Earth Day Facts: The Daily Doost
I thought I could switch it up with you today while celebrating Earth Day! Woot! So instead of the morning inspirational quotes, let me educate you and talk random cool Earth facts. You gon’ learn today!
- Earth was originally born as a twin to the planet Theia, which was about half as wide as Earth and roughly the size of Mars. The two planets shared an orbit for several million years until they collided. Earth absorbed Theia, and the remaining debris eventually coagulated into Earth’s moon. The mass donated by Theia gave Earth the gravity necessary to sustain a substantial atmosphere.
Earth can be seen as a living, breathing organism: it regulates temperature, burns energy, continually renews its skin, and experiences changes to its face as it ages with time.
- The Earth’s plates move just a few inches a year—about as fast as a person’s fingernails grow. This continental pattern predicts that 250 million years from now, a new supercontinent will be born.
- The birth of Earth’s moon is singularly important because it stabilizes Earth’s tilt. Without the moon, Earth would still have wild changes in climate and be uninhabitable. The stabilizing tug of the moon tempers Earth, resulting in the minor tip that causes summer and winter seasons.
- Under the oceans, there are the earth’s largest mountain ranges that circle the planet like the stitching on a baseball.
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References:
“Earth.” 2009. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Accessed: July 14, 2009.
Stewart, Iain and John Lynch. 2007. Earth: The Biography. Washington, DC: National Geographic.
Ward, Peter D. and Donald Brownlee. 2002. The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World. New York, NY: Henry Holt.
