10 Facts You don't Know about the Earth

  Earth

Earth is is a small planet in our solar system. Well it's not that small if you compare it to your surrounding but it is a very small object in the universe.

So, you might think that you know everything about your blue planet (since you have spent your entire life on it ) but most probably you don't know everything about it. So, here are 10 Facts about the Earth you don't know about.

1. The gold on Earth Weren't there when it first formed

Ultra high precision analyses of some of the oldest rock samples on Earth by researchers at the University of Bristol provides clear evidence that the planet's accessible reserves of precious metals are the result of a bombardment of meteorites more than 200 million years after Earth was formed.

2. You would weigh less at the equator

Since the earth is not round in shape and bulges out at the equator, it cause the distance of the Earths center and equator to be greater than that at the poles. And since the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the distance from the center of the object, you would weigh less at the equators.

3. Earth is Recycled

Just like you recycle glass bottles, scrap metals and other items the earth also recycles it soil and rocks through the process of erosion, volcanic eruptions and plate tectonics. The ground you're walking on is recycled. Earth's rock cycle transforms igneous rocks to sedimentary rocks to metamorphic rocks and back again. The cycle isn’t a perfect circle, but the basics work like this: Magma from deep in the Earth emerges and hardens into rock (that's the igneous part). Tectonic processes uplift that rock to the surface, where erosion shaves bits off. These tiny fragments get deposited and buried, and the pressure from above compacts them into sedimentary rocks such as sandstone. If sedimentary rocks get buried even deeper, they "cook" into metamorphic rocks under lots of pressure and heat. 

4. Our Moon Quakes

The Earth's moon looks rather dead and inactive. But in fact, moonquakes, or "earthquakes" on the moon, keep things just a bit shook up. Quakes on the moon are less common and less intense than those that shake Earth. According to USGS scientists, moonquakes seem to be related to tidal stresses associated with the varying distance between the Earth and moon. Moonquakes also tend to occur at great depths, about midway between the lunar surface and its center.

5. Weird Gravity 

Since our globe isn't a perfect sphere, its mass is distributed unevenly. And uneven mass means slightly uneven gravity. One mysterious gravitational anomaly is in the Hudson Bay of Canada (shown above). This area has lower gravity than other regions, and a 2007 study finds that now-melted glaciers are to blame. Since gravity over an area is proportional to the mass atop that region, and the glacier's imprint pushed aside some of the Earth's mass, gravity is a bit less strong in the ice sheet's imprint. The slight deformation of the crust explains 25 percent to 45 percent of the unusually low gravity.

6. Creeping Magnetic pole

Earth has a magnetic field because of the ocean of hot, liquid metal that sloshes around its solid iron core, or that's what geophysicists are pretty certain is the cause. This flow of liquid creates electric currents, which, in turn, generate the magnetic field. Since the early 19th century, Earth's magnetic north pole has been creeping northward by more than 600 miles (1,100 kilometers), according to NASA scientists.

7. Earth Might Have Had Two Moons

Earth may once have had two moons. A teensy second moon — spanning about 750 miles (1,200 km) wide — may have orbited Earth before it catastrophically slammed into the other one. This titanic clash may explain why the two sides of the surviving lunar satellite are so different from each other, said scientists in the Aug. 4, 2011, issue of the journal Nature.

8. Where Rocks Walk

Rocks can walk on Earth, at least they do at the pancake-flat lakebed called Racetrack Playa in Death Valley. There, a perfect storm can move rocks sometimes weighing tens or hundreds of pounds. Most likely, ice-encrusted rocks get inundated by melt water from the hills above the Playa, according to NASA researchers. When everything's nice and slick, a stiff breeze kicks up, and whoosh, the rock is off.

9. In the past the Earth was Purple

The Earth used to be purple … well, life on early Earth may have been just as purple as it is green today, suspects Shil DasSarma, a microbial geneticist at the University of Maryland. Ancient microbes, he said, might have used a molecule other than chlorophyll to harness the sun's rays, one that gave the organisms a violet hue, he suggests.

10. Driest Spot

The Driest spot on Earth is the Atacama Desert of Chile and Peru. In the center of this desert, there are places where rain has never been recorded.