Earth Had a 2nd Moon and and 40 Stunning Planet Facts

early earth might have been purple not green there's a theory that ancient microbes used molecules other than chlorophyll to absorb sunlight these molecules likely gave living organisms a violet tint scientists are almost sure that our planet once had two moons one of them was a tiny thing no larger than 750 miles across unfortunately it crashed into the other moon which is now earth's only natural satellite until recently there was one more object orbiting our planet it was a temporary mini moon called 2020 cd3 this tiny space rock no bigger than three feet across was pulled into our orbit more than a year ago astronomers believe the mini moon left earth's orbit in march from 60 to 100 tons of space dust drift down to our planet's surface every day these tiny cosmic particles are mostly released by comets which are usually made of dust and ice when the sun turns this ice into vapor the remaining dust travels down to earth if you look at earth from space you'll see a blue ocean planet almost 70 percent of its surface is covered with water and its average depth is 14 000 feet but if you gathered all the water into a sphere it would be a mere miles across just barely enough to cover texas and that's including all the water in the seas oceans rivers lakes ice caps groundwater and even those tiny droplets in the atmosphere all earth's air yep all 5140 trillion tons of it would make a slightly larger ball by the way the further away from the surface the less dense the atmosphere is that's why half of earth's air is within the first three miles above the surface of the planet every two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand years our planet goes through a magnetic pole reversal it's not an instant process though it can last hundreds or even thousands of years we live inside the sun its atmosphere stretches far beyond its visible surface and even though earth is 93 million miles away from the star it's still within the reach of the sun's atmosphere auroras happen when charged particles from the sun get caught by earth's magnetic field and crash into the upper atmosphere near the poles the hudson bay of canada is a gravitational anomaly this area has lower gravity than any other place on earth you'd weigh less standing at the equator than at one of the planet's poles mars has only 15 percent of earth's volume and less than 10 percent of its mass and still the red planet and earth have almost the same land mass it's because about two-thirds of our planet's surface is covered in water the pacific ocean contains more than half of the world's free water it's also by far the largest ocean all earth's continents could easily fit into the pacific basin our planet is gradually slowing down the speed of its rotation it happens at an unhurried pace of 17 milliseconds per 100 years because of this our days are becoming longer and still only after 140 million years the day on earth will last 25 hours the ocean on jupiter isn't made of water it's filled with metallic hydrogen and its depth is a staggering 25 000 miles that's actually almost the same as the circumference of earth a year on mercury is just 88 earth days long this planet also has an extremely squashed orbit its distance from the sun varies from 28 to 43 million miles even when you're standing sitting or lying still you're moving at more than one thousand miles per hour that's the speed at which our planet is spinning through space at the same time you'd be moving at this incredible pace only if you're at the equator pluto's atmosphere rises much higher above the surface of the dwarf planet than let's say the atmosphere of earth it also has more than 20 layers all of them are cold and condensed methane gas is a byproduct of natural processes and this very gas is present in the martian atmosphere which confuses astronomers to no end mars produces around 270 tons of methane per year scientists can't figure out where the gas is coming from earth's southernmost continent antarctica is only the fifth largest one but it contains almost 70 percent of the planet's fresh water and 90 percent of the world's ice antarctica is also considered to be a desert the inner regions of this continent get just two inches of precipitation a year in the form of snow of course mercury's surface is wrinkled it happened when the planet's iron core cooled down and contracted the wrinkles can reach a height of one mile and stretch for hundreds of miles lots of rocks on earth have a martian origin scientists analyzed the chemical content of some meteorites found in the sahara desert antarctica and other places and it turned out these rocks had arrived from the red planet the only asteroid belt in the solar system astronomers know about lies between mars and jupiter there are thousands of asteroids in this region but they're extremely widely spaced if you had to go through that area the chances of colliding with an asteroid would be almost non-existent the four largest asteroids sometimes called minor planets contain half the mass of the entire belt and still the total weight of all the asteroids there is a mere four percent of the moon's weight mercury is the most cratered planet in the solar system its craters are named after famous musicians artists and writers the valley called valles marineris on mars is more than 10 times larger than earth's grand canyon the origin of this valley puzzles astronomers after all mars isn't a planet known for its active plate tectonics [Music] atmospheric pressure on venus is 92 times greater than that on earth venus also has a much denser atmosphere that's why only big meteorites can make it to the planet's surface the smaller ones get slowed down and fall into pieces before reaching the ground our planet has its magnetic field thanks to scorching hot liquid metal that's flowing inside its outer core this creates electric currents and they in turn generate the magnetic field for the past 200 years the planet's magnetic north pole has moved northward for about 600 miles these days it's traveling faster than it used to 40 miles per year versus 10 miles per year several decades ago volcanoes on pluto which are called cryovolcanoes spit not lava but ice instead of molten rock they erupt water methane and ammonia [Music] jupiter's mass is twice greater than the mass of all the other planets in the solar system combined earth is the densest planet in the solar system but this density varies depending on the planet's part for example the crust is less dense than the solid metallic core saturn's upper atmosphere is divided into layers of clouds those at the top are made of ammonia ice then there are water ice clouds and below them layers of sulfur ice and cold hydrogen uranus rotates on its side the reason for such an unusual position could be a powerful ancient collision but so far it's just a theory by the way uranus is the only planet sitting on its side venus rotates in the opposite direction to the sun the reason might be a powerful collision with an asteroid or another space object iapetus one of saturn's moons has an unusual coloring it's two-toned one of its sides is dark with a slight reddish shoe while the other is bright scientists haven't cracked this mystery yet jupiter's moon io has hundreds of active volcanoes on its surface it's the most volcanically active body in the entire solar system the moon is covered in lava lakes and plains of liquid rock plumes of sulfur spew up for almost 200 miles it takes light more than four hours to travel from the sun to neptune of all the planets of the solar system jupiter has the shortest day it lasts for 9 hours and 55 minutes such a rapid rotation speed gives the planet its slightly flattened shape

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Keywords: space, facts about space, facts about space and stars, international space station, speed of light, planets, future of earth, nasa, colonization of other planets, solar system, recent space discoveries, bright side, facts about space in english, astrophysics, the universe, the moon, mind blowing facts about space, habitable planets 2020, second moon, astronomy, facts about the moon, brightside, outer space, stars, bizarre phenomena, facts about the universe, space facts

Id: aEYIy6oMtig

Length: 9min 15sec (555 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020