This big blue marble, also known as Earth, is home to over 7 billion humans, a huge variety of animals and plants, contains amazing mountains, vast oceans, rivers, swamps,and is our home. Let’s take a closer look at some of the features of planet Earth.
Our Earth is the third planet from the Sun. It is roughly 93 million miles from the sun and revolves around the sun in 365 days.
The Earth sits on it’s axis at 23.5 degrees and takes just shy of 24 hours to complete one rotation.
It has a diameter of almost 13.000 km and has one moon roughly ¼ it’s size
The Earth is 71% water and 29% land
97.5% of this water is salty and 2.5% freshwater
70% percent of this freshwater is frozen and the remaining amount is ground water, lakes,streams, and swamps.
In other words, the amount of usable water on Earth is scarce.
If you cut the Earth in half you will notice a thin crust that we live on. The crust is roughly 50 km thick. It is made of huge plates that move about. These shifting plates create our tallest mountains and our deepest trenches.
Underneath the crust you find additional layers like the lithosphere which is a little like very, very, thick syrup, which the crust sits upon and causes these plates to move.
At the center of the Earth is a heavy iron core that is very very hot. Roughly 5200 degree celsius.
Surrounding the Earth is an atmosphere made of gasses. Our atmosphere is made up of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, 0.9 percent argon, and 0.1 percent other gases, along with trace amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and neon.
We hang out in the lowest layer called the troposphere which is also home to some amazing weather including hurricanes and tornadoes.
All these traits of the Earth work together to allow life to exist on our planet. The Earth is home to an amazing variety of life. From single cell protists, to vast rainforests, to workaholic insects, and much, much more.
So in summary, our Planet Earth is a gift to all of us.
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