What do we know about our planet (II)?

Earth is the only planet in the solar system, whose name is not derived from the Greek or Roman mythology like other planets in our Solar System. Its name in English used to mean ‘ground’ or ‘soil’ in the old English language and now it sounds as “Earth”. So it is called in English. But our planet has a lot of names in different languages.

Would you like to know how the name of our planet sounds in different countries?

Let’s discover its name throughout the world.

North and South Korea (jigu) in the Korean language

Japan Chikyū) in the Japanese language

Vietnam (try da) in the Vietnamese language

Indonesia Bumi in the Indonesian language

Saudi Arabia (ard) in the Arabian language

China (Dìqiú) in the Chinese language

India (Pr̥thvī) in Hindi

Israel Eretz in the Hebrew language

Turkey Dünya in the Turkish language

Italy Terra in the Italian language

Spain Tierra in the Spanish language

Portugal a Terra in the Portugese language

Germany Erde in German

France la Terre in French

the UK Earth in English

Norway, Sweden, Denmark Jord in the Norwegian/ Norse language

Romanian Pământ in the Romanian language

Poland Ziemia in the Polish language

Czech Republic Země in the Czech language

Russia Земля in the Russian language

We live here, so we ought to be well grounded in Earth facts. Maybe some of these facts you might find a little tough and tricky. But nevertheless they are interesting and curious at the same time!

Do you know that our planet Earth is wider at the equator than from pole to pole?

Equatorial circumference of our planet is about 40, 075 kilometers and equatorial diameter is 12,756 kilometers while its polar circumference is only 40, 007 kilometers and the diameter from pole to pole is 12,720 km. A difference is not really big, but... we can’t say that our planet is quite round. This shape is called ‘a spheroid’.

The highest point on the earth surface is Mount Everest; it is revised elevation 8848 meters above sea level. Mount Everest is the highest place on Earth above sea level, but it is not the highest point on Earth – that is, the place most distant from its center. That distinction belongs to Mount Chimaborazo in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador. Chimborazo is shorter than Everest, only 6,268 metres; but this mountain is about 2.4 km farther into space because of the equatorial bulge, because our planet is not round, it is a spheroid.

The lowest point on Earth is the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. It reaches down about 11,034 meters below sea level.

And now let’s look at the hottest and the coldest places on our planet. The highest temperature was fixed at Aziziya, in Libya. It’s said to be 57, 7 degrees Celsius there, but some scientists found the record invalid and recognize the hottest temperature at the Death Valley, the USA. But it doesn’t matter because the hottest temperature doesn’t mean the hottest place. And this record belongs to Ethiopia because of its highest average annual temperature. The coldest temperature on our planet was fixed in Vostok Station, in Antarctica, in 1983. The temperature there was about minus 89 degrees Celsius.

Why does life exist only on Earth? Why is it the only so special planet out of eight in the Solar System?

Life has developed over billions of years because liquid water is present across our planet. What else makes the planet Earth special?

Although many planets in the Solar System have atmospheres, but ours protects us from space and encourages life. Our atmosphere has many layers divided by different temperatures and pressures. The atmosphere also provides the planet with protection.

The ozone (O3) that surrounds Earth filters out ultra-violet light. We have an atmosphere made up of nitrogen (N2), a relatively inert gas, and it is about 78 percent of it in the air. The other gases in Earth's atmosphere are: Oxygen – 21 percent, Argon – 0.93 percent, Carbon dioxide – 0.039 percent.  There are also water vapor about ~ 1% and other gases exist in small amounts: Neon (Ne); Helium He); Krypton (Kr); Hydrogen (H2).

You may think that the most precious element on Earth is this one. A crystalline isometric polymorph of carbon or simply a diamond. But, actually, it’s not… the most precious element on earth is clean water.

What is Earth made of?

Earth has multiple layers. The ocean basins and the continents compose the crust, the outermost layer. Earth's crust is between five and 75 km deep. The thickest parts are under the continents and the thinnest parts are under the oceans.

The crust is divided into huge plates – continents. They float on the mantle; it is the next layer. The mantle under the crust is about 2,890 km. It is composed mostly of silicate rocks rich in magnesium and iron. In the mantle, temperatures range between 500 to over 4,000 degrees Celsius.

At the center of Earth there is the core. It is about 3,500 km thick. The core is made of iron and nickel. Scientists suggest that the inner core is 6,000 degrees Celsius.

Actually, the earth structure resembles an egg greatly. Look! The shell of an egg represents the upper layer, the crust. The white represents the mantle. The yolk represents the core. Easy as a pie (sound).

So, as we have already learnt, our planet consists of three major layers: the crust, beneath the crust is the mantle, and the core, beneath the mantle. The core is the deepest and hottest layer of the earth. It is made almost entirely of metal. Because our planet has a ball of metal in the middle of it, the entire planet is magnetic.

Scientists believe the magnetic field acts almost like a bubble. It protects the planet from charged particles floating around in the solar system. The magnetic North and South Poles are opposing sides of Earth’s big magnet.