I learned this today. The Sahara Desert has grown so big because the precession of the Earth’s axis as it rotates around the sun changes the location of the African monsoon. The Sahara Desert is 9.2 million square kilometers, which makes it bigger than every country except for Russia, Canada, China and the USA. The […]
#229 How did the Sahara Desert get so big? Read More »
I learned this today. The 1815 Mt. Tambora eruption lowered global temperatures and caused the Year Without a Summer. Mt. Tambora is a volcano on the island of Sumbawa, which is in Indonesia these days. At the time of the eruption, the islands were controlled by the Dutch. The eruption reshaped the island and decimated
#199 What effect did the 1815 Mt. Tambora eruption have? Read More »
I learned this today. New Delhi became the capital of India in 1911 because the previous capital Kolkata had become too politically unstable, and it was too far from the center of India to be an effective capital. India has an extremely long history and people first lived there 55,000 years ago. Over the millennia,
#174 How did New Delhi become the capital of India? Read More »
I learned this today. Antarctica is a polar desert because it has less than 250mm a year of precipitation, which is the set amount to be classified as a desert. However, it is classified as an ice cap climate because it isn’t hot enough to be called a desert. Deserts can be classified using the
#167 Is Antarctica a desert? Read More »
I learned this today. The different rocks of Stonehenge came from three different places. Stonehenge was probably built between 3000 and 2000 BC. Originally, it was constructed with wood. Wooden posts dating from 8000 BC have been found there, suggesting that it has been a place of significance for a long time. The first Stonehenge
#141 Where did the stones of Stonehenge come from? Read More »
I learned this today. Tectonic plates move because the weight of their cold dense side pulls them into the mantle of the Earth. This is called slab pull. Hot things rise and cold things sink. This occurs because hot things have more energy than cold things, so the atoms move more and spread out. This
#74 Why do tectonic plates move? Read More »
I learned this today. The Panama Canal has reduced the journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean by 8,000 nautical miles (14,818 km), about 22 days. Before the Panama Canal was built in 1914, boats would have to either sail around the southernmost point of South America or up through the Bering Strait.
#66 How much time does the Panama Canal save a ship? Read More »
I learned this today. Hurricanes and tornados are not the same thing. Hurricanes, typhoons. and cyclones always form over the sea. Incidentally, hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones are all different names for the same thing, except they form in different places. Hurricanes are tropical storms that form over the North Atlantic Ocean and the Northeast Pacific.
#19 Are hurricanes and tornados the same thing? Read More »
I learned this today. The Earth wouldn’t really have seasons if it wasn’t tilted on its axis, and that is thanks to the moon. The Earth is tilted at an angle of 23.5°. If the Earth was completely straight, we would have mild temperature changes as the Earth moved closer and farther away from the
#6 Why does the Earth have seasons? Read More »
