fun facts about earth

Earth is the only planet in the solar system that not named after a Greek or Roman God.
The name of Earth comes from both English and German words, ertha, and erde, which means ground. 



Earth takes 23 hrs, 56 min, and 4 sec to spin 360 degrees on its axis.
That is known as sidereal day and, it has taken to relative to fixed stars. A solar day has 24 hrs, and it rotates 361 degrees and, it has relative to the sun.



After 140 million years, a day will have increased to 25 hours.
Earth rotation is slowing down because of tidal forces between Earth and the moon, approximately 17 milliseconds per hundred years.



Earth is not round in shape.
Earth is like a lumpy potato more than an egg(ellipsoid) - Earth is a geoid.



The Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii is taller than Mount Everest, but a majority of the volcano is underwater.
The total number of underwater volcanoes is estimated to be over 1 million. 75,000 of these volcanoes hike over half a mile (1 KM) above the floor.



Queen Elizabeth II is the legal owner of one-sixth of the Earth land surface.
Queen Elizabeth II is Queen of 32 countries, head of a Commonwealth of 54 countries. She is the legal owner of about 6.6 billion acres of land.




The Earth is closer to the sun, it does not mean it's summer.
In summer days on 24 July, Earth farthest from the sun. And in winter January, it is closest to the sun. It's all about the tilt of the axis of Earth.



Iron on earth actually came from the dead star.
Iron form together inside a star during fusion. When the supernova occurs, the iron fragments blasted into space million years ago. 



Earth also reflects sunlight like the moon.
The degree of reflectance is called albedo and is expressed as the percentage of light reflected pet total light reaching the planet. Earth's average albedo is 30% - 35%. Sunlight is reflected by water, clouds, sands etc...



Earth's driest place has located in Antarctica.
This area is known as Dry valleys and does not have rain from 2 million years. The second driest place is in chile and known as the Atacama Desert.



Marina's trench is deepest than Mt Everest's length.
It is a deepest oceanic trench and, if Mt Everest is placed at the bottom of this trench, the peak of the mountain will be 2.133 km below the sea level.



Earth is the highest density planet in our solar system.
The average density of the planet earth is 5.5 gm/cm^3.



In the past, It was believed - 
The earth is flat.
It is centre of the universe.
And also, it is the center of the Solar System, and all other planets revolve around it. 



Ancient Indian astronomers knew that Earth is round.
Sanskrit is more than ten thousand years old, and its word for Earth is Bhugol (भूगोल). Bhu means Earth and gol means round.