Top 10 Amazing Earth Facts

As well known and well travelled as our planet is, there are still new things being discovered every day. In fact, most of our oceans haven’t even been explored yet which is why when new depths are located; they often come with hundreds of new species. Rain forests offer up new animals and plants as often as we can explore them. The Earth is constantly changing, shifting, and exposing new secrets for humans to marvel at. It took many years and many great minds to solve the problem of getting through Earth’s atmosphere into the wide expanse of space beyond. Here are ten amazing facts about our home that you may not be aware of.

10. The Atmosphere

Many layers of atmosphere coat our planet including the mesosphere, ionosphere, exosphere, and the thermosphere, but it’s the troposphere, closest to the planet itself, that supports our lives and is, in fact, the thinnest at only about 10 miles high.

9. Deserts

Believe it or not, most of the Earth’s deserts are not composed entirely of sand. Much, about 85% of them, are rocks and gravel. The largest, the Sahara, fills about 1/3 of Africa (and it is growing constantly) which would nearly fill the continental United States.

8. The Big Blue Marble

The Earth is, in fact, not really round. It is called an oblate spheroid meaning it’s slightly flattened on the top and bottom poles.

7. Salty Oceans

If you could evaporate all the water out of all the oceans and spread the resulting salt over all the land on Earth, you would have a five hundred-foot layer coating everything.

6. Lakes and Seas

The largest inland sea (or, sometimes called a lake) is the Caspian Sea which is on the border of Iran and Russia.

5. Mountains

The Andes Mountain range in South America is 4,525 miles long and ranks, as the world’s longest. Second Longest: The Rockies; Third: Himalayas; Fourth: The Great Dividing Range in Australia; Fifth: Trans-Antarctic Mountains. For every 980 feet you climb up a mountain, the temperature drops 3-1/2 degrees.

4. Deep Water

The deepest lake in the world is in the former USSR and it is Lake Baikal. It has a length of 400 miles, a width of roughly 30, but its depth is just over a mile: 5,371 feet down. It is deep enough, so is speculated, that all five of the next largest lakes: The Great Lakes could be emptied into it.

3. Shaky Ground

Earthquakes can be catastrophically destructive and many a year are deadly. However, the Earth releases about 1 million a year, almost all are never even registered.

2. Hot, Hot, Hot

Most people believe that Death Valley, California, U.S.A. is the hottest place on Earth. Well, occasionally it is, but the hottest recorded temperature was from Azizia in Libya recording a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922. In Death Valley, it got up to 134 Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913.

1. Dust in the Wind

Experts from the USGS claim that roughly 1,000 tons of space debris rains down on Earth every year.

Simple Steps for Clean Air

Simple Steps for Clean Air

Air pollution is caused by each one of us. If trends continue we will soon be forced to buy clean air as we are doing for water these days. Here are some steps you can take and motivate others join in for a that breath of clean air!! 

1. Use mass transport system as much as possible. Save money and save air!!
   
2. For shorter distances, walk or cycle. Take a cycle rickshaw instead of autorickshaw.
   
3. If you use your own vehicle, adopt car-pooling. Share your vehicle with colleagues and neighbours while traveling to school/ office/ same destinations.
   
4. Park vehicle in such a way that they can be moved out in first gear and not in reverse gear. The fuel consumption and engine load is maximum in reverse gear, especially when you are starting a cold engine.
   
5. Switch off the engine when the stoppage period is more than two minutes (especially at red lights). Anticipate stops and decelerate in advance.
   

6. Driving is most efficient at 50- 60 Km/h in top gear. Speed of 80- 100 Km/h increases fuel consumption.

7. Always use unleaded petrol in vehicle fitted with catalytic converter. A catalytic converter is a device designed to control exhaust emission.

8. Regular and systematic maintenance of vehicle along with good driving habits (mentioned above) help in reducing fuel consumption and hence curb air pollution.

9. Note down the number of the polluting vehicle and report to traffic police. 

10. Plant and nurture as many trees as possible and take care of the existing ones. Every tree you plant clears the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide. Have plants inside the house too.

11. Do not burn waste or leaf litter. Give paper and plastic to ragpickers and composting garden waste.

12. Do not burst crackers on Diwali and other occasions. There are other ways of celebrating festivals which do not harm our environment. 

13. Electricity is primarily produced by burning coal.  So saving electricity means reducing air pollution. Switch of lights and fans when not in use. 

14. Do not use chemical based insecticides or pesticides, instead use herbal ones. 

15. Avoid products made of CFC's like aerosols and styrofoam cups.
    

Top 40 Outstanding Nature Photographs

Top 40 Outstanding Nature Photographs – a set on Flikr

The International League of Conservation Photographers, a fellowship of the top professional conservation photographers working today, was recruited to nominate nature photographs that the member photographers considered to be the best, in whatever way they chose to define it, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day

via 40 Outstanding Nature Pics