People commonly draw a parallel between outer space and Earth’s oceans, referring to both as the final frontiers of exploration. While Earth’s oceans are minuscule in size relative to space, they’re still gargantuan. The Pacific Ocean in particular is unthinkably huge, as is described in a new video from YouTuber ReaLifeLore. Thalassophobia sufferers should take heed: this overview of the Pacific Ocean goes deep.
RealLifeLore recently posted the video, noting that people tend to underestimate just how gigantic the Pacific Ocean is. This YouTuber, who gives “Answers to questions that you’ve never asked,” would know. Previously, RealLifeLore has cranked out countless other videos covering various geographical aspects of Earth, most notably its oceans. (And how scary they can get.)
In the video, ReaLifeLore gives us a tour of the Pacific Ocean, noting all of its ridiculously mondo size stats. The YouTuber notes that the Pacific Ocean has an overall surface area of 63.8 million miles squared. This makes it larger than the surface area of all of the land continents combined.
ReaLifeLore
The longest stretch of the Pacific Ocean, from the Indonesian islands to the coast of Columbia, is more than 12,300 miles across. That’s longer than five Moons placed side by side.
The Pacific Ocean is also, on average, the deepest on Earth, and has the deepest points explorers are aware of. Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, for example, is the deepest point on Earth; it is a whopping 6.8+ miles below the ocean’s surface. The Pacific Ocean is so deep and so wide that it contains approximately 441 million cubic miles of water. For reference, that’s enough to cover all of Mars and then some.
RealLifeLore
Aside from its enormity, the Pacific Ocean also dazzles—and haunts—with its wide selection of weird sea creatures. And even though RealLifeLore doesn’t bring them up in this video, we’d like to recommend checking them out. The ocean really does seem to give outer space a run for its money in terms of prospective alien life.