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News & ArtsMonday, July 6, 2009
Science The Thinness
Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 9:57 AM
Time.com reports:
If water is the elixir of life, it's no wonder that Earth — which is 70% ocean — simply teems with living things. The other planets and moons in the solar system don't have it so good. They're forbidding places that are hydrological deserts, and thus biological ones too.This planet, our one and only planet, is not "70% ocean." Only its surface is covered by that percentage of water. To get some inhuman perspective: The deepest part of the main body of water, the Pacific Ocean, is a trench that is roughly 7 miles deep, and the earth is roughly 8000 miles in diameter. Meaning, the planet is practically waterless. If the earth was a billiard ball it would be perfectly smooth and the oceans whose depth and length amaze us everyday would be felt by the fingers of a giant pool player as nothing more than moisture.
Humans—not only are we a small (slimy) part of this world, but much of the universe is completely dark to us. 75 percent of it is dark energy, another 20 percent is dark and cold matter. Out of the four or so percent of the normal or sensible stuff, only half of one percent is visible to humans. The whole magic show of our existence is barely there at all. What really matters in this universe is darkness.
The pic is from wwworks.
5
"What really matters in this universe is darkness."
When I'm high, I find your writing brilliant.
I'm not high right now.
When I'm high, I find your writing brilliant.
I'm not high right now.
6
It's kind of sad that we're so set on committing suicide as a species. We're clearly more interesting than empty space.
11
What really matters to a scientist is the field in which they choose to become a specialist. A biologist would be interested in water regardless of it's quantity because it is the only known catalyst for life. Darkness matters only to philosophers and physicists...and probably people who find all science to be awesome.
13
@8: No Will, the Earth's shape is best approximated by the geoid, but for most geodetic calculations and measurements a reference ellipsoid is used. Read about the Figure of the Earth if you want to get into more of the theory.
14
I would argue that the living stuff matters, because it contains the universe's ability to know itself.
15
And the Earth, even if we see it from our perspective as enormous, is in fact just a tiny speck circling an average star among billions of stars in our galaxy. And our galaxy is a tiny speck among bilions of galaxies. And yet we can have this one perspective, with eyes to see and a brain to try to comprehend. To build machines to widen our understanding means using millions of years of evolution that have given us the ability. And yet those millions of years are but a speck in time stretching billions of years. And as unlikely as it is, here it all is. The planet, the water, the life and us. We should at least look and appreciate it's wonder.
16
Actually, if you look at the earth in time lapse photography from an orbiting spaceship that takes pictures once every 1000 years, it's a constantly fluctuating bubble with a thin crust.
To us solid rock looks solid, but that's just the time scale. On a geologic scale, it flows more like a thick molasses, with a semi-brittle crust.
Does that help, Greg?
To us solid rock looks solid, but that's just the time scale. On a geologic scale, it flows more like a thick molasses, with a semi-brittle crust.
Does that help, Greg?
19
Only a tiny percentage of the surface area of a printed page is covered by ink, and that ink doesn't even soak all the way through the paper. But which is more significant: the paper or the ink squiggles?
20
In addition to water making the Earth uniquely suited to life, people often overlook the importance of its magnetic field. Because of the iron content in the Earth's core, we have a relatively strong magnetic field around the planet (unlike, say Mars). This magnetic field gives us considerable protection from the solar wind, or solar particles that the sun is constantly putting out.
One obstacle to settling or terraforming Mars it that Mars lacks a strong magnetic field and is very susceptible to solar events and the solar wind. In fact, the thinness of its atmosphere is probably due to a continual shedding of atmosphere in the solar wind, which alone might explain why the planet once had liquid water on its surface and now does not.
Anyway, what's inside the Earth is just as important to life here as what's on its crust.
One obstacle to settling or terraforming Mars it that Mars lacks a strong magnetic field and is very susceptible to solar events and the solar wind. In fact, the thinness of its atmosphere is probably due to a continual shedding of atmosphere in the solar wind, which alone might explain why the planet once had liquid water on its surface and now does not.
Anyway, what's inside the Earth is just as important to life here as what's on its crust.
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