- Mass: 5.98 × 10^24 kg (quite difficult to imagine)
- Diameter: 12,742 km
- Year: 365 days
- Moons: 1
- Temperature: 15 °C (59 °F) Average
- Gravity: 9.81 m/s^2
- Distance from Sun: 149.6 million km
- Speed around Sun: 30 km/sec (18.5 miles/sec)
Planet Earth is the home of living things. It is the most unique and amazing planet in the entire solar system. It is the third closest planet to the Sun and the largest planet among the four terrestrial planets (other are Mercury, Venus and Mars). Terrestrial planet means that our earth has the rocky surface.
Earth has only one Moon known as “Luna”, which is the fifth largest moon in the solar system, whose orbital period is 27.3 days. The Moon is 3,84,448 Km (2,38,885 miles) away from the Earth.
Earth is Unique
The first thing that makes the Earth unique is that it contains life, which is not found on any other planet. Our Earth supports millions of life forms and they are still being explored.
Water in the liquid state is another unique feature, which is the ultimate key to life that can be seen the Earth. Around 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with Oceans of salt water. Another important feature is oxygen which is produced by living plants which fill about 21% of our atmosphere.
Geography of the Earth
Earth’s surface (crust) is divided into seven large masses of land known as Continents and five major oceans. Earth has a variety of landforms containing mountains, plateaus, valleys, canyons, volcanoes, hills etc.
Composition of the Earth
Earth is not a perfect sphere but spherical in shape. It bulges out at the equator, means the diameter of the equator is slightly longer than the poles. Earth is made of four layers known as Crust, Mantle, Outer core and Inner Core.
There is a variety of elements found on the earth among which most abundant element is oxygen (47%) then comes Silicon (28%), Aluminum (8%), and Iron (5%).
