15 Interesting Facts About Planet Earth 2022

 Our home planet 🌍 is the third planet from the Sun, and the only place we know of so far that’s inhabited by living things.Earth, our wonderful world! But how much do you know about the planet we call home? Let’s find out with 15 fascinating interesting facts about facts about Planet Earth.

1. We Don't Know Who "Named" the Earth

The name Earth is at least 1,000 years old. All of the planets, except for Earth, were named after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. However, the name Earth is a Germanic word, which simply means “the ground.” Unlike other planets, no real historical data can be found on the person (or group) that named our planet "Earth." The term Earth comes from Old English and High Germanic and is the only planet not named after a Greek or Roman god.

2. The Earth Isn't Exactly Round

Earth has never been perfectly round. Planet Earth is shaped more like a oblate spheroid which looks like a flatter circle. But it's definitely not flat. The planet bulges around the equator by an extra 0.3 percent as a result of the fact that it rotates about its axis. Earth's diameter from North to South Pole is 12,714 kilometers (7,900 miles), while through the equator it is 12,756 kilometers (7,926 miles). The difference — 42.78 kilometers (26.58 miles) — is about 1/300th the diameter of Earth. This variation is too tiny to be seen in pictures of Earth from space, so the planet appears round to the human eye. Recent research from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggests that melting glaciers are causing Earth's waistline to spread.

3. Earth's Core Is as Hot as the Sun's Surface

  A new study in science suggest that the temperature of our planet's core is much, much hotter than previously thought -- 6,000 degrees Kelvin, compared with earlier estimations that were closer to 5,000 degrees Kelvin. experiments suggested, putting it at 6,000 degree Kelvin - as hot as the Sun's surface.

4. Earth Is Radioactive

 In total, Earth generates as much as 40 terawatts of heat, half of which comes from radioactive decay in its core, according to a 2011 study. Scientists measured particles called antineutrinos that streamed up from Earth's core and found that half of Earth's heat is generated through the radioactive decay of certain elements.

Tom Crafford, a Mineral Resources Program Coordinator at the U.S. Geological Survey tells Popular Mechanics: “Most of the internal heat that keeps Earth a living, vibrant planet comes from the radioactive breakdown of elements like thorium, uranium."

5. Sea Levels Could Rise More than a Metre by 2100

Sea-level rise is faster than previously believed and could exceed 1 metre by the end of the century unless global emissions are reduced. Consequences from a one to two-foot sea level rise could mean severe threats to low-lying island nations, loss of narrow, shallow beaches, and a demise of marine ecosystems.

6. Earth is Covered with Cosmic Dust

Every day our planet is sprinkled with fairy dust … or dust from the heavens. On a daily basis, about 100 tons of interplanetary material (mostly in the form of dust) drifts down to the Earth's surface. The tiniest particles are released by comets as their ices vaporize near the sun. 

Earth’s surface is constantly sprinkled with space dust. Extraterrestrial material has rained down on our planet throughout its multi-billion-year history—and the celestial shower continues each passing day. Sizable chunks of rock and metal are the most dramatic examples, appearing as brilliant shooting stars during their fiery passage through the upper atmosphere and occasionally reaching the ground to become meteorites. But most of the space stuff that falls to Earth is quite small, submillimeter in size.

7. Days Are Getting Longer

   If the day never seems long enough to get everything done, be grateful at least that times have changed. According to fresh calculations, a day on Earth was a full five hours and fifteen minutes shorter a billion or so years ago, well before complex life spread around the planet.

Scientists used a combination of astronomical theory and geochemical signatures buried in ancient rocks to show that 1.4bn years ago the Earth turned a full revolution on its axis every 18 hours and 41 minutes.

8. There Are More Viruses Than Stars in the Universe

An estimated 10 nonillion (10 to the 31st power) individual viruses exist on our planet—enough to assign one to every star in the universe 100 million times over. Viruses infiltrate every aspect of our natural world, seething in seawater, drifting through the atmosphere, and lurking in miniscule motes of soil.

9. One Year on Earth Isn't 365 Days

The Earth takes approximately 365.2564 days to go around the Sun, yet our calendar year is 365 days. To fix this, we put on extra days in some years, called leap years. It’s this extra .2564 days that creates the need for a Leap Year once every four years. That’s why we tack on an extra day in February every four years – 2004, 2008, 2012, etc.

10. The Planet Moves Around the       Sun

      Earth isn't just spinning: It's also moving around the sun at 67,000 miles (107,826 km) per hour. Thus, the surface of the earth at the equator moves at a speed of 460 meters per second--or roughly 1,000 miles per hour. As schoolchildren, we learn that the earth is moving about our sun in a very nearly circular orbit. It covers this route at a speed of nearly 30 kilometers per second, or 67,000 miles per hour.

11. Earth is Old

Planet Earth doesn't have a birth certificate to record its formation, which means scientists spent hundreds of years struggling to determine the age of the planet. So, just how old is Earth?

By dating the rocks in Earth's ever-changing crust, as well as the rocks in Earth's neighbors, such as the moon and visiting meteorites, scientists have calculated that Earth is 4.54 billion years old, with an error range of 50 million years.

12. Rocks Can Walk

  Rocks can walk on Earth, at least they do at the pancake-flat lakebed called Racetrack Playa in Death Valley. There, a perfect storm can move rocks sometimes weighing tens or hundreds of pounds. Most likely, ice-encrusted rocks get inundated by meltwater from the hills above the playa, according to NASA researchers. When everything's nice and slick, a stiff breeze kicks up, and whoosh, the rock is off.

13. The Mariana Trench: Earth's Deepest Place 

 The Mariana Trench or Marianas Trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean about 200 kilometres (124 mi) east of the Mariana Islands; it is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. It is crescent-shaped and measures about 2,550 km (1,580 mi) in length and 69 km (43 mi) in width.

14. The Pacific Ocean is the Biggest Basin

The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the world ocean basins. Covering approximately 63 million square miles and containing more than half of the free water on Earth, the Pacific is by far the largest of the world's ocean basins. All of the world's continents could fit into the Pacific basin.

15. The Atacama Desert is the Driest Spot

 The driest spot on Earth is the Atacama Desert of Chile and Peru. In the center of this desert, there are places where rain has never been recorded. The Atacama Desert is commonly known as the driest place in the world. The average rainfall in the Atacama Desert is less than one millimeter per year, making it fifty times drier than Death Valley in California, USA.