We are all aware that the Earth is mostly made up of water. This simple fact has been taught
to us since we started going to school, and it has been repeated by our teachers every time.
We may also have learned that the Pacific is the world's largest part of the ocean.
However, the vast scale of this ocean's largest part will almost certainly surprise you. In fact,
to claim that the Pacific Ocean is massive wouldn’t be enough. The Pacific Ocean is
immense. It is so huge that it may be difficult to visualize. But today, in this video, I'll show you
the Pacific Ocean and how big it really is. To begin, let’s say that you are on a boat
at the Pacific Ocean's coordinates. That means you’re near the coasts of the countries, Chile and
Peru in South America. Then, suddenly, you decide to board a submarine and descend to the bottom of
the Pacific Ocean, where you eventually discover a way out to the other side of the world by drilling
through the Earth and emerging on the other side of the world. Isn't that a real thrill? However,
regardless of how far you thought you'd gotten, you're still stuck inside the Pacific Ocean.
Specifically, you are in the Gulf of Tonkin, which lies close to Vietnam's and China's coasts.
The Pacific Ocean is so large that it has multiple antipodes or places that could
be found on the opposite sides of the globe but are still part of the ocean.
Although parts of the Pacific Ocean cover more than half of the planet's surface,
the longest continuous body of water is between the Indonesian islands and Colombia's coast.
This continuous body of water covers over nineteen thousand and eight hundred kilometers. Obviously,
this is a massive distance, large enough to put the entire diameter of the moon between
the distances. In fact, five moons could fit in this space and still have plenty to spare.
When we look at Google Maps, the Pacific Ocean appears to cover about half
of the globe. Even if I emphasize that the Pacific takes up a huge portion of the ocean,
it's important to highlight that this depiction of the Pacific Ocean is misleading. The truth is you
can never see half of the Earth at the same time. This is because the world is formed like a sphere,
which leads to this so-called horizon, which is the point where the planet begins curving away
from your point of view. Be reminded that no matter how far away you travel from the Earth
or see what it looks like from above, you'll always meet a horizon that prevents you from
seeing the entire globe. That is to say, rather than demonstrating half of the planet's surface,
the Pacific Ocean takes up around one-third of the planet's surface, which is still massive,
massive enough to not be ignored. There are two distinct methods for dividing
the earth's surface into two equal hemispheres. Most of us probably knew the Eastern and Western
hemispheric views of the world, however, this notion isn’t based on strong pieces of evidence,
and was just from the claims of the British people in the 19th century. At that time,
they believed that they were the center of the world. Then came a new way of dividing the Earth,
resulting in two hemispheres: the water hemisphere and the land hemisphere, the two sides of the
globe with the most water and the other with the most land. The Pacific Ocean covers the
majority of the water hemisphere. Moreover, the water hemisphere consists of 89 percent,
5 percent polar ice cap, and only 6 percent of it is composed of dry land. This means that if you
become stuck in this part of the Earth, it might be really hard for you to be able to find land.
The Pacific Ocean has a surface size of 165.25 million square kilometers,
which is difficult to comprehend if you aren't into mathematics. To demonstrate clearly,
consider the size of the combined surface area of the continents: North America, South America,
Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, and even Greenland. That would only take 148 million
square kilometers. Those continents when combined are big enough, yet smaller when compared with
the Pacific’s measurement, this means that you can put all of the continents mentioned in it,
and still have millions of square kilometers left over. If you’re still not getting this,
I'll give you another analogy. Let’s assume that the planet Mars counts every single square
kilometer of its surface, including every valley, canyon, and crater. What happens if we pour the
Pacific Ocean over the planet Mars? Well, all of Mars will be destroyed since its surface size
is only 145 million square kilometers. It’s nothing compared to the Pacific Ocean which
covers an area amounting to 165.25 million square kilometers, way larger than Mars' surface area.
At this time, we’re just discussing the Pacific's surface area, and we’re not even learning about
its depth yet. It’s important to note that the Pacific Ocean is interesting not only in the
space it took up, its depth is something we must not ignore as well, especially since it’s the
deepest ocean on the planet. The Challenger Deep, located in the Marianas Trench, is the world's
deepest point which measures about 11 kilometers beneath the ocean. However, there are also other
trenches in the world that have depth points almost similar to that of the Challenger Deep.
I’m referring to the Tonga Trench, Philippine Trench, and Kuril Kamchatka Trench which measure
over 10.3 kilometers deep. With this, these trenches have a mean depth of over 4000 meters
across the Pacific. That gives the Pacific Ocean an average depth of over 2600 times, way deeper
than an average American swimming pool's depth. With the Pacific Ocean’s immense size and depth,
it solely contains 710 million cubic kilometers of water, which is equal to half of all oceanic water
on the planet. Additionally, this information serves as proof of the Polynesian explorer’s
courage and intelligence in discovering this part of the ocean. So, who are these Polynesian
explorers? Well, they are the people who set out into an undiscovered and uncharted Pacific Ocean
that was larger than all of the continents put together, and even larger than an entire planet,
just because they were hoping to discover more islands in the world, which they eventually
managed to accomplish. They discovered that the Pacific Ocean has over 25000 different islands,
stretched out over seemingly unreachable distances. By the year 1200, the Polynesians
were able to reach these unreachable places from their starting point in Taiwan. However,
even if a thousand years had passed, some of these islands are impossible to reach even until now.
The Pacific Ocean is enormous enough that it contains many of the world's most
isolated and difficult-to-reach locations. For example, in the Pacific lies Honolulu and Hawaii,
which is the world's most remote city with a population of over 100 thousand people.
The nearest city from Honolulu is San Francisco, which is almost three thousand and eight hundred
kilometers away. Honolulu and San Francisco’s distance is the same distance as New York City
is from Los Angeles, but the Polynesians were able to discover it almost 700 years ago.
Easter Island is approximately 2000 kilometers away from other places, which makes it the
world's most remote inhabited island. The nearest island to it is Pitcairn Island,
which is also an incredibly remote and difficult-to-reach island. Pitcairn Island
is about two thousand and six hundred kilometers away from the nearest settlement on the island
of Mangareva, which is home to over 500 people and is three thousand and five hundred kilometers away
from the nearest continent, South America. The world's most remote airport is located in
South America. The nearest alternative airport is in the Gambier Islands, which is 2600 kilometers
away from Easter Island, and the next major airport from it is approximately 3700 kilometers
away in Santiago. Alternative airports near Easter Island are quite farther away from each other
than the airports at the South Pole. In fact, the nearest other airports in the South Pole are only
over 1300 kilometers away from each other. Despite this, the Polynesians had managed to discover it
over 1200 years ago, maybe through canoes. In comparison to thousands of navigators,
the Polynesians were the ones who were the most skilled discoverers and explorers for they were
able to improve their talents and had learned more about it. Who would have thought that it
is possible to learn about the islands across a planet-sized ocean? The process of discovering
things truly takes time and patience, but there is only one way to be able to accomplish it:
you have to start your journey right away. If you enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs-up,
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