The Pacific Ocean is VASTLY Bigger Than You Think

this video is made possible by skillshare the first 1000 people to use the link in my description will get a free trial of skillshare premium it should come as no surprise to you that most of the earth's surface is covered by water this is a simple fact that we've all learned about since our earliest memories in school but you probably will still be surprised by the absolute sheer scale of the biggest part of our ocean the pacific to say that the pacific ocean is huge would be an equally huge understatement the pacific ocean is colossal so let's begin by talking about this fact imagine that you're on a boat at approximately these coordinates you're in the pacific ocean just slightly off the coast of chile and peru in south america then imagine you got in a submarine submerged all the way to the bottom of the ocean and then drilled all the way through the earth out to the other side of the world and came up on the other side after doing all of that you would still find yourself inside of the pacific ocean specifically the gulf of tonkin just off the coast of vietnam and china the pacific ocean is so massive that it contains several of its own antipodes or spots on the opposite side of the world that remain in the same ocean but we're just getting started here there are parts of the pacific ocean that stretch across more than half of the planet's surface but the longest continuous stretch of water spans between the islands of indonesia and the coast of colombia this stretch is nearly 19 800 kilometers long this is such a huge distance you could fit the entire diameter of the moon between it actually you could fit five moons in this distance and still have room left over zooming out to this view of the pacific from above on google maps can give you this image which gives the perception that it takes up almost half of the planet however this image is deceiving because in reality you can never really see half of the planet at the same time since the earth is shaped like a sphere there's a point where the planet begins curving out from your field of view that's called the horizon and no matter how far away you get from earth you're always going to be dealing with a horizon that blocks viewing a full half of the planet in reality the pacific ocean takes up approximately one third of the planet's surface which is still a highly significant amount significant enough to produce a map like this one here you can see two separate ways to divide the world's surface between two equal hemispheres most of us are probably more familiar with the eastern and western hemispheric view of the world but this view isn't really based on anything other than the british who decided that they were the center of the world back in the 19th century in this new division the world is divided between the water hemisphere and the land hemisphere the two sides of the world that contain the most water in the most land the pacific takes up most of the water hemisphere and in total this entire half of the planet is 89 water 5 polar ice cap and only 6 percent dry land if you were stranded in the oceans on this side of the world it might indeed be a while until you ever discovered land now with all that being said in purely numerical form the pacific ocean is 165.25 million square kilometers in surface area and that's a challenging number to visualize so think about it this way the surface area of every single continent of land in the world combined from north america south america europe africa asia australia antarctica and even throwing in greenland just for good measure is only 148 million square kilometers this means that you could fit every single continent in the world together inside of just the pacific and still have millions of square kilometers left open let's think about this another way imagine the planet mars measure out every single square kilometer across the entire martian surface every valley and canyon and crater now let's pour the pacific ocean over mars eventually you'll completely submerge all of mars 145 million square kilometers of surface area in fact the pacific ocean is a whopping 20 million square kilometers larger than the surface area of mars and we've only started talking about the surface area of the pacific not yet its depth indeed the pacific isn't just huge across it's also huge below it's the deepest of any of earth's oceans the challenger deep in the marianas trench is the deepest point in the world that we're aware of so far plunging nearly 11 kilometers beneath the waves and other trenches have points that reach very similar depths the tonga trench philippine trench and the curl kamchatka trench all have spots over 10.3 kilometers deep and the mean depth across the entire pacific is over 4 000 meters the average depth in the pacific is over 2600 times deeper than the deep end of an average american swimming pool with all that size and all that depth the pacific alone contains 710 million cubic kilometers worth of water which is roughly 50 percent of all the world's oceanic water all of this puts into perspective how ridiculously bold the ancient polynesian explorers really were they sailed out into an unknown and uncharted ocean bigger than all of the world's continents combined bigger even than an entire planet just in the hopes of discovering some new islands and discover they did the pacific is home to over 25 000 distinct islands spread out across almost incomprehensible distances but already by the year 1200 the polynesians have reached virtually all of them from their original starting point back in taiwan some of these islands continue to be absurdly remote and difficult to get to even today let alone a thousand years ago the pacific ocean is so vast and so empty that it contains many of the most remote and difficult to get to places in the world take honolulu and hawaii for example this is the most remote city with a population over 100 thousand people anywhere in the world because the nearest other city of comparable or greater size is san francisco over 3 800 kilometers away about the same distance as new york city is away from los angeles the polynesians still found it over 700 years ago easter island is arguably the most remote inhabited island in the world because it's over 2 000 kilometers away from the nearest other piece of land and that piece of land happens to be pitcairn island which itself is an absurdly remote hard to get to island in the middle of nowhere besides pitcairn eastern island is over 2 600 kilometers away from the nearest town with over 500 people on the island of mangureva and it's over 3 500 kilometers away from the nearest other continent south america it's also home to the world's most remote airport since the nearest other airport is over in the gambier islands 2600 kilometers away and the nearest major airport is in santiago over 3 700 kilometers away comparatively not even the airport at the south pole is as remote as the one on easter island since the nearest other airport to there is just over 1300 kilometers away still the polynesians may have discovered it over 1200 years ago in canoes the polynesians were master discoverers and explorers who honed their skills over generations of navigators it takes time and patience to learn how to discover the islands across a planet-sized ocean but there was only one way to start just get in the boat and begin the journey the beginning is really the same for learning any new skill so if there's a big personal goal or passion project of your own that you'd like to get started on but you're uncertain about having the skills required to do it you should go hop in the boat and check out skillshare next want to learn how to start filming your own videos for youtube film festivals are just for fun there's dozens of classes i'd recommend choosing from like diy filming creating pro video with tools you already own by mark curso semo or introduction to aerial videography creative direction for drone filming by wild rabbit productions and plenty more want to learn how to be more productive my friend thomas frank teaches an entire productivity master class that will teach you how to stay focused and productive while doing just about anything when you become a member of skillshare you can take these classes as well as thousands of others on nearly any subject you can imagine ranging from writing and photography to web development and graphic design any of which can help you find a new passion help you get ahead in school or give you the skills needed to advance your career it's the absolute perfect activity for whenever you're stuck at home or have a lot of free time and with its varying difficulty levels it's still great whether you're a beginner or an expert and best of all you can get a completely free trial of skillshare premium by being one of the first 1000 people who use the link down in my description by doing this you can achieve all of your own personal learning goals and help support my channel at the same time so go ahead and check them out and as always thank you for watching

Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 1,280,112

Rating: 4.9062371 out of 5

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know, pacific, pacific ocean, how big is the ocean, how big is the pacific ocean, pacific ocean big

Id: 3DZmXYl3xVE

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 15 2020