untitled

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.

At 165.25 million square kilometres (63.8 million square miles) in area, this largest division of the World Ocean – and, in turn, the hydrosphere – covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined. The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres (35,797 ft).

The eastern Pacific Ocean was first sighted by Europeans in the early 16th century when Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and discovered the great "southern sea" which he named Mar del Sur. The ocean's current name was bestowed by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation in 1521, who encountered favourable winds as he reached the ocean and called it Mar Pacifico in Portuguese, meaning "peaceful sea".

An ocean (from Ancient Greek Ὠκεανὸς (Okeanos); the World Ocean of classical antiquity) is a body of saline water that composes a large part of a planet's hydrosphere. In the context of Earth, it refers to one or all of the major divisions of the planet's World Ocean – they are, in descending order of area, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern (Antarctic), and Arctic Oceans. The word "sea" is often used interchangeably with "ocean", but strictly speaking a sea is a body of saline water (possibly a division of the World Ocean) partly or fully enclosed by land.

Earth is the only planet known to have an ocean (or any large amounts of open liquid water). Approximately 72% of the planet's surface (~3.6x10⁸ km²) is covered by saline water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas, with the ocean covering approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. In terms of the hydrosphere of the Earth, the ocean contains 97% of the Earth's water. Oceanographers have stated that out of 97%, only 5% of the ocean as a whole on Earth has been explored. Because it is the principal component of Earth's hydrosphere, the world ocean is integral to all known life, forms part of the carbon cycle, and influences climate and weather patterns. The total volume is approximately 1.3 billion cubic kilometres (310 million cu mi) with an average depth of 3,682 metres (12,080 ft). It is the habitat of 230,000 known species, although much of the ocean's depths remain unexplored and it is estimated that over two million marine species exist. The origin of Earth's oceans is still unknown, but oceans are believed to have formed in the Hadean period and may have been the impetus for the emergence of life.

The water hemisphere, sometimes capitalised as the Water Hemisphere, is the hemisphere on the Earth containing the largest area of water possible for an exact half of the Earth's surface. It is centered on 47°13′S 178°28′E / 47.217°S 178.467°E / -47.217; 178.467, near New Zealand's Bounty Islands. The other half of the earth is the land hemisphere, which is centered in Nantes, France.

The water hemisphere has only one-eighth of the world's land, including Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, the Malay Archipelago, and the southern part of South America. Most of the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean are on the water hemisphere. The area of the oceans of the water hemisphere is much larger than its land area, but the area of the oceans of the land hemisphere is still larger than its land area.

Varieties of the color blue may differ in hue, chroma (also called saturation, intensity, or colorfulness), or lightness (or value, tone, or brightness), or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a blue or other hue mixed with white, a shade being mixed with black. A large selection of these various colors is shown below.