Our Home--Planet Earth

As we go about our daily lives we seldom pause to think about the miracle,which is this(maybe the only), life supporting planet in our solar system.Here are some interesting facts about it--

Earth came into being about 4.6 billion years ago.It is a middle-sized planet in it's family of nine planets.It's diameter from north to south poles is less than 1/10th the diameter of Jupiter & five times more than that of Pluto-the smallest planet.At equator it's diameter is 7,926 miles & circumference is 25,000 miles.If someone drove round the equator at the speed of 50 miles p/h he would take about  3 weeks to complete one circle.It's average distance from Sun is 93,000,000 miles & it's core is believed to be as hot as 11,000*F.

The atmosphere around Earth stretches up to a height of nearly 400 miles but the air gets thinner as we go up because the weight of air over it diminishes concomitantly.The clouds are mostly at the height of 10-12 miles above the Earth surface.At 50 miles above Earth,in the mesosphere,temperatures can be as low as -100*F.Surprising,isn't it ?

As we all know,most of Earth's surface is covered by oceans whose average depth is two & a half miles but Marianas Trench in the Pacific ocean is nearly 7 miles deep.

Our Earth houses at least one & a half million different kinds of living beings.It all started billions of years ago in the form of simple life in early oceans.Then about 600 million years ago different life  forms began to emerge in the seas.Four hundred million years ago life deigned to appear on land starting with plants & going on to insects & amphibians.As late as 150 million years back reptiles were the main life form followed by the birds.At about 65 million years ago dinosaurs & some other species died & the animals we see around us began to emerge.We humans may think the world of ourselves,but we came into existence only about 3 million years ago.Quite a sobering thought that !!!!!!!!

Just look at this picture of Earth spinning like mad.Do you know it's speed?It is 1,670kmh at the equator.

Now sit tight for the last blast-our Earth is travelling round the Sun at this reckless speed of 100,000 Km/h.How's that for rash driving?

Text courtesy Robin Kerrod.
Images courtesy amazonaws .com & wikipedia.