Impress your pals with these astounding details about our environment.
1. Compared to adults, babies have about 100 more bones.
At birth, a baby has roughly 300 bones, many of which are connected by cartilage. They can pass through the birth canal easier thanks to their increased flexibility, which also enables quick growth. An average adult’s skeleton is made up of 206 bones after many of the bones fuse with age.
2. In the summer, the Eiffel Tower can rise by 15 centimeters.
Thermal expansion is the process by which a substance expands when heated, causing its particles to move more and take up more space. On the other hand, a reduction in temperature makes it contract once more. For instance, as the ambient temperature changes, the volume of the mercury fluctuates, causing the mercury level inside a thermometer to rise and fall. Although this phenomenon is most pronounced in gases, it also happens in liquids and solids like iron. Due of this, bridges and other major structures are constructed with expansion joints, which provide them some room to expand and contract without suffering any harm.
3. The Amazon rainforest produces 20% of the planet’s oxygen
Approximately 78% of our atmosphere is nitrogen, 21% is oxygen, and other gases are present in trace amounts. The bulk of Earth’s living things require oxygen to thrive, and they do so by converting it into carbon dioxide as they breathe. Fortunately, photosynthesis by plants constantly replenishes the oxygen on our world. As a byproduct of this process, oxygen is produced when carbon dioxide and water are transformed into energy. The Amazon rainforest, which is 5.5 million square kilometers (2.1 million square miles) in size, recycles a considerable fraction of the oxygen on Earth while also absorbing a huge amount of carbon dioxide.
4. Upon coming into contact with water, some metals detonate.
Some metals, such as potassium, sodium, lithium, rubidium, and caesium, are sufficiently reactive that they immediately begin to oxidize (or tarnish) when exposed to oxygen. When thrown in water, they can even explode! All elements aspire to have a full outer electron shell, or to be chemically stable. Metals typically lose electrons to accomplish this. Due to the fact that the alkali metals only have one electron in their outer shell, they are eager to link with other elements in order to transfer this undesirable passenger. As a result, they combine so easily with other elements to form compounds that they don’t naturally exist alone.
5. A neutron star the size of a teaspoon would weigh 6 billion tons.
The remains of a huge star that has ran out of fuel are known as neutron stars. While the dying star’s core gravitationally collapses in on itself to become a super-dense neutron star, it also bursts into a supernova. Solar masses are used by astronomers to measure the mind-bogglingly massive masses of stars and galaxies, with one solar mass equal to the mass of the Sun (2.4 x 1030 kilograms/4.4 x 1030 pounds). Neutron stars typically have masses of up to three solar masses that are compressed into spheres with radii of about ten kilometers (6.2 miles), making them some of the densest objects in the cosmos.
6. Hawaii approaches Alaska by 7.5 cm year.
Huge fragments of the crust of the Earth are divided into tectonic plates. Currents in the upper mantle of the Earth constantly move these plates. Rock that is hotter and less dense rises before cooling and sinking, creating circular convection currents that function like enormous conveyor belts to gradually move the tectonic plates above them. Hawaii is located in the center of the Pacific Plate, which is slowly moving back toward Alaska and toward the North American Plate. The speed of the plates is like the speed of our fingernails.
7. Trillions of minute plankton fossils are used to make chalk.
Coccolithophores, tiny single-celled algae, have existed in the waters of Earth for 200 million years. They have tiny calcite plates (coccoliths) all around them, unlike any other marine plant. Conditions were ideal for coccolithophores to assemble in a thick layer that coated ocean floors in a white slime some 100 million years ago. Coccoliths were crushed to form rock when more silt accumulated on top, resulting in chalk deposits like the white cliffs of Dover. One of the numerous prehistoric species that have been preserved in fossil form is the coccolithophores, but how do we know how old they are? Rock accumulates in horizontal layers throughout time, with fresher rocks near the top and older rocks at the bottom. Palaeontologists can roughly determine a fossil’s age by examining the type of rock in which it was discovered. Based on the rate of decay of radioactive isotopes like carbon-14, carbon dating provides a more precise estimate of the age of a fossil.
8. The Earth will become too hot for life to live in 2.3 billion years.
The Sun will keep on getting brighter and hotter over the next hundreds of millions of years. Temperatures will be high enough to evaporate our oceans in just over 2 billion years, rendering life on Earth untenable. Our planet will eventually turn into a big desert like Mars is now. Scientists believe that the Sun will eventually engulf Earth completely in the next few billion years when it develops into a red giant, signaling the unmistakable end for our planet.
9. Infrared cameras can hardly detect polar bears.
Polar bears are masters at keeping their body heat in, but thermal cameras pick up on it as infrared. A thick layer of blubber under the skin helps bears stay warm. They can withstand the coldest Arctic day when you combine this with a thick fur coat.
10. The time it takes for light to travel from the Sun to Earth is 8 minutes and 19 seconds.
Light moves through space at a speed of 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) per second. It takes some time to travel the 150 million or so kilometers (93 million miles) between us and the Sun, even at this fast pace. Eight minutes is still a very short amount of time when compared to the five and a half hours it takes for Pluto to receive light from the Sun.
11. The entire human race could fit inside the volume of a sugar cube if all the empty space in our atoms were removed.
Despite appearing to be solid, the atoms that make up the world around us are actually almost 99.99999 percent empty space. An atom is made up of an extremely small, compact nucleus that is encircled by an enormous cloud of electrons. This is because electrons behave like waves in addition to being particles. Only in regions where these waves’ crests and troughs add up can electrons actually exist. Additionally, each electron’s location is distributed throughout a range of probabilities called an orbital rather than residing in a single spot. As a result, they take up a lot of room.
12. Stainless steel can be dissolved by stomach acid since it is so potent
Food is broken down in the stomach by highly corrosive hydrochloric acid, which has a pH between 2 and 3. Your stomach lining is likewise attacked by this acid, and to defend itself, it secretes an alkali bicarbonate solution. The lining completely renews itself every four days, although it still needs to be changed frequently.
The Earth is a powerful magnet.
The liquid iron that surrounds the solid iron spherical that makes up the interior of Earth. This iron conducts electrical currents as a result of variations in temperature and density. These currents merge when the Earth spins, creating a magnetic field that is used by compass needles all across the world.
14. Only Venus rotates in a clockwise direction.
A whirling cloud of gas and dust that finally condensed into our Solar System’s spinning disc with the Sun at its center. All of the planets orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane and in the same direction as a result of their shared origin. Except for Uranus and Venus, they all spin in the same direction—counterclockwise if seen from above. While Venus defiantly spins in the exact opposite direction, Uranus spins on its side. The largest asteroids that could have thrown these planets off track in the past are the most plausible culprits.
15. The Space Shuttle can’t outrun a flea’s acceleration
In just one millisecond, a jumping flea can soar to heights of roughly eight centimeters (three inches). One g is the acceleration brought on by gravity on Earth (9.8 meters/32.2 feet per square second), and acceleration is the change in speed of an item over time. Fleas feel 100 g of force, but the Space Shuttle only reached its maximum of 5 g. The secret to the flea’s ability to store and release energy like a spring is a stretchy protein that resembles rubber.
