1. what is earth? Earth is our home planet.

Scientists believe Earth and its moon formed around the same time as the rest of the solar system. They think that was about 4.5 billion years ago. Earth is the fifth-largest planet in the solar system. Its diameter is about 8,000 miles. And Earth is the third-closest planet to the sun. Its average distance from the sun is about 93 million miles. Only Mercury and Venus are closer. Earth has been called the "Goldilocks planet." In the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," a little girl named Goldilocks liked everything just right. Her porridge couldn't be too hot or too cold. And her bed couldn't be too hard or too soft. On Earth, everything is just right for life to exist. It's warm, but not too warm. And it has water, but not too much water. Earth is the only planet known to have large amounts of liquid water. Liquid water is essential for life. Earth is the only planet where life is known to exist. What Does Earth Look Like? From space, Earth looks like a blue marble with white swirls and areas of brown, yellow, green and white. The blue is water, which covers about 71 percent of Earth's surface. The white swirls are clouds. The areas of brown, yellow and green are land. And the areas of white are ice and snow. The equator is an imaginary circle that divides Earth into two halves. The northern half is called the Northern Hemisphere. The southern half is called the Southern Hemisphere. The northernmost point on Earth is called the North Pole. The southernmost point on Earth is called the South Pole. How Does Earth Move? Earth orbits the sun once every 365 days, or one year. The shape of its orbit is not quite a perfect circle. It's more like an oval, which causes Earth's distance from the sun to vary during the year. Earth is nearest the sun, or at "perihelion," in January when it's about 91 million miles away. Earth is farthest from the sun, or at "aphelion," in July when it's about 95 million miles away. At the equator, Earth spins at just over 1,000 miles per hour. Earth makes a full spin around its axis once every 24 hours, or one day. The axis is an imaginary line through the center of the planet from the North Pole to the South Pole. Rather than straight up and down, Earth's axis is tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees. Why Do We Have Day and Night? At all times, half of Earth is lighted by the sun and half is in darkness. Areas facing toward the sun experience daytime. Areas facing away from the sun experience nighttime. As the planet spins, most places on Earth cycle through day and night once every 24 hours. The North Pole and South Pole have continuous daylight or darkness depending on the time of year. Why Does Earth Have Seasons? Earth has seasons because its axis is tilted. Thus, the sun's rays hit different parts of the planet more directly depending on the time of year. From June to August, the sun's rays hit the Northern Hemisphere more directly than the Southern Hemisphere. The result is warm (summer) weather in the Northern Hemisphere and cold (winter) weather in the Southern Hemisphere. From December to February, the sun's rays hit the Northern Hemisphere lessdirectly than the Southern Hemisphere. The result is cold (winter) weather in the Northern Hemisphere and warm (summer) weather in the Southern Hemisphere. From September to November, the sun shines equally on both hemispheres. The result is fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. The sun also shines equally on both hemispheres from March to May. The result is spring in the Northern Hemisphere and fall in the Southern Hemisphere. What Are Earth's Different Parts? Earth consists of land, air, water and life. The land contains mountains, valleys and flat areas. The air is made up of different gases, mainly nitrogen and oxygen. The water includes oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, rain, snow and ice. Life consists of people, animals and plants. There are millions of species, or kinds of life, on Earth. Their sizes range from very tiny to very large. Below Earth's surface are layers of rock and metal. Temperatures increase with depth, all the way to about 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit at Earth's inner core. Earth's parts once were seen as largely separate from each other. But now they are viewed together as the "Earth system." Each part connects to and affects each of the other parts. For example: Clouds in the air drop rain and snow on land. Water gives life to plants and animals. Volcanoes on land send gas and dust into the air. People breathe air and drink water. Earth system science is the study of interactions between and among Earth's different parts.

Earth Earth (or the Earth) is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the world, the Blue Planet,[21] or by its Latin name, Terra.[note 6] Earth formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula, and life appeared on its surface within one billion years.[22] The planet is home to millions of species, including humans.[23] Earth's biosphere has significantly altered the atmosphere and other abiotic conditions on the planet, enabling the proliferation of aerobic organisms as well as the formation of the ozone layer which, together with Earth's magnetic field, blocks harmful solar radiation, permitting life on land.[24] The physical properties of the Earth, as well as itsgeological history and orbit, have allowed life to persist. The planet is expected to continue supporting life for another 500 million to 2.3 billion years.[25][26][27] Earth's crust is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of the surface is covered by salt water oceans, with the remainder consisting of continents and islands which together have many lakes and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. Earth's poles are mostly covered with solid ice (Antarctic ice sheet) or sea ice (Arctic ice cap). The planet's interior remains active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core. Earth interacts with other objects in space, especially the Sun and the Moon. At present, Earth orbits the Sun once every 366.26 times it rotates about its own axis, which is equal to 365.26 solar days, or one sidereal year.[note 7] The Earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.4 away from the perpendicular of its orbital plane, producing seasonal variations on the planet's surface with a period of one tropical year (365.24 solar days).[28] Earth's only known natural satellite, the Moon, which began orbiting it about 4.53 billion years ago, provides ocean tides, stabilizes the axial tilt, and gradually slows the planet's rotation. Between approximately 3.8 billion and4.1 billion years ago, numerous asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment caused significant changes to the greater surface environment. Both the mineral resources of the planet and the products of the biospherecontribute resources that are used to support a global human population.[29] These inhabitants are grouped into about 200 independent sovereign states (193 United Nations recognized sovereign states), which interact through diplomacy, travel, trade, and military action. Human cultures have developed many views of the planet, including personification as a deity, a belief in a flat Earth or in the Earth as the center of the universe, and a modern perspective of the world as an integrated environment that requires stewardship.

Shape The shape of the Earth approximates an oblate spheroid, a sphere flattened along the axis from pole to pole such that there is a bulge around the equator.[68] This bulge results from the rotation of the Earth, and causes the diameter at the equator to be 43 km larger than the pole-to-pole diameter.[69] The average diameter of the reference spheroid is about 12,742 km, which is approximately (40,000/) km, as the meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole through Paris, France.[70] Local topography deviates from this idealized spheroid, although on a global scale, these deviations are small: Earth has a tolerance of about one part in about 584, or 0.17%, from the reference spheroid, which is less than the 0.22% tolerance allowed in billiard balls.[71] The largest local deviations in the rocky surface of the Earth are Mount Everest (8848 m above local sea level) and the Mariana Trench (10,911 m below local sea level). Because of the equatorial bulge, the surface locations farthest from the center of the Earth are the summits of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador and Huascaran in Peru.

Position Well, the basic position of Earth in our solar system is the third planet out from the Sun and it is in the group of the planets known as the 'inner planets' as they are closest to the Sun. Earth is the 3rd planet from the sun at a distance of approximately 93 million miles. The planets in order from closest to farthest are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus Neptune and up until recently, Pluto, which is now no longer considered a planet. Movement Earth orbits the sun once every 365 days, or one year. The shape of its orbit is not quite a perfect circle. It's more like an oval, which causes Earth's distance from the sun to vary during the year. Earth is nearest the sun, or at "perihelion," in January when it's about 91 million miles away. Earth is farthest from the sun, or at "aphelion," in July when it's about 95 million miles away. At the equator, Earth spins at just over 1,000 miles per hour. Earth makes a full spin around its axis once every 24 hours, or one day. The axis is an imaginary line through the center of the planet from the North Pole to the South Pole. Rather than straight up and down, Earth's axis is tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees. The Earth's Rotation The Earth is rotating around an axis (called its rotational axis). Some objects rotate about a horizontal axis, like a rolling log. Some objects, such as a skater, rotate about a vertical axis. The Earth's axis is tipped over about 23.5 from vertical. How do we define up and down in space? What would "vertical" mean? For the Earth, we can think of vertical as straight up and down with respect to the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun (called the ecliptic). Earth's rotational axis points in the same direction relative to the stars, so that the North Pole points towards the star Polaris. Think of the Earth as a spinning top, tipped over to one side. Over very long time periods (thousands of years) the direction of Earth's axis slowly changes due to precession.The Earth rotates around once in 24 hours - that's a rate of 1000 miles per hour!. The time it takes for the Earth to rotate completely around once is what we call a day. It's Earth's rotation that gives us night and day.The combined effect of the Earth's tilt and its orbital motionresult in the seasons. Earth is the only planet whose English name does not derive from Greek/Roman mythology. The name derives from Old English and Germanic. There are, of course, hundreds of other names for the planet in other languages. In Roman Mythology, the goddess of the Earth was Tellus - the fertile soil (Greek: Gaia, terra mater - Mother Earth). It was not until the time of Copernicus (the sixteenth century) that it was understood that the Earth is just another planet.