Thread: FACTS about EARTH and STARS

Earth Facts

Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.

At one time the earth consisted of one land mass and a huge body of water. Geologists today call the land Pangaea (from the Greek words "all land" while the water was called Panthalassa (from the Greek words "all sea"). Between 180 and 200 million years ago, Pangaea split into two parts: Laurasia, which consisted of North America, Europe and Asia; and Gondwanaland, which consisted of Africa, South America, India, Antarctica and Australia.

Astronauts brought back about 800 pounds of lunar rock to Earth. Most of it has not been analyzed.

Approximately 40,000 tons of meteoric dust hits the Earth each year.

According to Hawaiian lore, the earth mother Papa mated with the sky father Wake to give birth to the Hawaiian Islands.

About one-tenth of the earth's surface is permanently covered with ice.
A Red Giant(a kind of exploded star) has a lower density than any vacuum here on earth.

A Blue Earth, Minnesota, law declares that no child under the age of twelve may talk over the telephone unless monitored by a parent.

You would need to travel at 6.95 miles per second to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull. This is equivalent to traveling from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

Venus rotates so slowly that in a typical day lasts approximately 244 Earth days (5,856 hours).

If you dig in your backyard, don’t worry about running into the earth’s core. You’d have to dig a hole 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers) deep!
Some scientists believe that the earth began billions of years ago as a huge ball of swirling dust and gases.

Some parts of the earth receive direct rays from the sun all year and are always warm. Other places receive indirect rays, so the climate is colder.




Stars Facts

There are more stars than all of the grains of sand on earth.

You can see stars from the bottom of a well even in day light.

Stars with really strong gravity cause themselves to become smaller and smaller and eventually turn into black holes.

Stars come in different colors; hot stars give off blue light, and the cooler stars give off red light.

In honor of the original thirteen states, the U.S. $1 bill has the following on the back: 13 steps on the pyramid. The motto above the pyramid has 13 letters (annuity coatis). E pluribus Unum, written on the ribbon in the eagle's beak, has 13 letters. 13 stars appear over the eagle's head. 13 stripes are on the shield. 13 war arrows are in the eagle's left talon.

All of the stars comprising the Milky Way galaxy revolve around the center of the galaxy once every 200 million years or so.



Until the mid sixteenth century, Comets were believed to be not astronomical phenomena, but burning vapors that had arisen from distant swamps and were propelled across the sky by fire and light.

Our galaxy has approximately 250 billion stars and it is estimated by astronomers that there are 100 billion other galaxies in the universe.

A galaxy of typical size, about 100 billion suns produces less energy than a single Quasar.

A Comet's tail always points away from the sun.

A Pulsar is a small star made up of neutrons so densely packed together that if one the size of a silver dollar landed on earth, it would weigh approximately 100 million tons.

The Star Alpha Herculis is twenty five times larger than the circumference described by the earth's revolution around the sun. This means that twenty five diameters of our solar orbit would have to be placed end to end to equal the diameter of this Star.

Source:
Amazing Earth Facts | Strange Earth Facts | Funny Earth Facts
Amazing Stars Facts | Strange Stars Facts | Funny Stars Facts

I hope we find another a reachable earth-like planet in our lifetime.

I think we have already found other inhabitable planets already. It's just that the common man isn't privy to that sort of information. I bet Oprah and Bill have been there already. Check out space tourism for more info. ;)

w00t the universe is realy amazing. Always liked to appreciate the beauty of the stars in the sky at night.

io9. We come from the future.

Saw this article yesterday, it's really mind blowing and gets you thinking alot of how big and amazing the universe really is.

You might want to start off with something a little simpler, such as: "The sun is a star." (something only 55% of Americans know.)

Imagining the size of the universe seems impossible.

A few months ago I found this picture, comparing the size of the biggest known stars and planets to each other.

It's just amazing and since then I see the night's sky with different eyes ;)

Many of these "facts" lists are based on stuff that is just passed around so long that it becomes "fact", and eventually, these become "common knowledge" among many people.

What bugs me the most is when people repeat these things, offline, and say that its "scientifically proven". Not so much that its not true, or even that they dont know (everyone cant be knowledgeable about everything), but because it just shows how most people just absorb and repeat anything they hear.

Lists like these are how urban myths form.

Originally Posted by humbugthegreat

A Red Giant(a kind of exploded star) has a lower density than any vacuum here on earth.

- A red giant is not an "exploded" star. Expanded slowly over time =/= exploded

- A red giant's lowest density (the core is not low density... or it wouldnt be a star...) might be around .1 kg/m^3, which is around 1/12th the density of our atmosphere (which obv. varies based on conditions, but is always in that ballpark).

Artificial vaccums used for science are on the order of billionths or trillonths the density of our atmosphere.

Complete BS... not even close.

You would need to travel at 6.95 miles per second to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull. This is equivalent to traveling from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

Completely false. This escape velocity simply means that if you projected an object and provided no further propulsion, it would have to be initially launched at this velocity.

The problem with getting into space is carrying enough fuel to maintain propulsion long enough. If you had a hypothetical machine that could draw infinite energy from the vaccum, or whatever, it would require near-zero speeds to escape.

This is pretty straight forward, given the fact that gravitational pull decreases with distance (high school physics), and the existance of helicopters and such that overcome the gravitational pull at the ground (strongest point) with a velocity that is obviously much less than 11.2 km/s.

Some parts of the earth receive direct rays from the sun all year and are always warm.

If by "all year" this means 24/7/365, this isnt true. Even the poles only have 24 hours days parts of the year

If this was to mean that some parts get direct sun "every day of the year", well, this is true for every part of the earth except the poles.

Its true that part of the reason the equators are warmer is because the angle that light hits it is more "direct", and thus there is less atmospheric scattering by the time it reaches the ground, but this has little to do with the original quote.

You can see stars from the bottom of a well even in day light.

Totally false, yet common rumor (unless you count the sun). This is pretty silly when you know that the reason you can't see the stars has nothing to do with "being in a dark spot", and everything to do with the luminosity of the nearby sun drowning out starlight.

Stars with really strong gravity cause themselves to become smaller and smaller and eventually turn into black holes.

False. Start that eventually burn out and collapse this way do not become black holes. They become things like neutron stars or white dwarfs. Stars that become black holes have to be of a certain mass, and become so following a sudden, not gradual, supernova and following collapse. I.e. black holes are not formed by stars becoming "smaller and smaller".

Our galaxy has approximately 250 billion stars and it is estimated by astronomers that there are 100 billion other galaxies in the universe.

Observable universe. When scientists say "universe", in talking about numbers like this, this is what they mean, but in reality, we don't know what the total shape, or size our entire, physical "universe" that we call our reality is.

A galaxy of typical size, about 100 billion suns produces less energy than a single Quasar.

This is true for luminosity. Not necessarily true for energy output, as they may or may not emit energy in all directions like a star or ordinary galaxy.

The Star Alpha Herculis is twenty five times larger than the circumference described by the earth's revolution around the sun. This means that twenty five diameters of our solar orbit would have to be placed end to end to equal the diameter of this Star.

After looking this star up, this is easily proven false with simple arithmetic.

1 AU is roughly the distance from the earth to the sun. So for these purposes, 25 times the dimeter of Earths orbit would be around 50 AU. The Radius of this star is listed at 1.87 AU.

With a radius of around 1.87 AU, or a diameter of 3.74 AU, this is far less then 50 AU.

Even the largest known star, with a radius of around 9 AU, would not be this large.

Whoo! While watching I feel afraid because there are lot of mystery that are not yet solve.

facts about earth

Originally Posted by zealot

Imagining the size of the universe seems impossible.

A few months ago I found this picture, comparing the size of the biggest known stars and planets to each other.

It's just amazing and since then I see the night's sky with different eyes ;)