Earth Day, Every Day

              

Wasn't it a lovely Earth Day ?  You're looking at a picture of what a total solar eclipse looks like from space.  The shadow of the moon covers part of the Earth, this planet, your home, our home and the only one we have.

                 

I thought you might like to read a few interesting facts about this wondrous spaceship:

1.  Rocks can float.  A "frothy" rock called pumice is loaded with gas bubbles.  Some of it can float.

2.  Can rocks grow?  Yes, of course!  They're alive.  Rock crust grows on moutains beneath the sea, about 1 millimeter every million years.  Same rate your fingernails grow every two weeks.

3.  How much space dust falls to earth?   Roughly 1,000 tons of space dust enters our atmosphere each year, making its way to the surface.  Microbes also rain down from space, and one group of scientists claims that extraterrestrial organisms may play a part in flu epidemics.  No proof of this, though.

4.  Is the Earth a sphere?  No!  The earth rotates and bulges at its midsection, giving it a kind of pumpkin shape rather than spherical.  This bulge was lessening for centuries but now, suddenly, it is growing. The cause is the accelerated melting of earth's glaciers which adds equatorial girth.

5.  How far can dust travel in the wind?  Dust from China has actually made its way to North America.  African dust is found in Florida, kicked up by high winds and carried as high as 20,000 feet.

6.  What makes thunder?  Lightening!  The air around a lightening bolt is superheated five times greater than the Sun.  This sudden heating causes air to expand faster than the speed of sound, which compresses and forms a shock wave.  We hear it as thunder.

7.  What two American cities are destined to merge?  The San Andreas Fault is slipping about 2 inches a year, which is causing Los Angeles to move toward San Francisco.  It should take about 15 billion years.

        

As seen from the space shuttle, the aurora borealis.....

         

 

    

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