Facts you didn’t know about the Earth.

Hello fellow space lover, today we are continuing the educational journey through the solar system. The last planet we did was Venus (https://curiositykilledthecat.co.za/2021/11/14/interesting-facts-about-venus/), so naturally our next destination is Earth.

• Days get longer by 1.7 milliseconds every century because the moon is slowing down the Earth’s rotation.
• The average day lasted 6 hours 4.6 billion years ago.
• Earth is a terrestrial planet (mostly composed of metals) like Mercury, Venus and Mars.
• When the Earth’s continents were together this was called Rodinia.
• Earth’s gravity is not uniform because of the tectonic plate’s movements.
• The Earth experiences a pole reversal every 200 000-300 000 years, however, 2012 marked double the time since the last pole reversal.
• There are two asteroids that appear to be following Earth but they are simply orbiting the sun.
• The Earth has three crater lakes located in Rhonda, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo; they emit carbon dioxide that can be released as an explosive.
• The most active volcano on Earth is the Stromboli Volcano in Italy.
• The driest place on Earth is the Atacama desert in Chile, ironically it is situated next to the biggest body of water.
• The hottest day recorded was the 10 July 1913 with an air temperature of 56,7 degrees Celsius in Death Valley, United States of America.
• The coldest day officially recorded was -89,2 degrees Celsius on 21 July 1983 in Antarctica.
• The Greenland shark is the oldest shark, living an estimated 392 years old.
• The oldest tree is a bristlecone pine and is deemed to be 4 852 years old
• Earth day was founded by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970.

Thank you for reading, stay tuned for future posts in this series.

~Stay Curious~