the atmosphere. This oxygen provided the formation of the ozone layer.
It is also thought that the constant escape of hydrogen molecules into space due to their small molecular weight may have helped in the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere. Hydrogen is a reducing agent and its loss allowed the Earth to go from a reducing state to an oxidizing state. With the current composition of the atmosphere, much of the hydrogen is converted to water before escaping into space.
The small cells were incorporated into the larger ones, giving rise to eukaryotic cells. Then they evolved into multicellular organisms thanks to cell specialization.
For an object to orbit around the Earth it needs to be within the gravitational sphere of influence which is about 1,500,000 kilometers in radius. If they are further away than this, they will be pulled in by the Sun's gravitational influence. Our solar system is 28,000 light-years from the Milky Way galaxy.
The tilt of the Earth allows different amounts of light to reach different areas of the planet during the year, which makes seasonal changes possible. The solstices determine the seasons. When the Earth is tilted more towards the Sun, we have the summer solstice. When the inclination is to the opposite side, we have the winter solstice.
Although we live on this planet, not everything is known about it and there are about 4,550 satellites that are gathering information so that we can learn more about our home every day.
Curiosities about the space
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