SCIENCE WATCH: 10 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT EARTH YOU DIDN'T KNOW!

10 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT EARTH YOU DIDN'T KNOW!

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Apr 19, 2018

Insane Curiosity

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10. Earth isn’t round

Don’t worry – we’re not about to tell you that the Earth is flat, but did you know that our planet is not perfectly round either? The Earth is actually a type of a sphere called oblate spheroid. This means that the Earth is squashed at the poles and bulges at the equator. Because of these irregularities, the distance from the Earth's center to sea level is around 21 kilometers (or 13 miles) greater at the equator than at the poles. While this difference cannot be seen with a  eye, it can be easily calculated using artificial satellite techniques.

The sphere-like shape of our planet is the result of the Earth’s rotation. As the Earth spins on its axis, it produces a small equatorial bulge and slightly flattened poles due to centrifugal force. This is why a vertical cross-section through the Earth along the polar axis has the shape of an ellipse, whereas a horizontal cross-section through the Earth along the equator has the shape of a circle.

9. Gravity isn’t the same everywhere on Earth

If the Earth was perfectly round or spherical and had uniform mass density, the gravitational field would be the same at all points on its surface. But since Earth is a flattened spheroid, gravity isn’t equally distributed and its strength varies from place to place. Due to centrifugal forces produced by the planet's rotation, gravity is at its weakest at the equator and the strongest at higher altitudes further from the Earth's center.

This means that you would weigh 0.5% more at the poles than at the equator, while your weight would decrease by about 0.29% on the top of Mount Everest. The gravity at the top of Mount Everest is actually 99.72% as strong as the gravity at sea level, so if something weighed 1000 pounds at sea level, it would weigh only 997.2 pounds at the top of Mount Everest. So if you ever feel bad about your weight after devouring a whole pizza by yourself, just climb Mount Everest – and don’t forget to bring the scales with you!

8. Earth's magnetic poles will soon flip

The switching of the poles sure sounds like a Doomsday scenario, but it’s actually a perfectly normal occurrence that has already happened many times in Earth’s history. Over the last 20 million years, the north and south magnetic poles have been reversing every 200,000 to 300,000 years. Since the last swap took place about 780,000 years ago, this means the next one is fast approaching. According to the latest satellite data from the European Space Agency, the magnetic field is already showing signs of shifting, but scientists still can’t say exactly when the next pole reversal will take place.

When it does happen, though, it could have serious consequences for life on Earth. The Earth’s magnetic field is a giant shield that protects our planet from harmful cosmic rays, and each time the poles switch places, this shield becomes weaker. At the moment, the dangerous radiation from space is still not hitting the surface of the Earth, but this could all change after the poles shift. Once the magnetic field gets substantially weaker and stays that way for an extended period of time, the Earth will be exposed to higher levels of radiation, which could eventually wipe out our entire power grid and lead to an increase in diseases like cancer.

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7. Earth used to have two Moons

I know what you’re thinking: not another conspiracy theory about Earth! But believe it or not, our planet most likely used to have two Moons that collided and merged into one astronomical body nearly 4.5 billion years ago. The two-moon hypothesis, published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature in 2011, provides an explanation for the noticeable differences between the Moon's two hemispheres.

The hemisphere facing the Earth is covered by low, lava-filled plains, whereas the “dark side of the Moon” is made up of rugged, rocky highlands. Those highlands, according to the two-moon hypothesis, are the remains of the smaller, short-lived satellite that collided with the Moon as we now know it. Since the two moons collided at subsonic speeds, there was no and the merging was almost fluid. The two-moon hypothesis is yet to be experimentally proven, but upcoming lunar missions will probably help

Grateful thanks to "Insane Curiosity" and YouTube.