Earth Facts

The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Fossil records show that life began on Earth at least 3.5 billion years ago.The Earth is the third planet from the sun, at a distance of 149.5 million km (92.9 million miles). Our Sun is one of 200 billion stars banded together by gravity in an enormous spiral galaxy called the Milky Way. The Earth is approximately 3/5 of the way out from the galaxy center. Light takes 100,000 years to traverse our galaxy. The nearest star to our sun is Alpha Centauri which is 40 trillion km (25 trillian miles) away. On a scale model of the universe, with the Earth shown as 1.5 cm from the Sun, Alpha Centauri would appear 5.5 km (3.5 miles) away from the sun. The Earth is one of nine planets orbiting the sun. The capital letters stand for the order of the planets, starting closest to the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
The orbits of the planets are nearly circular (eliptical) paths around the Sun. If Pluto's path were the size of a dinner plate, the orbits of the four inner planets would fit inside a pea sitting at the center of the plate. The equatorial diameter of the Earth is 12,756 km (7,926 mi). The Earth is inclined on it's axis at an angle of 23.45 deg. The Earth orbits the Sun at an average speed of 29.79 km/s (18.51 miles/sec, or 67,000 miles/hour). One year on Earth is 365.26 days long. One day on Earth is 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds long. No one really know how our planet came into being, but one common theory is that the earth developed form a swirling mass of rock and gas. 100 million years ago, the single landmass (called Pangaea) broke into the continents we know today. The temperatures on Earth range from -88 deg to 58 deg Celsius. (-126 deg to 136 deg F.) The earth's temperature fluctuates. 100 million years ago it was 6 to 12 degrees hotter than it is today. Alligators lived in what is now ice-covered Greenland. Today 71% of the Earth is covered with water, 29% by the continents.
The percentage covered by water will increase as the Earth continues to warm and polar ice caps melt. The Pacific Ocean is one of the largest features on the face of the Earth, with an area of more than 181 million square kilometers (approximately 70 million sq mi.) It contains half of the world's water. It takes light 8 min. 20 sec to travel from the sun to the Earth. (Light travels at a speed of 3X10^5 km/sec.) The velocity required to escape Earth's gravity is 11.2 km/sec. Facts and Info about the Planet Earth. Earth is the planet in the Solar System we all are most familiar with. Although we use the Old English name Earth for our planet it has been called several other names by past civilisations, many of which will be familiar to science fiction fans, they include, Tellus the Roman goddess of the Earth and the symbol of fertility, Gaia the ancient Greek earth goddess and of course Terra from the Latin meaning earth. Our Planet is the third closest to the Sun in our Solar System, the average distance being 150 million Km.
The Planet Earth is not very big, it has a diameter of 12,756 km and a mass of 5.972e24 kg.. The Earth has only one moon and it is of course called "The Moon" or in Latin Luna. The Moon is particularly interesting as its the closest planetary body to us, but also the only extraterrestrial body mankind has set foot on. Man's first encounter with the Moon was the Soviet probe Luna probe in 1959, the most important being when Neil Armstrong and then 'Buzz' Aldrin set foot on the moon from surface from the Eagle Lander on the 20th July 1969, It really was 'One small step for man, One giant leap for mankind'. The Moon Earth's only satellite orbits our planet 384,400 km above our heads it has a diameter of 3476 km and a mass of 7.35e22 kg. The Moon has no atmosphere and it's Gravity is only 38% as strong as Earths.