Slightly wet piece of rock
Fabulous image representing “all the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc.”, on a single sphere.
In the same scale, at right, “all the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density.”
Graphic by Dan Phiffer, via Fogonazos.
UPDATE: This post has been suggested on BoingBoing (wow!), and the power of the masses has quickly located the credits for it.
It’s by Adam Nieman / Science Photo Library (US). Some have doubted the accuracy of the graphic, but Dan Phiffer (check the link above) also updated his post with more info verifying that the representation is correct.
So correct, that Dr Adam Nieman was awarded with it in 2004 in the Visions of Science photo competition.
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Actually, Dan’s website has an update whereby he indicates that he did *not* design the graphic and is not sure of its accuracy.
that’s cool. There should be another one with the moon next to it. or with the mass of all the humans.
Well, that’s not really surprising now that I think about it. The diameter of the Earth is about 7,900 miles, so it would make sense that something that covers its surface. The oceans are 13,000 feet deep at the deepest, about 2.5 miles, according to this, and they only cover 70% of the surface, so their collective volume would be tiny in comparison to the Earth itself. So I wouldn’t be surprised if that image were real.
[edit on that last post]
Nevermind…not 13,000 feet at the deepest but…yeah…sorry…
“The mass of all the humans”? How do you compare mass to volume? That makes no sense.
[...] Re-blogged from Forgetomori. [...]
[...] forgetomori: Fabulous image representing “all the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) [...]
Cool, cool: http://tinyurl.com/2aq3jr via @mhjb (whose baby apparently is due soon)
[...] Slightly wet piece of rock | forgetomoriAn awesome graphic showing “all the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds” and also “all the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density.” [...]
According to wikipedia, there is approx 326,000,000 cubic miles of water on the earth. That is a sphere of only 854 miles in diameter. Looks just about right to me on the map.
enchanted by a lovely graphic of Earth: http://tinyurl.com/2aq3jr
I’m curious, when it says ground water, is it referring just to underground streams and reservoirs, or is it also including all the water absorbed into the mantle as well? If its including the mantle rock, then it doesn’t seem quite as accurate (although I don’t have an numbers to go by so I could be mistaken). According to some show on science channel, there is enough water inside the mantle, that is added to the surface water, would cover the entire earth rising 2.5 miles above the peak of Everest.
Of course… as I said, i don’t have any real numbers to go by, and a lot of what I said is scientific estimations, not measurement. So, my statement my not be entirely accurate.