Picture shows how all the water on Earth would fit into one 860-mile-wide ball

Originally posted by ka119

Originally posted by Infi8nity
They say the planet surface is 3/4ths water, but I wonder if they take into a account the all the sea life.

edit on 8-5-2012 by Infi8nity because: (no reason given)

What?
How is that relevant at all?

C'mon, seagull's with their fat tail sections gotta take up some space? And I'd venture to think that whales breeching the surface at any given moment have to fluctuate that percentage by at least .00000000001%

reply to post by rival


Yep. A good analogy is to imagine the Earth as a large rubber ball. The crustal Mountains wouldn't even be a bump on the ball, it would be nearly flat as far as you could tell. The oceans and lakes would just be a very thin film.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Yes, but that's just area, not volume. Now we're talking in miles, so let's say the oceans had an evenly distributed depth of 1 mile, you would then say 138 million square miles, well short of the 333 million square miles in the sphere. Clearly there's some doubling up of depth over 1 mile (clearly, ha) that compensates for the 6 to 10 foot depth of water in, say, Florida Bay or how I can walk in waste deep water for about 30 feet at my closest beach.

Also, it should be noted that 3% of earth's water is fresh, so roughly 10 million square miles of that sphere.

Originally posted by wlord

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
Water doesn't make up a huge percentage of the Earth.

lol...

What exactly are you laughing at huh? I'd be laughing at your own stupidity if I were you.

You know what I find funny about this thread... the factual posts have not even half the amount of stars that the incorrect posts have received. Merely because people don't think it "seems right". You people need to learn some science.

I did a computation on wolfram alpha and it came up with over six thousand miles cubed.

That image is in no way correct.

Your welcome!

Originally posted by facelift
reply to post by jazz10

 

Why is the ball over north america..?

Everybody knows the world revolves around America lmao.

Very cool perspective picture, and with a barren earth behind, it also puts in perspective how much this place would look like Mars given given a few changes in nature, the earth, and the sun.

reply to post by TiM3LoRd


This might have been funny once.....of course, I posted THIS image:



But, RTFD ('reading the full thread') seems to be a 'lost art', nowadays.........

reply to post by kbriggss

I did a computation on wolfram alpha and it came up with over six thousand miles cubed.

Care to "show your work"??

Thanks, in advance......

Originally posted by jazz10
Short but sweet as the picture says it all really. But have they really done the sums properly.
Here is the link

When people talk about our water supply running out, it's often difficult to imagine - but according to the U.S. government's Geological Survey, all the water on Earth would fit into an 860-mile-wide bubble. Around 70% of Earth's surface IS water-covered - but it's a very, very thin layer. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...

I dunno about this... Water isn't only on the surface, there are subteranean lakes and seas. In fact pretty much everywhere we inhabit has a water table beneath it. So as much as this looks right considering the seas are barren I kind of feel as if this is playing into the whole " Water shortage " plan. I agree, in the sense that fresh water will be more valuable than gold, but if this is true why aren't we more concerned with billions of liters of oil spewing into the sea, or huge amounts of radiation being poured into the sea, as well as nuclear tests done above on and in it. I would think that comparably little ball of water would be horrifically toxic today if this was so. Would it not? As another poster mentioned what about the Oceanic Trenches, and other deep planes, This image almost makes it scoff worthy to think, that much water keeps us from exploring the vast majority of our wonderful world.

Seriously though, almost every surface of the earth HAS WATER! Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there, and this is why so many are afraid of the chemical and nuclear spills on land, the water beneath it. The world is a lot different than meets the eyes, and I'm truly shocked if the water I know is beneath my home and all the lakes, glaciers, snow caps and oceans is only that much.

Hey, this is kinda cool, amazes me what can be worked out using maths... what i'd like to ask anyone tho is how do they know how much the earth weighs exactly?

cheers

A helpful visualization would be the 7 Continents,
removed at the same depths of the oceans average,
then....rolled into an even smaller harmless
little ball.
Thus making the 860 mile diameter
Water Planet, much more impressive.
That would surely calm everyones nerves.

As would a visualization I remember hearing about where;
All of all the worlds people, standing shoulder to shoulder,
will fit inside an average county in Vermont*.

*(dont know why they went with Vermont,
but I do remember reading it)

reply to post by reg

what i'd like to ask anyone tho is how do they know how much the earth weighs exactly?

Here's the answer:

The quick answer to that is: approximately 6,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000 (6E+24) kilograms.

One Source

AND here.......

How do scientists measure or calculate the weight of a planet?

This isn't "difficult" science.....BIG numbers, yes.....difficult, no.........

(Thanks to Sir Isaac Newton..... lol....He'd LOL at people today, if he were still alive!! )....

reply to post by Ilyich


You don't seem to be "getting it".

Recall that whilst H2O is abundant (in many forms, even if not pure enough for us to "drink") in the Universe, it is still a pre-requisite for "life as we know it"....at least, here on Earth.

Oh, and......THAT symbolic representation (and the MATH confirms it) is of the "known" water.....sure, more may be "hidden" in aquifers in the Earth's crust....BUT, the crust of the Earth is (as already mentioned) on a scale of a few sheets of paper, laid over a basket ball.......the REST of the planet's mass does NOT contain water....well, maybe some, but it's damn hot!

The REAL image to take away from this thread is the fact that it is quite, quite, quite plausible that ALL (or some of, at least) our water currently on this planet came from elsewhere....."carried" here by comets, or other impactors.

THAT is a plausible theory of how life (and water) can 'migrate' through the Cosmos, over time.....also known as "panspermia" (though, "panspermia" involves the introduction of life, from elsewhere....which needs WATER, as far as we know).....

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by bigshow
You all realize the only way we would run out of water is if the population gets far too great right? Water is a form of energy... law of thermodynamics, energy can be changed but neither created nor destroyed.

We are not running short on water. You drink it, you perspire and urinate... it goes back into the ground or into the air. That's what makes clouds... and then it rains.

I love people saying we are running out of water.

You add salt to it, you can't drink it.

Oops.

Take salt out again and Presto!

Drinky Drinky

Originally posted by reg
Hey, this is kinda cool, amazes me what can be worked out using maths... what i'd like to ask anyone tho is how do they know how much the earth weighs exactly?

cheers

It doesn't matter how much it weighs, this has to do with volume and surface area

Seriously?? People are trying to refute this very, VERY easily verified issue??? Simple high school Algebra/Geometry. The picture is very much accurate. It's been mathematically proven by several posters. The apple made it as simple as humanly possible. Peel the apple, the peel scrunched up in a ball is very very tiny compared to the apple. Water doesn't go below the crust of the earth.

I came here because I thought it was a site for intelligent people to get together and discuss things. Please don't disappoint me like this

reply to post by PurpleChiten


WELCOME to ATS!!!:

I came here because I thought it was a site for intelligent people to get together and discuss things. Please don't disappoint me like this.

Yeah.....seems a bit "unfair", doesn't it?

Still, welcome.

Oh, By The Way.....do you know BB Code? (Will help.....took me a while, when a "Newbie", to "get it"...).

HERE (from the "Freshman's Forum"):

A Guide to BBCode on ATS

reply to post by magma


Yup!! Exactly!

Take salt out again and Presto!

Energy is all that is required....uh-oh......

Originally posted by ProudBird
reply to post by PurpleChiten

 

WELCOME to ATS!!!:

I came here because I thought it was a site for intelligent people to get together and discuss things. Please don't disappoint me like this.

Yeah.....seems a bit "unfair", doesn't it?

Still, welcome.

Oh, By The Way.....do you know BB Code? (Will help.....took me a while, when a "Newbie", to "get it"...).

HERE (from the "Freshman's Forum"):

A Guide to BBCode on ATS

[color=darkpurple] EXCELLENT! I love it! Thanks!

reply to post by Sphota


Sorry, in the haste of my crappy math I put the wrong measurments.

860 mile wide Sphere would equate to 333,038,142.749 Cu Miles.

The total oceanic volume estimated here hypertextbook.com... 322,280,000 Cu Miles.
According to NOAA which breaks it down even further
ngdc.noaa.gov...
All the Worlds oceans combined are 1.7b cu km or 322,280,000 cu miles.

Which WOULD in fact fit inside a 860mile wide sphere.

V = (4/3) × pi × r3

or

Volume = (4/3) x 3.141592653 x 430³