Spyke

Lol wildly exaggerated. Largest height difference on Earth's surface is 13 miles (including underwater) vs. the 8,000 mile diameter. To quote NDGT, "The Earth is smoother than a cue ball"

35
Eheranreply
lemmy.world

"reality" as in extremely exaggerated deviations from the ellipsoid. Otherwise it would just look like a smooth sphere. Earth has 12'700 km diameter. From the shallowest point to mount everest are just about 20 km. That is a 0.15 % change. You would see nothing.

87

To put in perspective how shallow a 0.15% change is, a dimple on a golf ball is roughly 4 times deeper than that (0.60% of a difference in depth).

24
Zoboomafooreply
lemmy.world

"Smoother and rounder than a bowling ball" is my usual comparison

13

I think that would be too much. A bowling ball is really smooth. It would not roll as well with such deviations all over the place.

At a diameter of 22 cm, the roughness would have to be in the order of 0.3 mm, which would not just be visible due to the distorted reflections, it would even be audible while rolling.

1
kbin.social

In Finnish language we already have the kinda rare expression "rapakon takana" ("behind the mud puddle") about stuff that's happening in America.

31

Isn't the Atlantic Ocean going to become larger than the Pacific in a relatively short geologic time scale? I ask because this is mander.xyz and I'm lazy, and also because I'm aware of the Mid-Atlantic ridge seafloor spreading and the fact that the Americas used to be attached to Europe and Africa. Meanwhile the Pacific plate is subducting under various continental plates.

Keep bullying the Atlantic and see what happens in 100 million years when it's bigger than you 🫣

12

Atlantic was surveyed in imperial units, Pacific in metric.

9
jmcsreply
discuss.tchncs.de

At a global scale, the Mariana Trench and the Everest are the same depth. It's less than 20 Km of difference against a mean diameter of 12742 Km.

3

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