St Aidens - Solar System ~ Earth

The Earth is the only planet we know to have life on it.
The Earth is the third planet from the Sun.
The Earth is the only planet we know that has liquid water on the surface, but
scientists are trying to find others.
The Earth's axis is tilted which is why we have four different seasons.
The Earth is 4.6 billion years old
Seventy percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water. The remaining 30
percent is covered by mountains, volcanoes, deserts, plains, and valleys.
Earth is the third closest planet to the Sun. It has an atmosphere made up of many
different gases, but mainly it is nitrogen and oxygen. The atmosphere gives us air
to breathe. We live on the planet Earth.
The Earth orbits around the Sun. It takes one year to go around the Sun one
complete time. The Earth also rotates, or spins, on its axis. It takes one day to spin
around one complete time. The Earth's axis is not straight up and down, but tilted a
little bit. This tilt is responsible for us having seasons. Otherwise, the temperature
would be pretty much the same all year long.

Earth is the planet we live on. It is the only planet in the Solar System with liquid water
on its surface. It is also the only planet we know to have life on it.

How big is the Earth?
The Earth is nearly 13,000 km wide. It's the largest terrestrial planet in the Solar System.

The Earth's mass is about 5,973,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg. That's a lot. But it is
little compared with Jupiter (319 Earths) and tiny compared with the Sun (335,789 Earths)
or other stars!

What is its surface like?
The Earth's surface is made of rock. Most of it is underwater, but not all. Islands of rock rise
up out of the water. The biggest islands are called continents, of which there are seven:
North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. The largest
bodies of water are called oceans, of which there are four: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and
Arctic. Some authorities classify the Southern as a fifth ocean.

The Earth's surface is made up of huge plates. They are like huge jigsaw pieces made of
rock. These plates move very, very slowly, carrying the continents with them. They can rub
beside each other, push against each other, or even move away from each other. If there
are gaps between them, hot molten rock can rise up and make volcanoes. Where the
plates rub or push against each other, earthquakes may happen. When two plates push
each other's rock upwards, mountains are formed.

Earth has many kinds of environments. It is cold and icy in places like Antarctica. It is hot
and dry in deserts like the Sahara in Africa and Death Valley in the United States. It is cold
and dry in deserts like Siberia in Russia. Where it is warm and wet, rain forests grow.

Why is there life on Earth?
Wherever we have looked on Earth, we have found living things. They may be very small,
like bacteria, but they are there. We have found bacteria where it is very cold, very hot, very
deep, very high or very dark.

What all living things on Earth seem to need is liquid water. Wherever you can find some
water, there are almost always living things there too, even if you can't see them. If we find
liquid water somewhere else in the Solar System, scientists think we might find some
living things there too. If we don't, there is always the rest of the universe to explore!

There is another possibility. All the living things we know need liquid water. But maybe
somewhere else there are living things that don't need water. Perhaps we will need to
learn how to recognise them.

What about the Earth's moon?
Earth has one moon we call... the Moon! Sometimes it is called by its name in Latin, Luna,
so we don't get confused with other planets and their moons. The Moon has also been
called Selene (pronounced "suh-LEE-nee") which is Greek for moon.

Recently we have also found some other objects that seem to go around the Earth. The
largest one, called Cruithne (pronounced "cru-EE-nyuh"), is three miles wide. It orbits
(goes around) the Sun in a way that makes it appear to orbit Earth.

When Earth was young, a comet hit Earth and split off a section of the Earth that is now the
moon.

How long is a day on this planet?
A day on Earth is 24 hours long. That's daytime and night time. A 24 hour day is how long it
takes the Earth to spin around once. On the half of the Earth that is facing the sun it is
daytime and on the half of the Earth that is facing away from the sun it is night-time.

The spin of the earth is also the reason why the sun appears to rise in the east and to set
in the west. Although it looks like the sun is moving from the surface of the earth, it is really
the surface of the earth that is moving. The reason we do not feel like we are spinning is
because the earth is so big compared to the size of people.

How long is a year on this planet?
A year on Earth is about 365 and 1/4 days long. That's how long it takes the Earth to orbit
the Sun once. Approximately every four years we have a leap year. A leap year contains an
extra day in our calendar on February 29th in order to account for the 1/4 of a day left over
each year.

What is the Earth made of?
When a planet is made of rock, we call its surface the crust. Below the Earth's crust is hot
molten rock. It is in a layer called the mantle. The hot molten rock is what comes out of
volcanoes. It's then called lava.

Under the mantle is the core of the Earth. We think it is made from solid iron and nickel,
surrounded by hot molten iron. The temperature there is very, very hot!

The Earth's crust is very thin compared to the mantle and the core. But it is very thick to us.
Nobody has drilled all the way through it yet. Even the deepest underground mines are far
away from reaching its deepest base.

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Our Solar System
Earth

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