For most of humanity's existence we have gazed at the stars and dreamt of the worlds beyond our own. But we now live in a time when science and dreams have combined to literally blast us from Earth and launch us towards the stars. We will never be the same again! - The Earth is, to the best of our current knowledge, the only planet in our entire universe to support life.
- The Earth is the 3rd planet from the Sun which is why it is sometimes called "The 3rd rock from the Sun".
- The Earth is sometimes called the Blue Planet because of all the water on its surface, which makes it look blue from space.
- The Earth's Greek name is Gaea.
- Earth is a Terrestrial planet.
- Earth is larger than Mercury, Mars and Venus but smaller than the 4 gas giants.
- The Earth's gravity is measured as 1 unit of gravity. The gravity on all other planets is taken as a multiple of Earth's.
- As the Moon orbits the Earth, its gravity pulls on the Earth's oceans, causing the rise and fall of the tides.
- If the Sun were hollow roughly 1 million Earth sized planets would fit inside it.
- A day on Earth is 24 hours.
- A year on Earth is 365.25 days.
- It takes the light from the sun 8 minutes to reach the Earth.
- The Earth has one moon.
- The Earth does not have rings.
- Earth rotates in a counterclockwise motion, or from West to East, if you are sitting above the North Pole. This is why the Sun appears to rise in the East and set in the West.
- The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is 92, 956,000 miles and is called an Astronomical Unit (AU). An AU is the standard measure used to measure distances throughout our Solar System.
- Earth is 1 AU from the Sun.
- The atmosphere of Earth is made up primarily of nitrogen, oxygen and argon.
- The most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen.
- The Earth has 7 continents.
- Approximately 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by water.
- The Earth is the only planet to have water in its 3 states. Gas (clouds), solid (ice) and liquid (oceans, rain etc.).
- The first human into space was the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. He successfully orbited the Earth on April 12, 1961 and returned safely home.
- In 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on an alien world, our Moon.
