Ever since Apollo 8 showed us a big blue marble rising above the lunar horizon, people have wanted to know all they could about Earth. Today, scientists know a lot more, but not every details makes it into the public ear. This means what we hear isn’t exactly what they’re trying to convey, but it’s close enough that everyone misunderstands each other perfectly.
10 Mount Everest Is Moving Sideways, Not Up
Fifty million years ago, the Indian subcontinent decided that it didn’t like the neighborhood south of the Equator and headed north. It eventually smashed into Asia, raising the Himalayan mountain range—including Mount [amazon asin=B0055SJXCI&template=*lrc ad (left)]Everest—during the process. Today, at almost 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) high, Everest is Earth’s tallest mountain that is above sea level. Since the India-Asia collision is ongoing, it’s still rising, right?
Wrong, say scientists who have meticulously measured the mountain’s height. Giorgio Poretti, a University of Trieste professor, learned in 1995 that Mount Everest is not actually rising at a meaningful rate—better instruments have simply improved the accuracy of height measurements. Instead, Poretti says, the ongoing continental collision between India and Asia is actually moving Everest northeast at a rate of 42 millimeters (1.6 in) a year.[amazon asin=B00AFEYS9A&template=*lrc ad (right)]
So on your next Everest trek, you will climb up roughly the same number of meters that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay did in 1953. However, you will be doing it almost 3 meters (10 ft) to the north-northeast of where they achieved their record-breaking success.
9 Mauna Loa Is The Tallest Mountain In The World
Speaking of Mt. Everest—it’s not actually the tallest mountain on Earth. Mauna Loa (which translates to “Long Mountain“) is part of the island of Hawaii. It doesn’t look anywhere near as tall as Everest, but that’s only because it [amazon asin=B000ETRA5U&template=*lrc ad (left)]is mostly submerged, and all we can see are their summits.
From summit to base, Mauna Kea measures a little over 10.2 kilometers (6.3 mi), which makes it much taller than Everest. In addition, Mauna Loa brings more weight to the game and that makes all the difference. About half of the Island of Hawaii is part of Mauna Loa. Volcanoes like Mauna Loa are called “shields” because they are wide and have a low profile like, well, a shield. They form when a volcano erupts lava at a very high rate. Molten rock pours out of Mauna Loa so quickly, it has little time to do anything other than pile up and cool.
Mauna Loa has had frequent eruptions for up to a million years and is still very active. You get a lot of volcano with a million years’ worth of output: 80,000 cubic kilometers (50,000 cubic mi) in fact. The Pacific Ocean is [amazon asin=B000EHSVNW&template=*lrc ad (right)]about 5 kilometers (3 mi) deep at the spot where Mauna Loa first started erupting. The big lava pile eventually pushed the mountain another 4.17 kilometers (2.59 mi) above sea level.
But there’s more. Mauna Loa’s massive weight has depressed the sea floor down another 8 kilometers (5 mi). Taking that into consideration, this volcano is over 17 kilometers (10.5 mi) high, making it by far the tallest mountain on Earth.
8 Tornadoes Are Invisible
[amazon asin=B000EHSVOG&template=*lrc ad (left)]Everybody runs for shelter when they see a tornado coming, but how is it that we can see the tornado in the first place? Air is invisible, after all. Well, technically speaking, what we see is actually a condensation cloud made of water droplets and sometimes dirt and debris. It forms inside the invisible funnel of moving air that is the actual tornado.
Tornadoes typically originate in supercells—thunderstorms that look awesome and have a rotating updraft. No one is quite sure what starts the funnel moving downward from the supercell to the ground. It may be related to temperature differences along the edge of the nearby downdraft. Water vapor usually condenses inside the rotating funnel of air as it descends from the supercell, but tornadoes can and do start wreaking havoc on the ground long before the funnel has completely formed.
For instance, here’s a tornado on the ground with the funnel cloud only partly condensed. If this was heading your way and you didn’t see the debris, you might just stand there watching the natural drama. This could be a fatal mistake.
