The Earth is a fascinating, amazingly diverse and beautiful home.
- The name Earth comes from the Anglo-Saxon name Erda meaning ground or soil. The name Earth began to be used around 1400. All other planets are named after Greek or Roman gods or goddesses.
- Earth is the 5th largest planet in our Solar System, called the Milky Way.
- Earth is the 3rd planet from the Sun, which is 92,897,000 miles from the Sun.
- There are at least 10 million species of life on Earth. Animal species currently known total 1.5 million. And, the combined total of species for animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and protists could total 30 million.
- Earth is the only planet in the Solar System to have water in all its three states of matter: solid (ice), liquid (water), and gas (clouds).
- Earth is almost five billion years old, although life has only existed on the planet for the last 150 to 200 million years This means that life has been present on the planet for only 5%-10% of its lifetime.
- Earth is gradually slowing down. Every few years, an extra second is added to make up for lost time. Millions of years ago, a day on Earth will have been 20 hours long. It is believed that, after a few million years, a day on Earth will be 27 hours long.
- The length of time it takes for Earth to orbit the Sun is 365 and a quarter days. To make up this extra quarter, which isn't counted at the end of a year, we have an extra day every four years during a leap year (i.e, on February 29th).
- Earth is the only planet in the Solar System known to be geologically active, with earthquakes and volcanoes forming the landscape, replenishing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and erasing impact craters from meteors.
- Earth's crust is about 5 miles deep.
- Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface, now they only cover 2% !
- There are 2 types of Rainforest, the temperate and the tropical. Tropical rainforests are the world's oldest ecosystems.
- Amazonian Rainforest covers over a billion acres, encompassing areas in Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia and the Eastern Andean region of Ecuador and Peru. If Amazonia were a country, it would be the ninth largest in the world.
- 1 1/2 acres of rainforest are lost every second! Translated, 20,000 square miles a year. 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is over 150 acres lost every minute of every day, 78 million acres each year. Some scientists claim that areas as large as the state of Delaware are being cleared every month. The size of England, Wales and Scotland combined.
- The center of the Earth i.e. its core is molten. This means that it is liquid rock, which sometimes erupts onto the surface through volcanic eruptions. This core is 7,500° C hotter than the surface of Sun!
- Earth is estimated to weigh 6,585,600,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
- The area of the earth is almost 200 million square miles.
- Earth travels through space at 66,700 miles per hour.
- Earth's oceans are an average of 2 miles deep.
- Water covers 70 % of the surface. 97 % is saltwater, 3% freshwater. This totals 139,668,500 square miles of water.
- Biggest River is the Amazon 3,903miles and some say 4,195miles long. It provides 20% of the freshwater into the Ocean!
- There are 5 oceans on Earth. Pacific, Indian, Artic, Southern, Atlantic. An estimated 80% of all life on earth is found under the ocean surface and the oceans contain 99% of the living space on the planet. Less than 10% of that space has been explored by humans. 85% of the area and 90% of the volume constitute the dark, cold environment we call the deep sea. The average depth of the ocean is 3,795 m. The average height of the land is 840 m.
- Land is 29% of Earth's surface, that's 57,268,900 square miles.
- Highest point on Earth: Mt Everest 29,028 above sea level
- Lowest point on Earth: Dead Sea 1,302 below sea level.
- Antarctica is the coldest place on earth. The continent is almost entirely covered in ICE!
- El Azizia (Libya) is the hottest place on Earth.
- Only 11 percent of the earth's surface is used to grow food.
- Breeze carries about 100 Million tons of sand particles around the earth yearly. That means if you live in America-you could have Sand that came from the Gobi desert in China.
- There are 11,167 animals and plan species now endangered. Nearly half of the world's species of plants, animals and microorganisms will be destroyed or severly threatened over the next quarter century.
- Each person throws away approximately four pounds of garbage every day.
- Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees.
- 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean every year.
- One gallon of motor oil can contaminate up to 2 million gallons of water.
- Each gallon of fuel releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.
- We use about 12,000 gallons of water every year.
- 1/3 of all energy is used by people at home.
- It takes 90% less energy to recycle aluminum cans than to make new ones.
- It takes plastics and aluminum cans 500 years to biodegrate; organic materials, cotton, rags and paper take 6 months to biodegrade.
