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The size of the Earth is incomprehensible - if Earth was a basketball ball in your hands, all the mountains and deepest trenches of the oceans would make the su
by nuccy 4y ago
The size of the Earth is incomprehensible - if Earth was a basketball ball in your hands, all the mountains and deepest trenches of the oceans would make the surface imperfections of under 1mm (1/20 inch) high/deep. The average ocean depth of 3km would be 3.7 times less than that - exactly the height of basketball bumps. Earth's atmosphere would reach 1cm (half an inch) but 3/4 of its mass would be under those imperfections. The atmosphere is 5 times heavier than all water combined, but its mass is just one millions of the total Earth's mass. Screwing up atmosphere is "easier", especially since burning transforms dense (solid and liquid) C-H containing materials into much less dense gas.
- senectus1 4y agoand yet we still manage to ruin it for ourselves in such a small amount of time. We need to do better.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- MAGZine 4y agoparts of the earth are comparably smoother than a billiard ball (though not all of it). Mountainous terrain is like fine sandpaper. We really do not have a sense of scale to imagine the size of the earth.
- csomar 4y agoWe do. The picture of earth from space shows it's really neat round. Of course, since we live on the surface, we know the surface is not as smooth as Rick can make it.
- csomar 4y agoThat really put things into perspective... I wonder if instead of trying to hunt asteroids in the space, it'd make sense to just dig deeper.
- FiatLuxDave 4y agoThe atmosphere is 5 times heavier than all water combined Not sure where you got that. As far as I can see from most online sources, the Earth's atmosphere weighs about 5 x 10^18 kg, but the oceans weigh about 1.3 x 10^21 kg. It makes sense that the atmosphere weighs less than the oceans if you think about it. The weight of air at sea level is about the same as 10 meters of water. The oceans cover most of the earth, and average a depth of a lot more than 10 meters.
- nuccy 4y agoYes, you are right, I overlooked that one was in tonnes another in kg, while both having same 10^18 factor. All other calculations are correct.