Buzz
Exploring these truths could offer you a fresh perspective on our beautiful planet Earth.
Canada boasts more lakes than the rest of the world combined.
The Antarctic stands as the world's largest desert due to its minimal annual precipitation.
France shares its longest border with... Brazil. French Guiana, situated in the northeast corner of South America, is a French overseas department.
Depending on your location, airborne dust may originate from... Africa. Specifically, dust from the Sahara desert frequently drifts into the Amazon. In fact, without this dust layer, the Amazon rainforest might not even exist. The soil there is relatively nutrient-poor, and the dust acts as a form of fertilizer. Two massive geological features, seemingly contradictory—one teeming with life, the other desolate—yet intricately intertwined.
Australia is wider than the moon.
Despite Mount Everest towering 8.85 km above sea level and the Mariana Trench plunging 11 km deep, Earth's surface is remarkably smooth. On a globe with a diameter of 12,742 km, the difference between the highest and lowest points is minuscule, just 19.85 km. Only 0.156% of the planet's circumference accounts for all elevation changes. The surface smoothness of a billiard ball is approximately 0.222% of its circumference. This means Earth is smoother than that familiar white cue ball, even when you juxtapose Everest's peak with the Mariana Trench.
On the world map, the US state of Alaska may seem relatively small. However, it is truly massive. It surpasses the combined size of Montana, Texas, and California.
There are 14 mountains, belonging to 2 mountain ranges, with heights exceeding 8,000 meters. All of them are located in Asia.
The distance between New Zealand and Australia is almost equivalent to the distance between the Netherlands and Libya. Simply put, Europe is quite petite.
FedEx, the globally renowned shipping company, has selected Anchorage—a city in the southern part of Alaska—as its global transportation hub. This is one of the few places on Earth that lies within a 10-hour flight radius of the world's three largest markets: North America, Europe, and Asia. Who would have thought that a place considered remote would actually be the center of the world?
In relative terms, we're living on the skin of an apple. That's in terms of Earth's crust thickness compared to its volume.
The Australian tectonic plate is drifting northward at a faster pace compared to others. The entire continent is moving northward and slightly clockwise at about 6.8 cm per year. This speed is fast enough to constantly require GPS systems to compensate for its accuracy. In a few hundred million years, Australia may collide with Asia, creating a mountain range even taller than the Himalayas when this event occurs.
The country with the most varied time zones is... France! This is because there are numerous islands and territories around the world considered part of France. The UK also has a range of overseas territories, but unlike France, they don't consider these places part of the same country.
This isn't a photoshopped image, and the phenomenon is called Lahaina Noon, occurring twice a year in Hawaii, USA. It's when the sun is directly overhead, casting no shadows. Due to Earth's rotation, Lahaina Noon can occur over the ocean, in the desert, or in a location difficult to observe, or simply go unnoticed.
The northernmost point of North America is in Greenland, which belongs to Denmark. That means a European country has its northernmost point located outside of Europe.
Reference to BoredPanda
