FACTS OF GEOGRAPHY

Without any greenhouse effect, Earth would be cold and lifeless with an average temperature of -17.5 degrees Celsius.

More water flows over Niagara Falls every year than over any other falls on earth.

An iceberg contains more heat than a lit match.

 All the moons of the solar system are named after Greek and Roman mythological characters, except for the moons of Uranus, which are named after Shakespearean characters.

 The highest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit at Al'Aziziya, Libya, in 1922.

 The South Pole is actually a desert environment, averaging about the same amount of monthly rainfall as the Sahara Desert.

 If all the salt were to be extracted from the Earth's oceans, you would have enough salt to cover all the continents five feet deep.

 Mercury has been known since the third millennium BC. The Greeks gave it two names - Apollo, for its apparition as a morning star, and Hermes, as an evening star. Greek astronomers knew, however, that the two names referred to the same body.

 The lowest temperature ever recorded in the world was 129 degree below zero at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.

 It is estimated that a plastic container can resist decomposition for as long as 50,000 years.

 Finland has the greatest number of islands in the world - 1, 79,584.

 Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles or snakes.

 The Saito Alto (Angel Falls) in Venezuela is the highest waterfall known. It is more than twenty times higher than Niagara Falls.

 The average hurricane generates energy which is roughly equal to 40,020 megaton bombs exploding in one day.

 This is the equivalent of all the electrical energy used in the United States for 6 months.

 Quito in Ecuador, South America, is said to have the most pleasant climate in the world. It is called the “Land of Eternal Spring”. The temperature rarely drops below 46 degrees Fahrenheit during the night or exceeds 72 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

 There is so much moisture in the air that if all were to condense and fall, there would be up to an additional three inches of water added to the earth's surface.

 Jupiter is two and a half times larger than all the other planets, satellites, asteroids and comets of our solar system combined.

 Antarctica is 98% ice, 2% barren rock. The average thickness of the ice sheet is 7,200 feet. This amounts to 90% of all the ice and 70% of all the fresh water in the world. If the ice cap were to melt, the sea level would rise by an average of 230 feet.

 The sun burns 9 million tone gases a second. At this rate, it has be estimated that it will burn out in another 10 billion years.

 97 per cent of earth's water is not fit for drinking.

 The flag of Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace and war. A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in times of peace and the red portion is flown on top during war time.

 Small asteroid exploded in the air in 1908 near River Tunguska in Siberia. The resulting shock wave flattened 800 square miles of forest. The detonation’s force was estimated to have been 1,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

 Rubies and sapphires are made of corundum - the hardest known rock on Earth after the diamond, which was first found in India 4,000 years back.

 Tsunamis travel as fast as jet planes.

 The amount of garbage that is dumped in the world's oceans annual is three times the weight of fish that i caught from the oceans.