#34 - Earth Day | April 22, 2020

April 22, 2020 - 10 Facts About Earth

Today is Earth Day. 

1.  The largest living thing on earth is a fungus
   1. Armillaria or honey mushroom
   2. There is 2,200 acres of this mushroom in Oregon
2.  Earth Used to have 2 moons
   1. It was about 750 miles wide, so it was very small
   2. It eventually crashed into our current moon
3.  The Earth is overdue for a pole-flip
   1. For the past 20 million years the poles have pretty consistently flipped every 200-300,000 years
   2. They occur over hundreds or thousands of years
4. 70 percent of Earth’s freshwater is on Antarctica
   1. Its in the ice cap
   2. 90% is ice
5. Earth’s moon gets “moonquakes”
   1. Similar to earthquakes but not as common
   2. They are caused by the tidal stresses associated with the varying distance between earth and the moon 
6. NASA planted a special seed to honor earth day in 2009. 
   1. Called the Moon Tree
   2. Apollo 14, 1971
   3. astronaut Stuart Roosa 
   4. Curious whether or not exposure to the microgravity of space would impact the growth of these seeds. 
7.  A single popular song can consume more electricity than entire countries. 
   1. Remember, “Despacito”
   2. Streamed more than 4.6 billion times worldwide
   3. “used as much electricity as the combined annual electricity consumption of Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic,”
8. According to the EPA, the first Earth Day in 1970 inspired the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. 
9. Twenty of the warmest years on record worldwide have occurred in the past 22 years. 
10. Using a dishwasher is more eco-friendly than hand-washing dishes, according to a recent study from the University of Michigan.