Earth Day Trivia: 20 Facts about the Earth

Aylin Erman |

Sep 10, 2024

Earth day comes but once a year, and what better way to celebrate and honor the beautiful Earth we live on by learning more about it? Here are 20 fun and interesting facts about the earth that will entertain and make you appreciate the vastness that is Mother Earth.

When you are standing, you are actually moving through space at 1,000 miles per hour.
The Earth moves around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour.
Earth is approximately 4.53 billion years old.
The Earth and its rocks recycle themselves by transforming from magma to rock to sedimentary rock to metamorphic rock to magma again.
Like the Earth experiences earthquakes, the moon experiences “moonquakes”.
The largest earthquake in recorded U.S. history was the magnitude 9.2 earthquake in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 2011.
The hottest reported spot on Earth is in El Azizia, Libya, where NASA recorded a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit.
The coldest reported spot on Earth is in Antarctica, where temperatures reach as low as minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The lowest temperature ever recorded was in Russia’s Vostok Station, where temperatures reached minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Antarctic ice gap contains 70 percent of the Earth’s fresh water and 90 percent of its ice.
Over the past 20 million years, the Earth experiences pole reversal ever 200,000 to 300,000 years, although the last one hasn’t occurred in over twice this time.
The world’s longest mountain range is under water. It is called the mid-ocean ridge and stretches 40,389 miles.
The deepest point on the ocean floor is 35,813 feet in the Mariana Trench.
The deepest point not covered by the ocean is 8,382 feet at the Bentley Subglacial Trench in Antarctica.
There are three deadly lakes: the Nyos, Monoun and Kivu.
The Earth may once have not been blue, but purple.
A single lightning strike can heat the air to some 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Humans have only explored 5 percent of the Earth’s oceans, which cover some 70 percent of the Earth’s surface.
Seas hold more than 20 million tons of gold.
The Earth is some 93 million miles from the sun.