Ocean

The first-ever Earth Day was instituted in 1970.
Wisconsin Senator Ga***rd Nelson founded Earth Day with the hopes of increasing public awareness of environmental concerns. The date April 22 was chosen to maximize students’ involvement as it served as a mid-point between students’ Spring Break and final exams of the year.

Asia is the largest continent.
Asia spans 1,7139,445 square miles and is home to some of the most densely populated countries in the world (China, India, and Indonesia—to name a few).

Sixty percent of Earth’s population lives in Asia.
With more than 40 countries through the continent of Asia—some of which are the most populated countries of all—it’s not hard to wrap your head around the fact that 60 percent of the world lives there.

The driest place on Earth sits adjacent to the biggest body of water.
The Atacama Desert in Chile is known as the driest place in the world, but despite it being dry-to-the-bone, the desert is actually right next to the biggest body of water on Earth—the Pacific Ocean. Though it’s hot in the Atacama Desert, its temps average at about 63°F.

NASA actually studies the Atacama Desert for insights on other planets.
The Atacama Desert is one of the most extreme climates there is on Earth, so of course, it makes sense that NASA uses it as a tool, studying it to find further insight as to how life may be able to exist on other planets with such extreme climates.

Days on Earth are increasing.
Yup—they’re getting longer. At its inception 4.54 billion years ago, a day on Earth would have registered as six hours long. Nowadays, we all know that a day lasts 24 hours, but that’s ever-changing. In fact, the days increase by 1.7 milliseconds every century.

Facts About the Earth
1. Earth is not a perfect sphere.
Yes, we’ve all been taught that the Earth is not flat, but it may shock you to learn that it’s not perfectly spherical either. As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) points out, Earth spins while gravity pushes toward the center and a centrifugal force, perpendicular to Earth’s axis, pushes out. This results in a bit of a tilted shape—not a perfect sphere.

2. The circumference of Earth is 24,901 miles.
That’s 40,075 kilometers and here’s how it works: According to Space.com, gravity is constantly pushing bodies of water and earth into a kind of “spare tire” shape (remember: not a perfect sphere).

3. Earth has an uneven gravitational field.
The surface of Earth is rocky and bumpy, so it can’t have an even gravitational field. It would, however, if it was perfectly spherical. Instead, Earth has lots of gravity anomalies—both positive and negative.

4. Earth is a terrestrial planet.
It’s also known as a telluric or rocky planet. A terrestrial planet simply refers to a planet that’s mostly composed of silicate rocks or metals. Other terrestrial planets in the Solar System include Mercury, Venus, and Mars.

5. Melting glaciers have an impact on Earth’s shape.
That “spare tire” around Earth—or as some experts call it, the “waistline”—may be a direct result of melting glaciers that are an impact of climate change.

6. The planet is constantly spinning.
It may be hard to wrap your brain around, but here on Earth, we’re constantly spinning. According to Space.com, Earth spins as fast as 1,000 miles per hour but it depends where you’re standing on the planet. At the equator, you’d be moving the fastest; at either the North or the South Pole, you would—surprisingly—not be moving at all.

7. Earth is about 4.54 billion years old.
That’s a lot of birthdays! The National Center for Science Education has been able to determine this approximate age through dating rocks and meteorites that have been found here.

8. Earth’s gravity is uneven, too.
Not a perfect sphere and not perfect gravity, either. Earth’s uneven shape means that its mass is distributed unevenly as well, which means that the gravity has to be uneven to boot. Certain areas of Earth have gravitational anomalies—lower gravity than other regions. One such place is the Hudson Bay of Canada.

9. Earth’s continents were once known as Rodinia.
We know—you’ve heard of Pangea; not Rodinia. But hear us out a sec—800 million years ago, the tectonic plates of Earth came all together, uniting each of the continents and it was called Rodinia. It eventually broke apart and re-collided, which resulted in the formation of the Appalachian Mountains in North America and the Ural Mountains in Russia and Kazakhstan.

10. Pangea came to be 250 million years ago.
After Rodinia, came Pangea. The separated continents came together again—this time called Pangea. In this version of Earth’s continents, there was one universal ocean. After 50 million years of Pangea, it broke apart again, this time into two masses known as Gondwanaland and Laurasia. It broke apart a final time into the seven continents and oceans we recognize and learn about today.

Local paddle boarders and kayakers follow a juvenile white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) just off the beach in Santa Barbara.

This deep-sea shark is one of the world’s largest glowing animals A new study has found that three species of deep-sea shark, including the six-foot-long kitefin shark, are bioluminescent.

Unbelievable Facts About the Ocean

1. Our oceans cover more than 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface.
With so much of the Earth’s surface taken up by ocean, it’s evident how vital these marine environments are to the planet, and how much there still is to be explored.

2. The majority of life on Earth is aquatic.
As so much of the Earth’s surface is underwater, it comes as no surprise that marine species outnumber those on land. But, it’s an incredible 94 per cent of the Earth’s living species that exist within the oceans.

3. Less than five per cent of the planet’s oceans have been explored.
According to the Ocean Service, man has explored less than five per cent of Earth’s oceans. As researchers strive to discover more, we’re continually getting to know our oceans better.

4. The world’s longest mountain chain is underwater.
Earth’s longest chain of mountains, the Mid-Ocean Ridge, is almost entirely beneath the ocean, stretching across a distance of 65,000 kilometres. It’s said that this mountain chain is less explored than the surface of Venus or Mars.

5. There are more historic artefacts under the sea than in all of the world’s museums.
Around 1,000 shipwrecks lie off the Florida Keys alone, some of which are within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Other underwater museums have been created in recent years, including the Mediterranean’s submerged bronze statue, Christ of the Abyss.

6. We still only know a fraction of the marine species in our oceans.
According to the World Register of Marine Species there are now 240,470 accepted species, but this is believed to be just a small proportion of the species that exist, with new marine life being discovered everyday.

7. Over 70 per cent of our planet’s oxygen is produced by the ocean.
It’s thought that between 70 and 80 per cent of the oxygen we breathe is produced by marine plants, nearly all of which are marine algae.

8. It’s possible to find rivers and lakes beneath the ocean.
When salt water and hydrogen sulfide combine, it becomes denser than the rest of the water around it, enabling it to form a lake or river that flows beneath the sea.

9. Around 50 per cent of the US lies beneath the ocean.
Not only does a large part of the planet exist beneath the ocean, so does the United States – around 50 per cent, in fact.

10. The Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest ocean and contains around 25,000 islands.
With 25,000 islands lying within it, the Pacific Ocean has more islands than anywhere else on the planet.