Age
The Earth is 4.56 billion years old...the same age as the Moon and the Sun.Earthquakes
A magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck off the west coast of Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, on Sunday morning at 6:58 a.m. local time December 26, 2004.
The giant tremor devastated the Indonesian province of Aceh, and created destructive tsunami waves that crashed onto far away beaches in Sri Lanka,
Thailand, India and other countries. Reports of at least 140,000 dead and thousands still missing, mostly from the tsunamis. As a result, the Earth actually shifted 3 degrees and has not went back since.
The world's largest recorded earthquakes are all megathrust events occurring at subduction zones. This magnitude-9.0 quake is the largest in 40 years, since the Good Friday earthquake in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1964. It is the fourth largest in the last century, following only a 9.0 in Kamchatka in 1952, a 9.1 in Alaska in 1957, the 9.2 Prince William Sound quake, and the largest ever recorded, a magnitude-9.5 earthquake in Chile in 1960, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. All five events are megathrust quakes at subduction zones
Earthquakes
Every year over one million earthquakes shake the Earth.Lightning
Every second around 100 lightning bolts strike the Earth.Motion
The Earth spins at 1,000 mph but it travels through space at an incredible 67,000 mph.Nations
267, dependent areas, and misc. areas.Ocean
It’s commonly understood that oceans are deep, but at their deepest they are very deep—and the deepest part of any ocean is the Mariana Trench, located in between Japan and Papa New Guinea. If you were to drop a pebble overboard at this location, it would take just over an hour to reach the bottom of the seabed!Physical
- Diameter of 7,905 miles
- Total Area: 510,072,000 sq km
- Land: 148,940,000 sq km - 29.2%
- Water: 361,132,000 sq km - 70.8%
Population
Monthly World population figures and projected estimates:
- 07/01/07 6,600,411,051
- 08/01/07 6,606,949,106
- 09/01/07 6,613,487,162
- 10/01/07 6,619,814,313
- 11/01/07 6,626,352,369
- 12/01/07 6,632,679,520
- 01/01/08 6,639,217,576
- 02/01/08 6,645,755,632
- 03/01/08 6,651,871,878
- 04/01/08 6,658,409,934
- 05/01/08 6,664,737,085
- 06/01/08 6,671,275,141
- 07/01/08 6,677,602,292
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
- Click HERE to view the World Population in real time.
