My World

17/06/2022

For LGBTQ+ travelers, finding a welcoming place is the first step in planning a getaway that’s both adventurous and fun.

17/06/2022

It takes 8 minutes and 19 seconds for sunlight to reach us.
Being that we’re 93 million miles away, that’s how long it takes for the sun’s rays to hit our planet.

Earth may have actually had two moons at one point.
And no, we’re not talking about 3753 Cruithne and Asteroid 2002 AA29. According to Space.com, it’s possible (but not proven) that Earth might have had another moon—one about 750 miles wide. Scientists that buy into this theory hypothesize that this tiny moon may have crashed into the other one.

The largest living thing in the world is a fungus.
A massive fungus, at that! Known as the honey mushroom (or Armillaria), this fungus spans 2,200 acres across Oregon.

38. The oldest shark in the world is a Greenland Shark.
In fact, according to Live Science, Greenlands are so old they don’t even have backbones. These sea creatures grow to be as mature as 392 years old.

Greenland has the lowest population of any country on Earth.
A 2016 census found that 55,847 people lived in 836,330 square miles in Greenland with most communities sitting on the coastline.

Earth used to be purple… apparently.
Some experts—like Shil DasSarma—believe that Earth may have been purple at one point in time. Fueling that fire is the fact that ancient microbes may have relied on a different molecule other than the green chlorophyll to grab the sun’s rays. Instead, that molecule—retinal—could have made things we know as green today look more purple.

The moon may have been formed as the result of a collision.
Not a ton of information is known about how the moon was created, but one hypothesis claims that a planet, asteroid, or perhaps a comet—called Theia—collided into Earth, resulting in debris flying into space. That debris may have formed the moon as we know it today.

15/06/2022

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.

Humans may weigh differently depending on where they stand.
If you weighed yourself at the equator, you would weigh less than if you weighed yourself at one of Earth’s poles, Live Science says. But not by a lot. Your weight at the equator would likely be about 0.5 percent less than at the poles.

Africa is the second-largest continent.
Africa covers about 5,000 miles—more than three times the wingspan of the U.S.

The world’s largest hot desert is in Africa.
The Sahara is Earth’s largest hot desert. Surprisingly though, it’s not the world’s largest desert…

20. Europe is the second smallest continent in size but the third largest in population.
Europe spans 1.634 million mi² but has an estimated population of 748,367,117 as of 2022.

Antarctica is Earth’s fifth-largest continent.
It may not be the largest or even the smallest continent (it’s kind of just stuck in the middle) but Antarctica stores most of the world’s freshwater—but more on that later.

The Antarctic Ice Cap contains 70 percent of Earth’s freshwater.
According to the American Museum of Natural History, only a little over 3 percent of the world’s water is freshwater. The rest (96 percent) is salt—or saline—and is found in the ocean.

About 90 percent of Earth’s freshwater is locked in ice.
That freshwater located in Antarctica? About 90 percent of it isn’t even water at all—it’s locked inside frozen polar ice sheets.

Antarctica is technically a desert.
Hard to believe, right, given all that fresh water and ice? But it’s true, as Antarctica sees an average of about 2 inches of precipitation per year.

15/06/2022

Earth kinda, sorta has other “moons.”
Well, kind of. Called 3753 Cruithne and Asteroid 2002 AA29 —two asteroids that also orbit the sun—are sometimes considered Earth’s “moons” even though they don’t really fit the bill. Both asteroids remain very close to Earth—as close as 3.9 million miles every 95 years.

The Amazon is Earth’s biggest rainforest.
Located in the South American Amazon, the world’s biggest rainforest is where more than 30 million people and one in 10 known species on Earth call home.

The deepest point on the ocean floor is 36,200 feet below sea level.
It’s located in the Mariana Trench, according to NOAA.

Earth has a type of “recycled” rock cycle.
Come again? Earth has a rock cycle—igneous rocks transform to sedimentary rocks, then to metamorphic, then back again. Some scientists and experts think of this or refer to it as a “recycled” ground since the rocks change cyclically.

Earth’s lowest point not covered by the ocean is 8,382 feet below sea level.
But it’s impossible to get to. That’s because it’s located under layers and layers of ice in the Bentley Subglacial Trench in Antarctica.

Greenland is the world’s largest island.
It’s about one-fourth the size of Australia and is the world’s largest island that is not a continent in and of itself.

There are billions of people living on Earth.
As of 2020, that number is as big as 7.753 billion.

Earth is approximately 93 million miles away from the sun.
According to Space.com, that’s 150 million kilometers away.

The Earth is approximately 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from the sun, according to Space.com. At this distance, it takes about 8 minutes and 19 seconds for sunlight to reach our planet.

15/06/2022

See thrilling exploits and brilliant starry skies in these National Geographic Your Shot images.

15/06/2022

Across the continent, Indigenous peoples are methodically reasserting control over their land, laws, and how they live.

13/06/2022

One of Earth’s coolest phenomenons is the Auroras.
Known colloquially as the Southern Lights or Aurora Australias, Aurora Borealis, or Nothern Lights, Auroras happen when particles from the sun collide with the upper atmosphere of Earth near the poles. According to Space.com, this results in a sort of rainbow of lights twinkling in the sky, like a crystal in the sun.

Earth’s magnetic north pole is moving northward.
NASA has said that Earth’s magnetic north pole has slowly moved northward by more than 600 miles since the early 19th century. As of right now, the pole is moving at about 40 miles per year.

44. Earth experiences a pole reversal every 200,000 to 300,000 years.
According to Nature, Earth’s poles reverse approximately every 200,000 to 300,000 years.

In fact, over the past 20 million years, our planet has settled into a pattern of a pole reversal about every 200,000 to 300,000 years, according to the journal Nature. As of 2012, however, it has been more than twice that long since the last reversal.

The most recent scheduled pole reversal actually hasn’t happened.
In fact, 2012 marked double the amount of time since the last pole switch.

All across the world, Earth is home to 8.7 million species.
That we know of! According to National Geographic, that includes plants and animal species.

The world’s largest tree is the General Sherman.
A giant sequoia located in Sequoia National Park in California, the General Sherman is 52,500 feet in volume and is more than 2,000 years old.

The General Sherman giant sequoia is the largest known stem tree by volume on the planet. The trunk of the tree contains slightly more than 52,500 cubic feet (1,486.6 cubic meters) of material.

The oldest tree in the world is almost 5,000 years old.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest—verified—tree in existence is a bristlecone pine, nicknamed Methusela. As of 2020, Methusela was deemed 4,852 years old.

13/06/2022

Earth may have actually had two moons at one point.
And no, we’re not talking about 3753 Cruithne and Asteroid 2002 AA29. According to Space.com, it’s possible (but not proven) that Earth might have had another moon—one about 750 miles wide. Scientists that buy into this theory hypothesize that this tiny moon may have crashed into the other one.

The largest living thing in the world is a fungus.
A massive fungus, at that! Known as the honey mushroom (or Armillaria), this fungus spans 2,200 acres across Oregon.

The oldest shark in the world is a Greenland Shark.
In fact, according to Live Science, Greenlands are so old they don’t even have backbones. These sea creatures grow to be as mature as 392 years old.

Greenland has the lowest population of any country on Earth.
A 2016 census found that 55,847 people lived in 836,330 square miles in Greenland with most communities sitting on the coastline.

Earth used to be purple… apparently.
Some experts—like Shil DasSarma—believe that Earth may have been purple at one point in time. Fueling that fire is the fact that ancient microbes may have relied on a different molecule other than the green chlorophyll to grab the sun’s rays. Instead, that molecule—retinal—could have made things we know as green today look more purple.

The moon may have been formed as the result of a collision.
Not a ton of information is known about how the moon was created, but one hypothesis claims that a planet, asteroid, or perhaps a comet—called Theia—collided into Earth, resulting in debris flying into space. That debris may have formed the moon as we know it today.

13/06/2022

13/06/2022

Scientists hope the scrappy predators' reintroduction can balance ecosystems ravaged by invasive species.

10/06/2022

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.

10/06/2022

Moai in a line stand beneath a double rainbow at Ahu Akivi in Easter Island, Chile.