", "Interdependency between animal and plant species", "On the Generality of the Latitudinal Gradient", "Meet Luca, the Ancestor of All Living Things", "What are the consequences of the overexploitation of natural resources? Above the troposphere, the atmosphere is usually divided into the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. Precipitation patterns vary widely, ranging from several meters of water per year to less than a millimeter. [citation needed], There is a scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming by releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. [198] On land, biomes are separated primarily by differences in latitude, height above sea level and humidity. [196], A planet's life forms inhabit ecosystems, whose total is sometimes said to form a "biosphere". Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. [13] Of this, 70.8%,[13] or 361.13 million km2 (139.43 million sq mi), is below sea level and covered by ocean water. Earth's axis of rotation is tilted with respect to its orbital plane, producing seasons on Earth. Part of it could even have been the fault of people like me—the deluge of journalists who wanted to talk to Scott after he landed. Aided by the absorption of harmful ultraviolet radiation by the ozone layer, life colonized Earth's surface. Beneath the mantle, an extremely low viscosity liquid outer core lies above a solid inner core. Its axial tilt does undergo nutation; a slight, irregular motion with a main period of 18.6 years. Earth orbits around the Sun in about 365.25 days. There are a number of adjectives for the planet Earth. I'm going to ask you how long a day is on Earth, and you're going to get the haunting suspicion that this is a trap. Over the period of hundreds of millions of years, tectonic forces have caused areas of continental crust to group together to form supercontinents that have subsequently broken apart. [144], The atmospheric pressure at Earth's sea level averages 101.325 kPa (14.696 psi),[145] with a scale height of about 8.5 km (5.3 mi). Each person will inhale around 23,000 times. [110] Because much of the heat is provided by radioactive decay, scientists postulate that early in Earth's history, before isotopes with short half-lives were depleted, Earth's heat production was much higher. In the Southern Hemisphere, the situation is reversed, with the summer and winter solstices exchanged and the spring and autumnal equinox dates swapped. Researchers expected to see this change in Scott. [193], A study from 2016 suggested that the hypothetical Planet Nine tilted all the planets of the Solar System, including Earth, by about six degrees. Space, he said back then, had been disorienting. For us at. It is the largest moon in the Solar System relative to the size of its planet, although Charon is larger relative to the dwarf planet Pluto. “Post-mission schedules—science and media events—are often very hectic and could have contributed to the decline,” says Mathias Basner, a psychiatry professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine who designed the cognitive-performance tests. [n 17][135], The mass of the oceans is approximately 1.35×1018 metric tons or about 1/4400 of Earth's total mass. Each day, 365,000 new human beings arrive on our planet. [151], The primary atmospheric circulation bands consist of the trade winds in the equatorial region below 30° latitude and the westerlies in the mid-latitudes between 30° and 60°. [207] In 1980, 50.53 million km2 (19.51 million sq mi) of Earth's land surface consisted of forest and woodlands, 67.88 million km2 (26.21 million sq mi) was grasslands and pasture, and 15.01 million km2 (5.80 million sq mi) was cultivated as croplands. Aphelion is 103.4% of the distance to perihelion. [81][88] Earth's fate is less clear. [200], Earth has resources that have been exploited by humans. [3] The height of the troposphere varies with latitude, ranging between 8 km (5 mi) at the poles to 17 km (11 mi) at the equator, with some variation resulting from weather and seasonal factors. Within the first billion years of Earth's history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect Earth's atmosphere and surface, leading to the proliferation of anaerobic and, later, aerobic organisms. Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of". Most of the telomeres bounced back after Scott returned to Earth, but he now has more short telomeres than he did before his mission. A subject of research is the formation of the Moon, some 4.53 Ga.[45] A leading hypothesis is that it was formed by accretion from material loosed from Earth after a Mars-sized object, named Theia, hit Earth. [248], Lord Kelvin used thermodynamics to estimate the age of Earth to be between 20 million and 400 million years in 1864, sparking a vigorous debate on the subject; it was only when radioactivity and radioactive dating were discovered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that a reliable mechanism for determining Earth's age was established, proving the planet to be billions of years old. The crust and the cold, rigid, top of the upper mantle are collectively known as the lithosphere, and it is of the lithosphere that the tectonic plates are composed. Earth's biosphere produces many useful biological products for humans, including food, wood, pharmaceuticals, oxygen, and the recycling of many organic wastes. This can be a challenging juggling act for anyone, but when you live and work in space, like the crew of the International Space Station, the setting itself can determine time and tasks. [147] Other atmospheric functions important to life include transporting water vapor, providing useful gases, causing small meteors to burn up before they strike the surface, and moderating temperature. [36] The Greek poetic name Gaea (Gæa) /ˈdʒiːə/ is rare, though the alternative spelling Gaia has become common due to the Gaia hypothesis, in which case its pronunciation is /ˈɡaɪə/ rather than the more Classical /ˈɡeɪə/.[37]. [157] Atmospheric circulation also plays an important role: San Francisco and Washington DC are both coastal cities at about the same latitude. [204] These deposits are used by humans both for energy production and as feedstock for chemical production. Earth's internal heat comes from a combination of residual heat from planetary accretion (about 20%) and heat produced through radioactive decay (80%). There will be 8.6 million lightning strikes. Every tree will provide enough oxygen for two of the planet's inhabitants. (.DAT file (displays as plaintext in browser)), Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, List of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System, JPL Horizons for Earth (mb=399) and Observer Location: @Sun, "Geoid, Topography and Distribution of Landforms", "General Definitions and Numerical Standards", "Surface area of our planet covered by oceans and continents. The study of the twins doesn’t have to be over. [74][75], During the Neoproterozoic, 1000 to 541 Ma, much of Earth might have been covered in ice. “You might at first think, Oh, this is great. [211], Cartography, the study and practice of map-making, and geography, the study of the lands, features, inhabitants and phenomena on Earth, have historically been the disciplines devoted to depicting Earth. Tectonics and erosion, volcanic eruptions, flooding, weathering, glaciation, the growth of coral reefs, and meteorite impacts are among the processes that constantly reshape Earth's surface over geological time. [139], The average salinity of Earth's oceans is about 35 grams of salt per kilogram of sea water (3.5% salt). In addition to an annual component to this motion, there is a 14-month cycle called the Chandler wobble. Earth – Videos – International Space Station: This page was last edited on 5 October 2020, at 22:02. See: Due to natural fluctuations, ambiguities surrounding, This is the measurement taken by the vessel, The ultimate source of these figures, uses the term "seconds of UT1" instead of "seconds of mean solar time".—. Beyond these, the exosphere thins out into the magnetosphere, where the geomagnetic fields interact with the solar wind. [49] Water vapor from these sources condensed into the oceans, augmented by water and ice from asteroids, protoplanets, and comets. [172] Charged particles are contained within the magnetosphere; the plasmasphere is defined by low-energy particles that essentially follow magnetic field lines as Earth rotates. For its human aspects, see, Third planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Scientists had expected some of the changes observed in Scott, based on earlier research of astronauts. The total arable land is 10.9% of the land surface, with 1.3% being permanent cropland. It is about 20 light-years above the galactic plane in the Orion Arm. A half billion years later, the last common ancestor of all current life arose. On average, each one of us will laugh 15 times. Scott’s cognitive abilities, which improved during his mission, sharply declined after he came back, and though they rebounded, they never returned to preflight levels. Density increases with depth, as described in the table below. Out there, the exposure would be far worse. At the equator of the magnetic field, the magnetic-field strength at the surface is 3.05×10−5 T, with a magnetic dipole moment of 7.79×1022 Am2 at epoch 2000, decreasing nearly 6% per century. The deepest underwater location is Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean with a depth of 10,911.4 m (35,799 ft). [115], Earth's mechanically rigid outer layer, the lithosphere, is divided into tectonic plates. https://www.universetoday.com/20524/how-long-is-a-day-on-the-moon-1 ", "This is one place on Earth where no life can exist", Interactive 3D visualisation of the Sun, Earth and Moon system, List of interstellar and circumstellar molecules, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Earth&oldid=982049805, Astronomical objects known since antiquity, Planets in the circumstellar habitable zone, Articles with Old English-language sources (ang), Articles with Ancient Greek-language sources (grc), Pages with DOIs inactive as of 2020 September, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Wikipedia articles in need of updating from August 2020, All Wikipedia articles in need of updating, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2020, Articles with disputed statements from October 2020, Articles containing potentially dated statements from July 2010, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Articles containing potentially dated statements from April 2020, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from July 2020, Wikipedia articles with TDVİA identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.