Earth Facts

v  At one time the earth consisted of one land mass and a huge body of water. Geologists today call the land Pangaea (from the Greek words "all land" while the water was called Panthalassa (from the Greek words "all sea"). Between 180 and 200 million years ago, Pangaea split into two parts: Laurasia, which consisted of North America, Europe and Asia; and Gondwanaland, which consisted of Africa, South America, India, Antarctica and Australia.

v  Astronauts brought back about 800 pounds of lunar rock to Earth. Most of it has not been analyzed.

v  Approximately 40,000 tons of meteoric dust hits the Earth each year.

v  According to Hawaiian lore, the earth mother Papa mated with the sky father Wake to give birth to the Hawaiian Islands.

v  About one-tenth of the earth's surface is permanently covered with ice.

v  A Red Giant (a kind of exploded star) has a lower density than any vacuum here on earth.

v  A Blue Earth, Minnesota, law declares that no child under the age of twelve may talk over the telephone unless monitored by a parent.

v  You would need to travel at 6.95 miles per second to escape the Earth's gravitational pull. This is equivalent to traveling from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

v  Venus rotates so slowly that in a typical day lasts approximately 244 Earth days (5,856 hours).

v  If you dig in your backyard, don't worry about running into the earth's core. You'd have to dig a hole 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers) deep!

v  Some scientists believe that the earth began billions of years ago as a huge ball of swirling dust and gases.

v  Some parts of the earth receive direct rays from the sun all year and are always warm. Other places receive indirect rays, so the climate is colder.