50 Unbelievable Facts About Earth

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DrewK

http://www.universetoday.com/101604/50-amazing-facts-about-earth/

The statement "the Great Wall of China can't be seen from space, but China's air pollution can", needs to be qualified by saying 'by the unaided eye, from low Earth orbit'.

I've seen various claims comparing the smoothness of the Earth to other objects. By my calculations (for the peak/depth they use), the difference between the depth of the Mariana Trench and the peak of Mt Everest is 0.15% of the Earth's diameter. That would mean a typical 8.5 inch diameter bowling ball must have gouges in its surface 0.013 inches deep. I doubt I've ever seen a bowling ball with even a 0.002 inch deep scratch in its surface. (That would be for a new bowling ball of course, without any logos applied, before the holes are drilled, before it's had any use... needless to say.)

The statement that the day is not 24 hours long is just plain stupid. A solar day is 24 hours long - which is the length of day 99.999% of the people care about. Only we astronomers care that the sidereal day is ~ 4 minutes shorter, and even that concern is limited to particular uses.

At a quick glance, I'm pretty sure nearly all of these 'statements of fact' can be successfully disputed....