Earth Science Trivia

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hurricane Katrina

Hurricanes

Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the deadliest  
hurricanes in the history of the United States. It was the  
sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the  
third-strongest land falling U.S. hurricane ever recorded.  

Hurricane Katrina attained Category 5 status on the morning  
of August 28 and reaching its peak strength at 1:00 p.m.  
CDT that day, with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph.  

A hurricane is a severe tropical storm that forms in the  
North Atlantic Ocean, the Northeast Pacific Ocean east of  
the dateline, or the South Pacific Ocean east of 160E.  
***  
Hurricanes rotate in a counter-clockwise direction  
around an "eye."  
  ***    
A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when winds reach  
74 mph.  
Hurricanes are classified into five categories,  
based on their wind speeds and potential to cause damage.  
  ***  
    * Category One -- Winds 74-95 miles per hour  
    * Category Two -- Winds 96-110 miles per hour  
    * Category Three -- Winds 111-130 miles per hour  
    * Category Four -- Winds 131-155 miles per hour  
    * Category Five -- Winds greater than 155 miles per hour  
    ***  

Without using precision instruments, Eratosthenes measured the radius of Earth in the third century B.C., and came within 1 percent of the value determined by today's technology. 

Geyser is derived from an Icelandic word for "hot springs."  

Lunar eclipse 11/8/03 (Thank you, John Costa)

The Arctic Ocean is is the smallest and shallowest ocean.  

According to National Geographic, Mt. Everest grows about 4 millimeters a year: the two tectonic plates of Asia and India, which collided millions of years ago to form the  Himalayas, continue to press against each other, causing the Himalyan peaks to grow slightly each year.

The highly rarefied region above the chromosphere, called the corona, extends millions of kilometers into space but is visible only during a total solar eclipse (left). Temperatures in the corona are over 1,000,000 K.  

The surface of the Sun, called the photosphere, is at a temperature of about 5800 K. Sunspots  are "cool" regions, only 3800 K (they look dark only by comparison with the surrounding regions).  

Talk about old...  

The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old. Since its birth it has used up about half of the hydrogen in its core.  It will continue to radiate "peacefully" for another 5  
billion years or so (although its luminosity will approximately double in that time). But eventually it will run out of hydrogen fuel. It will then be forced into radical  
changes which, though commonplace by stellar standards, will result in the total destruction of the Earth.

(Courtesy of Nine Planets)  

The record for underground living goes to a species of  
chemolithotrophic bacteria, found in basalt deposits 4,700  
feet underground in solid volcanic rock. Scientists in  
search of oil discovered it while analyzing drill core  
samples.  

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