3. Taller than Niagara Falls, twice as wide with 275 cascades spread in a horseshoe
shape over nearly two miles of the Iguazu River, IGUAZÚ FALLS are the result of a
volcanic eruption which left yet another large crack in the earth. Four times the
width of Niagara Falls, Iguazu Falls are divided by various islands into separate
waterfalls. During the rainy season of November - March, the rate of flow may reach
450,000 cubic feet (12,750 cubic m) per second.
5. GRAND CANYON, AZ – is a steep gorge by the
Colorado River, AZ, this has the most enjoyable
scenery. It is 277 miles in length, 4 to 18 miles in
width and about a mile in depth.
6. CANADIAN ROCKIES: Top natural wonders of the world, internationally renowned
for the stunning scenery, the sparklingly clean air, and the quiet of unspoiled
wilderness. This is as close as it gets to paradise on earth.
7. CANADIAN ROCKIES: Top natural wonders of the world, internationally renowned
for the stunning scenery, the sparklingly clean air, and the quiet of unspoiled
wilderness. This is as close as it gets to paradise on earth.
Canadian Rockies
8. The VICTORIA FALLS or Mosi-oa-Tunya (the Mist that
Thunders) is a waterfall located in southern Africa on the borders
of Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Zambezi River serves as the fall's
water source. With the collective height and width of the falls, it is
attributed as the largest sheet of falling water in the world.
9. A natural icon of Australia, AYERS ROCK (also known as Uluru) is one of the largest
monoliths in the world. The sandstone formation, which appears to change colors with different
amounts of light, was once an island in a large sea. It rises 1,142 feet from the desert floor and
has a circumference of about 6 miles; much more of its mass remains underground.
10. THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST covers more than 5.5 million square
km (1.4 billion acres) in nine countries, and is the largest and most species-
rich jungle in the world. The Amazon river is the world’s largest, with a total
flow greater than the next top 10 rivers worldwide combined.
11. The world’s biggest coral reef THE GREAT BARRIER REEF is scheme
and is a collection of over 2,910 personal reefs and 900 small islands
that extends for 2,600 kilometers over an area of roughly 344,410
square kilometers in Australia.
13. MT. EVEREST, HIMALAYAS
Renowned highest mountain on Earth the Mount Everest is the peak that makes
the boundary connecting China and Nepal. Its peak being nearly 8,844m high –
and it is still growing by a predictable two to five millimeters each year!
14. AURORA BOREALIS
What is an aurora?
Aurora is a luminous glow of the upper atmosphere which is caused by
energetic particles that enter the atmosphere from above. These particles are
electrons and protons that are energized; this energization process draws its
energy from the interaction of the Earth's magnetosphere with the solar wind.
26. Earth’s MoonThe Earth is unique among the
planets in having a large
satellite, the Moon, which, relative
to the Earth, has the largest mass
of any satellite - parent system.
The Moon affects
the oceanic tides
The Moon helps
stabilize our planet
so that Earth’ axis
of rotation stays in
the same
direction.We had
much less climatic
change than if the
Earth had been
alone.
The Earth's rotation is
slowed through
interactions with the
Moon. If the Moon had
never existed, the
Earth would be
spinning much faster.
In fact, our day would
probably only be about
6 hours long! The fast
rotation rate would
lead to faster winds
and stronger storms.
Lunar calendar is
based on the Moon’s
rotation which is 28
days from new to full
moon. Agriculture was
grown and harvested
during certain phases
of the moon.
The Moon’s gravity
affects the Earth’s crust.
The Moon helps heat
the Earth and influences
the movements of the
tectonic plates. No other
planet in our solar
system has tectonic
plates.
29. Polar Ice Caps
Southern Polar Ice CapNorthern Polar Ice Cap
These ice caps, acting as giant reflectors, bounce the sun's heating rays
back into space and helps keep the Earth cool.
If they melt, it would reveal less-reflective ocean water and land as the
earth absorbs more sunlight and grows hotter.
30. Ocean Conveyor Belt
The ocean conveyor belt plays a crucial role in helping to shape the Earth's climate
by making the Earth's oceans a global system.
The water masses transport both energy (in the form of heat) and matter (solids, dissolved
substances and gases) around the globe. As such, the state of the circulation has a large
impact on the climate of the Earth.
31. Milky Way
Galaxy
(as Seen from Earth
Patagonia, Argentina)
Image features two
irregular satellite
galaxies –
the Large and
Small Magellanic
Clouds.
Recorded on
1-28-07, the scene
also captures
the broad tail and
bright coma of
Comet
McNaught, the Great
Comet of 2007
32. Milky Way Galaxy as seen over
Kofa Mountains in Arizona, USA, taken May 2003
34. The Sun:
(An Erupting Solar Prominence from SOHO)
A solar prominence (also known as
a filament) is an arc of gas that
erupts from the surface of the Sun.
35. Sun Storm: Coronal Mass Ejection
Direct light from the sun is blocked in this picture of the event with the sun's relative
position and size indicated by a white half circle at bottom center. The field of view
extends 2 million kilometers or more from the solar surface.
36. On August 27, 1997, twisting magnetic fields propelled this huge eruptive prominence
a hundred thousand miles above the Sun's surface. The seething plasma of ionized
gases is at a temperature of about 150,000 degrees Fahrenheit and spans over 200,000
miles (about 27 Earths).
38. MERCURY
Length of Year:
88 Days
Length of Day:
1,407 hours and 30 min
(equal to 58.65 hours Earth time, or almost 2 months)
Your Weight on Mercury:
150 lb person would weigh 57 lbs
VENUS
Length of Year:
225 Days
Length of Day:
5,832 hours (Retrograde)
(equal to 243 hours Earth time, or 8 months)
Your Weight on Venus:
150 lb person would weigh 136 lbs
39. MARS
Length of Year:
687 Days
Length of Day:
24 hours and 37 min
Your Weight on Mars:
150 lb person would weigh 57 lbs
Jupiter
Length of Year:
4,331 Days (roughly 12 Earth years)
Length of Day:
9 hours and 56 minutes
Your Weight on Jupiter:
150 lb person would weigh 321 lbs
40. JUPITER
Great Red Spot
Junior Red Spot
The Great Red Spot is a great anti-cyclonic (high pressure) storm akin
to a hurricane on Earth, but it is enormous (three Earths would fit within
its boundaries) and it has persisted for at least the 400 years. Since it is
anti-cyclonic in Jupiter's It’s rotation is counterclockwise, with a period
of about 6 days.
41. Saturn
Length of Year:
10,759 Days (29.5 Earth years)
Length of Day:
10 hours and 39 min
Your Weight on Saturn:
150 lb person would weigh 136 lbs
Uranus
Length of Year:
30,687 Days (roughly 84 Earth years)
Length of Day:
17 hours and 15 minutes
Your Weight on Uranus:
150 lb person would weigh 129 lbs
42. Why would clouds form a hexagon on SATURN’S NORTH POLE?
Nobody is yet sure. Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever
seen anything like it anywhere else in the Solar System.
The bizarre cloud pattern shown above is an infrared image taken by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft.
The images show the stability of the hexagon even 20 years after Voyager. Movies of Saturn's North Pole show
the cloud structure maintaining its hexagonal structure while rotating. Unlike individual clouds appearing like a
hexagon on Earth, the Saturn cloud pattern appears to have six well defined sides of nearly equal length. Four
Earths could fit inside the hexagon.
43. SATURN’S SOUTH POLE
A hurricane-like
storm two-thirds as
wide as the Earth
is raging on
Saturn's south
pole, new images
from the Cassini
spacecraft reveal.
Such clear
hurricane-like
features have
never before been
seen on any other
planet, but
scientists are not
sure what is
causing them.
The dark eye of the
"hurricane" spans
about 8,000
kilometres and is
surrounded by
rings of clouds that
tower about 30 to
75 kilometres
above it.
These eye-wall
clouds have never
been seen
anywhere other
than on Earth in a
hurricane.
But Saturn's storm
also differs from
hurricanes on
Earth because it is
fixed in place -
above the south
pole - and is not
powered by an
ocean, since
Saturn is a
gaseous planet.
It is unclear how
long the storm has
been there
because Cassini
has never before
seen the pole at
such a high
resolution..
44. NEPTUNE
Length of Year:
60,190 Days (roughly 165 Earth years)
*each season lasts 40 years
Length of Day:
16 hours and 7 min
Your Weight on Neptune:
150 lb person would weigh 165 lbs
PLUTO
Length of Year:
90,553 Days (roughly 248 Earth years)
Length of Day:
153 hours 18 Minutes (Retrograde)
(rounded off to 6.5 Earth days)
Your Weight on Pluto:
150 lb person would weigh 12 lbs
45.
46. Eighty-Year Old Mystery in Outer Space
In 1918, astronomer Heber Curtis discovered a jet of matter coming from g
alaxy M87 which he described as "a curious straight ray".
This jet extends at least 5000 light-years from the nucleus of M87 and is made up of matter
ejected from the galaxy. This phenomena is most likely created by a
SUPER MASSIVE BLACK HOLE!
Astronomers believe that the black hole in this galaxy has a mass of approximately 6.4 billion (6.4×109) solar
masses.
In pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1999, the motion of M87's jet was measured at four to six
times the speed of light. (The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. A light year in miles is
5,880,000,000,000 miles, or 5.88 trillion miles.)
47. Galaxy Centaurus A provides one of the best views to date of the effects of
an active super-massive black hole. Opposing jets of high-energy particles
can be seen extending to the outer reaches of the galaxy,
48. WHAT IS A NEBULA?
A nebula is a cloud of gas and dust in space. Some nebulas are regions where new stars
are being formed, while others are the remains of dead or dying stars. Nebulas come in
many different shapes and sizes.
There are four main types of nebulas:
Planetary nebulas: are created when a star blows off its outer
layers after it has run out of fuel to burn. These outer layers of gas expand
into space, forming a nebula which is often the shape of a ring or bubble --
called planetary nebulae because they were round like the planets. At the
center of a planetary nebula the glowing, left-over central part of the star
from which it came can usually still be seen.
Reflection nebulas: is a cloud of gas and dust which does not
create its own light, but instead shines by reflecting the light from nearby
stars. The brightest reflection nebulas are places where new stars are
being formed. Here the gas and dust is thick and shines by the light of
new, bright stars.
Emission nebulas: is a cloud of hot, glowing cloud of gas and
dust in space. These nebulas absorb the light of nearby stars and reach
very high temperatures. The high temperature causes them to glow.
Absorption nebulas: is a cloud of gas and dust which blocks
light from the regions of space behind it. As light from space reaches an
absorption nebula it is absorbed by it and does not pass through.
Absorption nebulas do not create their own light. It is hard to find an
absorption nebula unless it is silhouetted against much brighter region of
space.
67. DEEP SPACE FIELD
NASA pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a single spot in the sky for 10 days
accumulating and combining many separate exposures to come up with …
This image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies.
The image covers 11.0 square arcminutes, smaller than a 1 mm by 1 mm
square of paper held 1 meter away.
68. Psalms: 147: 4
He telleth the number of the stars;
he calleth them all by their names.
