All the Water and Air in the World?!

Air and water to scale...phew!

This little image from 2004 should make anyone stop and think for a moment. It's all the air and water we've got to share on this beautiful, blue bead as it rolls through our small corner of space....

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cc876cb160dc.jpg[/atsimg]
♪♫ ♪ water on the left of me, air is on the right ♪ ♫ ♫

From space, the Earth is a water planet. Oceans cover more than 70 per cent of its surface and are around 13,000ft deep. Yet, as this image shows, if every drop of water in the world was collected in a sphere, it would be just 869 miles across - barely big enough to cover Eastern Europe. If the same exercise was done with the air - the nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and other gases that blanket the Earth - the ball would be not much bigger, as the globe on the right shows.

The simplicity of the idea, but the impact of the result, made All the Water and Air in the World a clear winner of last year's Novartis/Daily Telegraph Visions of Science photographic awards.

Pictures that cast new light on our planet

Doesn't look like much, huh? Hardly enough to go around was my first thought. It's been going around for millions of years...back to the dinosaurs and beyond. Looking at it like this shows what a vulnerable little place our Earth is...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5fbc39d9a921.gif[/atsimg]



Forgetomori: Slightly wet piece of rock

That's an amazing reality check Kandinsky.

At first I thought it was about fresh water. But all water is not so much together as I thought.

Still all that water is part of a recycle system. Apperently this all the Earth needs.

The air I don't know. Air is what makes our atmosphere. Right.
Oxygen levels are suceptable for change. I don't know if air is still air without the oxygen. Do you ?

s&f.

[edit on 14-4-2010 by Sinter Klaas]

Good find Kandinsky I find it hard to get my head around the small size of the water on Earth, you would have thought it would be much more than a ball the size of Eastern Europe!!

[edit on 14-4-2010 by Majestic RNA]

Wow cool find.
It's a bit scary to think that everday we poison the water and air anyway, but an even scarier thought now.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas

The air I don't know. Air is what makes our atmosphere. Right. Oxygen levels are suceptable for change. I don't know if air is still air without the oxygen. Do you ?

Thanks for the reply Sinter. Air is atmosphere and he used the composition as it's known now to arrive at the figure that defined the sphere. I've no idea what the size of the sphere of air would look like in the dim past. When photosynthesis kicked in during the PreCambrian , the atmosphere was pumped with oxygen. I'm happy for someone to bring more information, I'm not informed enough to post an opinion on it.

Awesome thread, awesome, yet slightly unnerving
S&F

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
That's an amazing reality check Kandinsky.

At first I thought it was about fresh water. But all water is not so much together as I thought.

Still all that water is part of a recycle system. Apperently this all the Earth needs.

The air I don't know. Air is what makes our atmosphere. Right.
Oxygen levels are suceptable for change. I don't know if air is still air without the oxygen. Do you ?

s&f.

[edit on 14-4-2010 by Sinter Klaas]

There was actually a study done where they found out that high levels of pure oxygen leads to brain damage, once they put some CO2 in it, it worked fine though, so it's a nice little cocktail we have on our blue rock.
Here's the link to the study
www.medicalnewstoday.com...

reply to post by hippomchippo


I believe oxygen is a toxic gas. It caused the first mass extinction.
After the first organisms started to produce it.