Question 1: the correct answer is Pacific. Did you get it right? Award yourself 1 point.
Question 2 of 10
Which is the coldest continent on the planet?
Why, for question 1: What is the largest ocean on Earth?
The answer is the Pacific. It covers about a third of the planet's surface, more than all the continents combined, and it is also the deepest, with the Mariana Trench.
The ocean of volcanoes
Around the Pacific lies the Ring of Fire, a belt of about 40,000 kilometers where most of the world's earthquakes and active volcanoes are concentrated.
The name was given by the navigator Ferdinand Magellan in the 16th century, who found calm waters after crossing the strait at the southern tip of South America. It does not always live up to its name: this is where many of the largest typhoons form.
The Pacific has thousands of islands, many formed by volcanoes or coral reefs, such as those of Hawaii and Polynesia.
The Pacific is shrinking very slowly, while the Atlantic widens a few centimeters per year, due to the movement of tectonic plates.
The point in the ocean farthest from any land lies in the South Pacific and is called Point Nemo. The nearest land is more than 2,600 kilometers away, and sometimes the astronauts of the International Space Station pass closer to it than anyone on land.
