Planetpals The Greatest Facts on Earth

Fascinating Fun Fast Facts About Our World !

Earthman Says: It's Your World--Care and Take Care

FAST FACTS about EARTH:

• circumferance: 24,901.5 miles
• diameter: Nearly 8,000 miles
• surface area: 196,935,000 sq miles
• percent of earth's ocean approximatly 70% *
• percent of earth's land: approximatly 30%
• highest point:Mt Everest 29, 028 above sea level
• lowest point: Dead Sea 1,302 below sea level
  * of the 70 percent of water; 97 percent is salt water, 3 percent is fresh water
  

The EARTH is made of the following CHEMICAL ELEMENTS:

• oxygen 46.6 %
• aluminum 8.1
• iron 5
• sodium 2.8
• magnesium 2.1
• calcium 3.6
• potassium 2.6
• silicon 27.7
• other 1.5

Here is an example of how long it takes garbage to break down:

• plastics take 500 years
• aluminum cans take 500 years
• organic materials take 6 months
• cotton, rags, and paper take 6 months.

Other Interesting FACTS:

• Earth is referred to as the BLUE PLANET. WHY? Because from space,
  the oceans combined with our atmosphere make our planet look blue.
  
• Earth is estimated to be 3-5 Billion Years old.
  
• Earth is estimated to weigh 6,585,600,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
• The area of the earth is almost 200 million square miles.
  
• Earth travels through space at 66,700 miles per hour.
  
• Earth's oceans are an average of 2 Miles deep.
  
• Earth's rotation on its axis makes a day at 24 hours...
  
• Earth's orbit around the sun makes a year at nearly 365 and 1/2 days
• Earth is tipped at 23 and 1/2 degrees in orbit. That axis is what causes our seasons.
  
• Antarctica is the coldest place on earth. The continent is almost entirely covered in ICE !
  
• Only 11 percent of the earth's surface is used to grow food.
• Breeze carries about 100 Million tons of sand particles around the earth yearly.
• That means if you live in America-you could have Sand that came from the Gobi desert in China.

Compare the size of the Earth to the other planets

* Earth is the third planet from the sun. Did you realize that it was one of the smallest planets in OUR solar system? If you want to know more fast facts about EARTH see Earth Fast Facts Page
Planet Terri

A quick dose of solar history!

The solar system and it's relationship to Earth

There are nine planets that travel around the sun. In order of distance they are Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury. Together with the sun they make up our solar system.

The planets are in motion and travel around the sun in oval shaped paths called orbits. Each planet travels it’s own orbit. Each planet also rotates on an axis, which means it spins around its centerline.

Did you know that the sun is not a planet but a star? Just like the stars you see at night. Though it is more than 100 timeslarger than earth it is just average size for a star.

Sunnyray

Our planet earth is one of the smaller planets, but it is pretty large at 7,926 miles in diameter. It takes almost exactly 24 hours to rotate and that’s how we get our day.
The MOON

The moon is another body in our solar system. It is covered with deep pockets called craters. One side of the moon is always facing earth. However, the earth turns on it's own orbit. When earth facing the moon, and away from the su.n we have night.

The moon has no light of it’s own. It only reflects the light from the sun.

Moonbeam

The light of the moon is called a moons phase. The moon has many phases such as the full moon and new moon. It takes 27 days for it to travel through all of them. That is how we calculate our months!

When we see the moon at night, people in countries opposite each other on the globe, such as the United States and Japan, have daytime. When they have night, we have day. Around we go.

No matter where we all live on earth we share the same sun and moon.
Did you know that ancient cutures have names for the full moon?
For instance the April Full Moon has Names like-Planter's Moon - Peony Moon - Flower Moon-Wildcat Moon - Growing Moon - Seed Moon-Awakening Moon - Moon When Geese Return in Scattered Formation.
These names have deep rooted meaning depending on location and natural habitat.
Comets, Satelites, Asteroids

Did you know there are thousands of objects in the space that travel around the sun and moon? Many of them are asteroids, comets and satellites.

Comets are chunks of dust, rock and ice that move so fast that they form a tail of gas. That gas gets stronger the closer they get to the sun.

There are famous comets that have been discovered. One of them was found by an astronomer named Haley and it is called Haley’s comet. Comets come around many times. Haley’s comet will reappear in 2062.

Asteroids on the other hand, are considered minor planets. Often made up of small chunks of rock or metal. The largest one is Ceres at 600 miles.

Earth and Moon to Scale

1 pixel = 600 kilometers

The average distance between Earth and Moon is approximately 30 times Earth's diameter. If you could fly to the Moon at a constant speed of 1000 kilometers per hour, which is the speed of a fast passenger jet, it would take sixteen days to get there. Apollo astronauts reached the Moon in less than four days even though they coasted "uphill" almost the entire distance. They got a fast start.

The Sun happens to be 400 times the Moon's diameter, and 400 times as far away. That coincidence means the Sun and Moon appear to be the same size when viewed from Earth. A total solar eclipse, in which the Moon is between the Earth and Sun, blocks the bright light from the Sun's photosphere, allowing us to see the faint glow from the corona, the Sun's outer atmosphere.
When the Moon is at apogee, it is 11% farther from Earth than it is at perigee. This is far enough that it cannot entirely block the bright light, so eclipses which occur near apogee are not total.

Perigee		363,300 km
Mean		384,400 km
Apogee		405,500 km

Gravitational interaction (tides on the Earth caused by the Moon) transfers kinetic energy from Earth to the Moon, slowing Earth's rotation and raising the Moon's orbit, currently at a rate of 3.8 centimeters per year.

Earth and Moon Compared
The Moon has approximately 1/4 Earth's diameter, 1/50 Earth's volume, and 1/80 Earth's mass. Earth is very dense overall (it is the densest planet in the Solar System), but the Moon is light for its size. The difference is partly because Earth has a large core of iron and other heavy metallic elements, while the Moon has only a small core, if it has a core at all. The Moon's surface gravity is 1/6 of Earth's, and escape velocity from the surface is about 1/5 of Earth's.
The Moon's surface is covered with rock and grit that are mostly dark-gray minerals, so it reflects light poorly compared to Earth, which always has highly-reflective clouds. The Moon reflects visible light about 1/3 as well as Earth, and because of its much smaller size, has a visual brightness less than 1/40 that of Earth, when both are fully illuminated and seen from the same distance -- a difference of four stellar magnitudes.

	Earth	Moon
Mean diameter	12,742 km	3,476 km
Volume	1.08321 x 1012 km3	2.199 x 1010 km3
Mass	5.9736 x 1024 kg	7.349 x 1022 kg
Mean density	5.515	3.342
Surface gravity	9.78 m/s2	1.62 m/s2
Escape velocity	11.2 km/s	2.38 km/s
Visual albedo	0.367	0.12
Visual magnitude	-3.86	+0.21

At right: Earth and Moon to the scale of 1 pixel = 50 km.
The Moon's surface area is a bit greater than Africa's.

The difference between Meteoroids, Meteors, and Meteorites

Comets, Asteroids and Meteors

Asteroids, Meteors, Comets.

Asteroids
1. Asteroids are bodies made up of metals and rocks.
2. Most asteroids are found in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Meteoroids
1. Meteoroids are small pieces of roc or metal floating in the outer space.
2. When Meteoroids float near to the earth, they may be drawn into the Earth's atmosphere due to gravity.
3. Meteoroids which enter the earth's atmosphere are called meteors.
4. Most meteors will burn up when they entre the Earth's atmosphere due to friction.
5. Meteors which do not burn completely and reach the Earth's surface are called meteorites.

Comets
1. A comet is a lump of ice which consists of frozen gasses and dust.
2. When a comet comes near to the Sun, the ice at its centre melts, causing it to glow. A long tail of gas and dust is visible.

The Solar System Song