What are Earth’s layers interesting facts?

🔘 Inner core is at the very center of Earth.
✔️ Radius: 1,221 km (759 miles)
✔️ Temperature: About 5,200 degrees °C (9,392 degrees Fahrenheit)
✔️ Pressure: Nearly 3.6 million atmospheric pressure (atm)
✔️ State: Solid
✔️ Composition: Mostly iron and some nickel
🔁 Inner core rotates in the same direction as the surface of the planet but rotates ever so slightly faster, completing one extra rotation every 1,000 years or so.

⚫️ Outer core is sandwiched between the inner core and the mantle. The boundary between the inner and outer core is known as the Lehman Seismic Discontinuity.
✔️ Thickness: 2,300 km (1,400 miles)
✔️ Temperature: Between 4,500 degrees °C and 5,500 degrees °C (8,132 degrees F and 9,932 degrees F).
✔️ State: Fluid
✔️ Composition: Iron and nickel
🧲 The swirling motion of the outer core generates Earth's magnetic field in a process called geodynamo. Magnetism inside Earth's core is approximately 50 times stronger than it is on the surface. Eventually, the entire core will solidify and Earth's magnetic field will cease to exist. That will be bad news for our planet as the magnetic field protects us from harmful cosmic radiation. We still have a few billions of years of protection left though.

🔴 The mantle can be divided into the upper and lower mantle (also known as the mesospheric mantle), with the upper mantle containing two distinct regions: the asthenosphere and the lower portion of the lithosphere.
✔️ Thickness: Approximately 2,900 km (1,800 miles)
✔️ Temperature: 3,700 degrees °C to 1,000 degrees °C (6,692 degrees F to 1,832 degrees F)
✔️ State: Solid
✔️ Composition: Magnesium, silicon and oxygen
🌡 The immense pressure keeps this layer solid despite the high temperatures capable of softening the rocks. Though geologists are yet to agree on a definitive structure of the lower mantle.
💎 Diamonds are forged within the mantle approximately 150 to 200 km (93 to 124 miles) below the surface.

🟥 The asthenosphere is a 180 km (110 miles) thick layer of the upper mantle that sits between the lower mantle and the lithosphere.
✔️ Temperature: 1,500 degrees °C (2,732 degrees F)
✔️ Thickness: 180 km (110 miles)
🪨 Rocks in the asthenosphere are "on the verge" of melting.

🟫 The lithosphere is the outermost layer of Earth, composed of the crust and the brittle part of the upper mantle.
✔️ Depth: 8 to 32 km (5 to 20 miles)
✔️ Temperature: Range from 0 to 500 degrees °C (32 to 932 degrees F).
↔️ The boundary between the brittle part of the upper mantle and the crust (both oceanic and continental) is known as the Mohorovičić Discontinuity (Moho), which depth varies from about 8 km (5 miles) below oceanic crust to 32 km (20 miles) below continental crust.

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Why is the Earth an ever-changing landscape?

🔺 The theory of plate tectonics, developed during the mid-20th century, revolutionized scientific understanding of the Earth’s dynamics. It proposes that the Earth’s lithosphere consists of several tectonic plates that float on the semi-fluid asthenosphere beneath.

🔺 There are seven major plates ⬆️⬇️
1️⃣The African Plate
2️⃣The Antarctic Plate
3️⃣The Eurasian Plate
4️⃣The Indo-Australian Plate (sometimes divided into Indian Plate and Australian Plate)
5️⃣The North American Plate
6️⃣The Pacific Plate
7️⃣The South American Plate
There are also smaller plates like the Nazca, Cocos, Scotia, Caribbean, Arabian, and Philippine Sea Plate.

🔺 The largest plates, like the Pacific and Eurasian plates, span thousands of kilometers across. Smaller plates are just a few hundred kilometers across.

🔺 Plates’ size and shape continually change over geological time due to the dynamic nature of plate tectonics.

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Why is International Polar Bear Day celebrated on 27 February?

🐻‍❄️International Polar Bear Day was first initiated in 1994 by Polar Bear International.

📌This non-profit organization founded the day to coincide with the time period when polar bear moms and cubs are snug in their dens.

🐻‍❄️Each year, in early January, polar bear females give birth to tiny helpless cubs in a snow den where they spend several months until cubs are big and strong enough for a life in the Arctic.

ℹ️Polar bears, the largest carnivorous land animals, are considered a keystone species in the Arctic ecosystem, playing a crucial role in maintaining the balance of their habitat. However, they are facing numerous threats, primarily due to human activities and climate change.

International Polar Bear also serves
📌as a platform to promote conservation measures that can help to safeguard the future of the Arctic
📌as a reminder of the importance of collective efforts to protect this vulnerable species.

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What is the importance of February 28 for India?

🇮🇳🗓 Since 1986, every year in India, National Science Day is observed on February 28.

This date is related to the time period in 1928 when Indian Physicist Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888-1970) ⬆️ announced discovery of the Raman Effect, or the Raman scattering.

The Raman Effect is the phenomenon where light gets scattered when passed through a transparent material, leading to changes in wavelength and energy.

CV Raman also received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 due to his significant contribution in this field of science.

The day aims to raise awareness about the importance of scientific applications in our daily lives.

The day also aims to celebrate and acknowledge the efforts and achievements of scientists in human welfare.

The theme for National Science Day 2024 is - Indigenous Technologies for Viksit Bharat.

💬✍️"Success can come to you by courageous devotion to the task lying in front of you." - CV Raman

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What are some surprising facts about leap years?

ℹ️ 2024 is a leap year with an extra day on February 29.

✍️ Here are some interesting facts about leap years and February 29 ⬇️.

📍🗓 In his Julian calendar, Julius Caesar introduced the first leap year around 46 B.C., but this calendar had only one rule: Any year evenly divisible by four would be a leap year. That created too many leap years, but the math wasn't tweaked until Pope Gregory XIII introduced his Gregorian calendar more than 1,500 years later.

📍 All the other months in the Julian calendar have 30 or 31 days, but February lost out to the ego of Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus. Under his predecessor Julius Caesar, February had 30 days and the month named after him - July - had 31. August had only 29 days. When Caesar Augustus became Emperor he added two days to 'his' month to make August the same as July. So February lost out to August in the battle of the extra days.

📍 Without an extra day on February 29 nearly every four years, we would lose almost six hours every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days.

📍 People born on February 29 are called "leaplings" or "leapers".

📍 The odds of being born on a leap day are 1 in about 1500.

📍🔮 Astrologers believe people born on February 29 have unusual talents

📍🇮🇹🇬🇷🇷🇺🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Some countries, e.g. Italy, Greece, Russia and Scotland, consider Leap Year and Leap Day to be the unluckiest of times.

📍💍 In some countries, it's OK for a woman to propose to a man on February 29.

📍🐸 In some countries, the frog is a symbol associated with February 29.

📍🇺🇸 The twin cities of Anthony, Texas, and Anthony, New Mexico, are the self-proclaimed Leap Year Capital of the World. They hold a four-day leap year festival that includes a huge birthday party for all leap year babies. (ID required.)

📍🇫🇷 🗞 Since 1980, a special French newspaper has only been published on Leap Day. La Bougie du Sapeur is only available on February 29, and it usually outsells all other newspapers on that day.

📍🎂 Many companies don’t recognize Leap Day as a “valid day.” They make leapers choose Feb. 28 or March 1 as their birthday instead.

📍🫰💳 Most employees who are paid fixed monthly incomes will work for free on Feb. 29 because their wages are likely not calculated to include the extra day.

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How many early human species existed on Earth?

The answer to this question depends on the definition of a human, the definition of a species and the degree to which you accept variation within a species.

Most experts agree that our species, Homo sapiens (Latin for “wise men”), may be the ninth and youngest human species.

H. habilis: the handyman (2.4 million – 1.4 million years ago)

H. erectus: the enduring hiker (1.89 million to 110.000 years ago)

H. rudolfensis: the stranger (1.9 million to 1.8 million years ago)

H. heidelbergensis: the hunter (700,000 to 200,000 years ago)

H. floresiensis: the Hobbit (100,000 to 50,000 years ago)

H. neanderthalensis: The Neanderthal (400,000 – 40,000 years ago)

H. naledi (335,000 to 236,000 years ago)

H. luzonensis (at least 67,000 years ago)

Some scientists say that there were up to twenty early human species.

There is also a growing debate about whether H. Sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans are in fact all one species.

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Who was the only member of genus Homo during nearly a million years?

According to scientists, Homo habilis lived as the only member of genus Homo for nearly a million years.

This species with a slightly larger braincase and smaller face and teeth than older hominin species is widely considered to be the first member of the genus Homo that evolved from apes. But it still retained some ape-like features, including long arms and a moderately-prognathic face.

Its name, which means ‘handy man’, was given in 1964 because this species was thought to represent the first maker of stone tools. Currently, the oldest stone tools are dated slightly older than the oldest evidence of the genus Homo.

Researchers believe that Homo habilis lived in Eastern and Southern Africa between 2,4 and 1,4 million years ago, its average height was 100-135 cm (3 ft 4 in – 4 ft 5 in) and its average weight was 32 kg (70 lbs).

Look at one of facial reconstructions of Homo habilis ⬆️.

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What Homo species was the first that stood fully upright and cooked its food?

As the name implies, Homo erectus (also called Homo ergaster) is the first known Homo species that stood fully upright.

Homo erectus featured other, modern human proportions distinct from those of apes: shorter arms relative to the torso, and long legs adapted for walking and running, rather than climbing trees.

Scientists found campfires and hearths near the remains of Homo erectus, suggesting they were also the first humans to dabble with cooking — a uniquely human activity that gave access to easily digestible food, allowing brains and bodies to grow.

Researchers believe that Homo erectus was a very successful species that lived in Africa and in Asia between 1,89 million and 110,000 years ago, its average height was 145-185 cm (4 ft 9 in – 6 ft 1 in) and its average weight was 40-68 kg (88-150 lbs).

Look at one of facial reconstructions of Homo Erectus ⬆️.

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What humans were the first to live in cold places?

Homo Heidelbergenis (sometimes referred to as Homo Rhodesiensis) was the first early human species to live in colder climates.Their short, wide bodies were likely an adaptation to conserving heat.

It lived at the time of the oldest definite control of fire and use of wooden spears, and it was the first early human species to routinely hunt large animals and to build shelters out of wood and rock.

Researchers believe that Homo Heidelbergensis lived in Africa, in Europe and possibly in Asia between 700,000 and 200,000 years ago. The average height for males and females was 175 cm (5 ft 9 in) and 157 cm (5 ft 2 in) respectively. The average weight for males and females was 62 kg (136 lbs) and 51 kg (112 lbs) respectively.

Heidelbergensis is the latinised word for 'Heidelberg', the German city where the first fossil of this species was discovered in 1907-08.

Look at one of facial reconstructions of Homo Heidelbergensis ⬆️.

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What could play a unique role for the emergence of life on Earth?

🌋⚡️A new study says that lightning strikes hitting volcanic eruptions ⬆️ could play a crucial role in producing high levels of nitrogen, thereby facilitating the birth of the earliest life forms.

Nitrogen, a fundamental element for life on Earth, when combined with lightning, reacts with oxygen to form nitrogen oxide, which then gets released into the soil, creating a fertile ground for life to emerge and thrive.

The researchers analyzed samples from ancient volcanic sites and found that the substantial amounts of nitrates found were of atmospheric origin, suggesting that these essential life-giving elements were delivered by lightning, not derived from the volcanic eruptions themselves.

The phenomenon of volcanic lightning, which typically occurs at the eruption’s onset, was observed in two key areas: near the ground within ash clouds and higher up in the plume of volcanic smoke that reaches the stratosphere.

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What are the different parts of a plant?

🌱🍀🌿 Broadly, plants have 2️⃣ organ systems:

🟤 The Root System that covers the underground parts of a plant and includes the roots, tubers, and rhizomes.

🟢 The Shoot System that consists of parts found above the ground, such as leaves, stems, flowers, and fruits.

A typical diagram of a plant body consists of 3️⃣ parts:

🟫 Roots, that lie below the surface of the soil. The top part of a root (root apex) is covered by a covering known as root cap.

🟩 Stems, found above the ground and are structurally divided into nodes, the regions where leaves are found, and internodes, the areas in-between the nodes.

🍃 Leaves, each having specialized functions and mostly found above the ground and attached to the stem.

A flowering plant also contains:
🌷🌼🌺 Flowers, the most colorful and attractive parts of a plant,
and
🍓🫑🍅 Fruits, the ripened ovary found in flower after fertilization.

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