Here on Earth, there are many phenomenons that occur and special attributes that the common person may not know about. The ocean and the sky is blue, but do you know why? In this article, I scrounge together some facts about the Earth and solar system that will help you understand why things are the way they are and some interesting fun facts. 

The Earth has a strong magnetic field. This is due to the nickel-iron core and the rapid rotation of the planet. This magnetic field fends off solar winds which carry poisonous radiation

The Earth is the only planet not named after a god. The other 7 planets were named after gods when they were first discovered in ancient times. The name “Earth” was derived from the anglo-saxon word “Erda,” which means soil.

The Earth is the densest planet in the solar system. The metallic core is far denser than the crust. The density varies depending on which part of the planet, but has an average density of 5.52 grams per cubic centimeter, which is slightly denser than mercury at 5.43 grams per cubic centimeter.

Only 3% of the water on Earth is fresh ( drinkable ). Of all the water on Earth, only 3% of it is ready for human consumption, and that’s not considering the portion that is polluted. To add insult to injury, 66% of the drinkable water (2% of Earth’s water) is frozen in ice caps, leaving us with 1% of the Earth’s water to share between 7 billion people.

Every winter there are about 1 septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or a trillion trillion) snow crystals that drop from the sky. That seems like a lot right? But a mole aka Avogadro’s Number is 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 meaning that 1/6th of a mole snowflakes fall each year.

<1% of the Earth is the crust. The crust is the entire surface of the Earth, land and sea. This crust is 19 miles thick, almost 3 and a half Mount Everests stacked on top of each other. The rest of it is composed of molten lava, tectonic plates, and the core, which is almost 780 miles across, equal to half of the united states.

The Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing down. That sounds scary at first, but the Earth isn’t going to just stop spinning, at least not anytime soon. Scientists discovered that the Earth has slowed in speed over the years.

Asia accounts for 30% of the landmass, but houses about 60% (4.453 billion people) of the population. China and India are home to more than 2.6 billion and that’s just those two countries. Not a lot of land for that many people…

There is an estimation that there are more than 8.7 million species on earth and only 14% of them have been discovered. A study in 2011 said that most of Earth’s species were undiscovered as extinction rates accelerate.