Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2016 September 11 
Posted on 09/12/2016 5:54:40 AM PDT by ThomasMore
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2016 September 11
Explanation: How much of planet Earth is made of water? Very little, actually. Although oceans of water cover about 70 percent of Earth's surface, these oceans are shallow compared to the Earth's radius. The featured illustration shows what would happen if all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up into a ball. The radius of this ball would be only about 700 kilometers, less than half the radius of the Earth's Moon, but slightly larger than Saturn's moon Rhea which, like many moons in our outer Solar System, is mostly water ice. How even this much water came to be on the Earth and whether any significant amount is trapped far beneath Earth's surface remain topics of research.
(Excerpt) Read more at apod.nasa.gov ...
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I don’t trust anything coming out of organizations taking gov’t money, like Woods Hole. They’re all in on the enviro-Nazi propaganda effort. And what’s the latest thing they’ve been fear-mongering? We’re running out of water! Oh noes!!!
Besides, didn’t they recently say that there is water in the interior, not just the surface of the earth?
But if the ice caps are melting, as these scientists/political activists say, we should have more water, not less. ie, sea level rising due to (man-made) GoreBull warming.
The amount of air is pretty small to relative to the whole.
If they want to use it to scaremonger though, all one need to is pull out a magnifier and point to a tiny dot there and say that represents all the people on earth and ever born on it wadded into a ball...a microscopic dot relative to that great big blue mass of water.
Using the equation for the volume of a sphere, this comes out to a radius of about 683 km. Converting to miles, 424. Converting to diameter, 848. Knowing some typical distances across country (I drive a lot) the size of the water sphere looks about right.
For even more fun (yeah, I know, twisted). I decided to see if ignoring "us" as a water store is valid. 7 billion people, average maybe 150 lbs each, 70% of that is water... Some conversions from lbs to cubic ft to cubic km... All of us humans, collectively account for just 0.33 cubic km of water. Compared to the 1.35 billion cubic km in the oceans. Ok, we don't count. What about the other stuff? Well, what if my assumption is wrong, say the oceans only account for 90% of the water. Running the numbers again gives a sphere with a diameter of 879 miles instead of 848. Well, at the scale of the picture, I can't tell a difference of 31 miles. Fun stuff. Interesting picture.
I once read that if the Earth was shrunken to the size of a billiard ball, it would be SMOOTHER than a billiard ball.................
Yes, but it might not be as perfectly round as a billard ball. IIRC the slightly pear shape of the planet was one of the first surprises from the dawn of the satellite age. On a billiard table it might wobble a bit, just as it does in a 23 thousand year cycle in orbit.
There’s another version of that pic that compares the Earth to Europa. Europa has more water than the Earth, despite being far smaller overall.
If it weren’t for the fact that their ignorance is contagious it would be amusing that today’s so called eco warriors have about as much understanding of science as the priests who interrogated Galileo. They don’t understand that water on this planet is never “lost”. Or that human “produced” CO2 will be taken up and converted back into Oxygen and Carbon by living vegetation. Every element of this planet is in a cycle, forming and reforming into different molecules and stages of gas, liquid, and solid. We are just very temporarily beneficiaries and observers of these cycles, until the day all the stuff we’re made of gets thrown into the same thresher.
What is the delta from equatorial to polar diameter?...........
DOes any one else think it is strange that there is a 200- 1000 mile ‘shelf’ around each land mass, then a sudden drop-off to deeper water?
It looks to me like the water was at a much lower level for htousands or millions of years, and washed away at the shores of the land masses, and then suddenly the entire earth obtained another 100 feet of water.
Just my theory
I have another one abotu the earths magnetic field. The fact that the inner core rotates at a different rate... how does that happen?
Well, if the surface got wacked by a huge comet, then maybe it sets the crust moving, and the inner core has to catch up- then after a while it catches up an because of some elasticity it springs back and forth (kind of like how a swinging door coes back and fother until it stops)
If this occilation occurs at 10’s of thosands of year intervales then that would also explain changing direction of magnetic fields.
Genesis 1: New Living Translation (NLT)
6 Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” 7 And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. 8 God called the space “sky.”
(All versions say basically the same thing with varying degrees of “Christian speak”)
“Separate”. In what proportion? It doesn’t say. To my mind, the lack of a stated proportion leads me to believe 50/50.
All the water is NOT in the atmosphere (clouds). heavenS plural.
Genesis 1: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)
6 Then God said, “Let there be a space[c] to separate the water into two parts!” 7 So God made the space and separated the water. Some of the water was above it, and some of the water was below it. 8 God named that space “sky.” There was evening, and then there was morning. This was the second day.
Genesis 1: New King James Version (NKJV) annotated by me.
6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament (heaven) in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus God made the firmament (heaven), and divided the waters which were under the firmament (heaven) from the waters which were ABOVE (not “in”) the firmament (heaven); and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
So God divided, separated, split the water into at least two parts. One above the sky, space, expanse, heaven, firmament, and the other below it, water on and in the earth.
So when we discover water (ice) on distant planets, we should not be surprised. God put it there...... “In the beginning”
“The shape of Earth approximates an oblate spheroid, a sphere flattened along the axis from pole to pole such that there is a bulge around the equator.[98]
This bulge results from the rotation of Earth, and causes the diameter at the equator to be 27 miles larger than the pole-to-pole diameter.[99]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth#Shape
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Found the website:
http://www.curiouser.co.uk/facts/smooth_earth.htm
Proof that the Earth is smoother than a billiard ball
The World Pool-Billiard Association Tournament Table and Equipment Specifications (November 2001) state: “All balls must be composed of cast phenolic resin plastic and measure 2 ¼ (+.005) inches [5.715 cm (+ .127 mm)] in diameter and weigh 5 ½ to 6 oz [156 to 170 gms].” (Specification 16.)
This means that balls with a diamenter of 2.25 inches cannot have any imperfections (bumps or dents) greater than 0.005 inches. In other words, the bump or dent to diameter ratio cannot exceed 0.005/2.25 = 0.0022222
The Earth’s diameter is approximately 12,756.2 kilometres or 12,756,200 metres.
12,756,200 x 0.0022222 = 28,347.111
So, if a billiard ball were enlarged to the size of Earth, the maximum allowable bump (mountain) or dent (trench) would be 28,347 metres.
Earth’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, is only 8,848 metres above sea level. Earth’s deepest trench, the Mariana Trench, is only about 11 kilometres below sea level.
So if the Earth were scaled down to the size of a billiard ball, all its mountains and trenches would fall well within the WPA’s specifications for smoothness.
However, it should be also be noted that if the Earth is not a perfect sphere. It is an oblate spheroid and should therefore also be tested for conformity to WPA specifications due to its shape. The distance between Earth’s poles is shorter than its diameter at the equator by approximately 43km. The maximum deviation with the respect to the Earth’s average diameter is half that distance, or 21.5km, which is within the scaled up WPA tolerance of 28.3km.
It can therefore be seen that the Earth would conform to WPA specifications for billiard balls if it was scaled down to the appropriate size, and it could said to be smoother than at least some billiard balls that would be permitted by the WPA.
In a similar vein, some college students have proved that Kansas is indeed ‘Flatter than a pancake”!..................
But, if measured from the center of Earth to its peak, the highest mountain on Earth is actually some other mountain somewhere along the equator. This is due to the bulge along the equator, as described above in my previous post. And the tallest mountain on Earth, if measured from base to peak is actually the big island of Hawaii.
...I don’t know the name of that other mountain that is actually higher than Mt Everest, if measured from the center of Earth to its peak, but it can be easily looked up. It’s located somewhere along the equator. Don’t have time now to look for it.
***But, if measured from the center of Earth to its peak, the highest mountain on Earth is actually some other mountain somewhere along the equator.***
Mauna Loa Hawaii.
If you took mt Everest, cut it off at sea level, and dropped it into the Marianas Trench, it would still have a mile of water over it.
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