Solar System Iv – Our Mother Earth

kkrish · Feb 7, 2017

Shanvy said: ↑

Just adding this interesting piece.. nature is amazing ..
WATCH: A Bright Green Meteor Just Streaked Above the US
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update.
You said it.. nature is amazing.

Madhumagie · Feb 8, 2017

kkrish said: ↑

Hello everyone!

For each of us our mom is the most special in the world isn’t she? So is our mother Earth! She is very special, beautiful, and oh so unique!

From outer space we can see how beautiful she is - blue with some brown and white, a jewel, the “blue marble”.

View attachment 245317
Image courtesy: sos.noaa.gov

Our Earth, the third planet from the Sun, is the largest of the four terrestrial planets – The other three are Mercury, Venus, and Mars.
Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus are gas planets.

What is unique about Earth? You….and all the humans, animals, birds, flowers, and trees … LIFE is what is unique about Earth.

Earth is the only planet as of today to support life. Life ranging from the tiny single-celled organism to highly developed intelligent humans to this day can call only the Earth, “Home”.

While it is possible that there may be other earths just like ours, teeming with life, none has been confirmed yet. For now, Earth is the only one.

About 8.7 million known species of life- plants and animals- abound Earth. Life is found in every nook and corner, from the highest mountains, through the arid deserts, to the deepest oceans.

What makes our Earth so unique?

First, she picked the right spot in the Solar system.

A wide area that is just slightly away from Venus’ orbit and just slightly inside Mars’ orbit known as the Goldilocks zone - the zone that is “just right” for water to be in liquid state in order to support life.

But then our Earth herself is known as the Goldilocks Planet for a few other reasons.

Tilt - She knows that the Sun is very essential for her children and pays a slight homage. She is tilted at 23.44°. Too much tilt and she may roll over, too little would have a different kind of weather that would not be beneficial to life. So the tilt is “just Right”.

Water – She has just the right amount of water. Not too much Not too little – Just Right.

Size Matters! - If the Earth had been too small she would not have been able to hold our atmosphere. If she had been too big she would today be a hot gas planet that could not support life. So our Earth is “just Right” in size too.

These aside, here are some other reasons life was able to evolve the way it did and sustain:

The Moon: We all know how moon contributed and still contributes to our presence.

Earthquakes (Plate tectonics): The Earth’s crust is broken as large “plates” which move against each other. Scientists believe that this movement of the Earth’s crust helps regulate the carbon in the atmosphere and keeps the surface temperature that water maintains its liquid state.

Our Atmosphere.
Our mother wears a shroud known as the atmosphere. This shroud is made up of Nitrogen (78%), Oxygen (21%), and other gases (1%). Earth's atmosphere is about 480 kilometers thick, but it is more concentrated for about 16 km above the surface. Air pressure decreases as we climb higher towards space and there is also less oxygen to breathe. Most of the weather and clouds are found closer to earth’s surface.

Here are ways atmosphere protects us:

The ozone layer absorbs and blocks some of the Sun's dangerous rays from reaching Earth.

It traps heat, making Earth a comfortable temperature. And the oxygen within our atmosphere is essential for life.

Atmosphere protests us from meteors. The friction generated when meteors hurtle towards Earth causes a majority of them to burn up even before hitting the surface of the earth. The craters created by the very few that have managed to impact us have been erased by the atmospheric winds. That is one reason we see very few craters on earth.

The atmosphere is divided into five layers. It is thickest near the surface and thins out as we go up and merge with space.

The troposphere is the first layer above the surface and contains half of the Earth's atmosphere. Weather occurs in this layer.

The next higher layer is the Stratosphere. Many airplanes fly in the stratosphere because it is very stable. Ozone layer is present in this zone.

The next higher layer is the Mesosphere where a majority of the meteors or rock fragments burn up.

The thermosphere is a layer with auroras. It is also where the space shuttle orbits.

The atmosphere merges into space in the extremely thin exosphere. This is the upper limit of our atmosphere.

View attachment 245318
Image courtesy: scied.ucar.edu

Magnetosphere
Our Earth acts a huge magnet and is surrounded by a huge magnetic field known as the magnetosphere.
The magnetic field begins deep down the earth’s core. To understand how this magnetosphere operates we need to go towards the center of our earth.

Earth cross section

View attachment 245319
Image courtesy: phys.org

If we were to cut the earth this is what we would see.

The center of the Earth is made up of a solid iron core. Though this core is as hot as the sun’s surface the extremely high pressure of gravity prevents it from becoming a liquid.

This solid iron core is surrounded by a 2,000 km thick outer core which is mixture of iron, nickel, and small quantities of other metals. Compared to the inner core this layer has less pressure and therefore in liquid form.

Convection currents take place in this outer core due to constant moving of the liquid cooling and heating up.

Adding to this is another force which is a result of the Earth’s spin known as the Coriolis force. The convection current and the Coriolis forces generate electric currents which in turn produce the magnetic fields.

Charged metals that pass these magnetics fields in turn produce their own electric currents, which keep the cycle continuous. This self-sustaining loop is known as the geodynamo.

The magnetic fields cause the Earth’s inner solid iron core to spin eastward and the liquid outer core to spin in the opposite direction.

Other planets in our solar system have magnetosphere, but Earth has the strongest one of all the rocky planets: Earth's magnetosphere is a vast, comet-shaped bubble, which has played a crucial role in our planet's habitability.

Life on Earth initially developed and continues to be sustained under the protection of this magnetic environment. The magnetosphere shields our home planet from solar and cosmic particle radiation, as well as erosion of the atmosphere by the solar wind - the constant flow of charged particles streaming off the sun.

View attachment 245320
Image courtesy: ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov

Jupiter and Saturn

Jupiter and Saturn, the giant gas planets contribute a major role in the existence of life on Earth.
Jupiter and Saturn helped to stabilize the solar system. They protect the the inner rocky planets by absorbing many of the big rocky objects that are headed towards the sun.
Quoting a popular quote, “Giant planets appear to have a giant impact on giant impacts.” (Author unknown)
However, as with any studies there are many theories that contradict this one also.

Highest mountains

If it weren’t for mountains, our planet might be an orbiting husk. New findings suggest that mountains, as they are being pushed up act as elevators in bringing up minerals from deep in the earth to surface. Rain, snow, and streams take these minerals downstream and deposit them in near the river valleys making them rich.

The trees on mountains also help in stabilizing the atmosphere by absorbing excess CO2 .

Oceans and Rivers, Lakes and Streams.

Three fourths of our Earth is covered by oceans and contain 97% of the planet’s water. The rest 3 % are rivers, lakes, and smaller bodies of water. Oceans produce and emit about half the oxygen into the atmosphere and absorb most of the carbon.

Yes, water, water, everywhere and every drop is important.

In addition to producing and emitting oxygen into the atmosphere for us to breathe, all living beings need water to survive.

Water helps maintain our Earth’s temperature.

Water is a main contributor to our weather

Water erosion helps bring nutrients from different places to enrich soils.

We all know how water tides played a major part in evolution of species.

The color green.

There is one other important ingredient that contributes to our life on earth. It is that green pigment called chlorophyll. While other colored pigments are no less important, the majority of plant life contain the green pigment chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll helps in trapping sun’s energy and during the process called photosynthesis, makes the food necessary for the survival of animals.

Photosynthesis not only produces food but also release oxygen into the atmosphere and traps the carbon dioxide to make the food.

While there are organisms that do not require plants to survive, without plants, our Earth may be hosting different forms of life.

Earth’s biography - very short

Approximately 4.6 billion years ago, the solar system began to form from a cloud of dust and gas known as a solar nebula.

Earth's rocky core formed first, with heavy elements colliding and binding together. Dense material sank to the center, while the lighter material created the crust. The planet's magnetic field probably formed around this time. Gravity captured some of the gases that made up the planet's early atmosphere.

Atmosphere

Earth is often described as having had three atmospheres.

The first atmosphere, captured from the solar nebula, was composed of light elements from the solar nebula, mostly hydrogen and helium. A combination of the solar wind and Earth's heat would have driven off this atmosphere, as a result of which the atmosphere is now depleted of these elements compared to cosmic abundances.

After the impact which created the moon, the molten Earth released volatile gases; and later more gases were released by volcanoes, completing a second atmosphere rich in greenhouse gases but poor in oxygen.

Finally, the third atmosphere, rich in oxygen, emerged when bacteria began to produce oxygen about 2.8 billion years ago.

Ocean formation

Over vast periods of time, our primitive oceans formed. Water remained a gas until the Earth cooled below 212 degrees Fahrenheit. At this time, about 3.8 billion years ago, the water condensed into rain which filled the basins that are now our oceans.

Most scientists agree that the atmosphere and the oceans accumulated gradually over millions and millions of years with the continual 'degassing' of the Earth's interior.

According to this theory, the ocean formed from the escape of water vapor and other gases from the molten rocks of the Earth to the atmosphere surrounding the cooling planet.

After the Earth's surface had cooled to a temperature below the boiling point of water, rain began to fall—and continued to fall for centuries. As the water drained into the great hollows in the Earth's surface, the primeval ocean came into existence. The forces of gravity prevented the water from leaving the planet.

Continent formation

The Earth was a very different place 4 billion years ago: The planet was much hotter — uninhabitable for even the hardiest forms of life — and the familiar landscapes we know today were completely absent.

During this time, the so-called Archean Eon, the first continents were beginning to coagulate at the Earth's surface.

How they got there has been one of the longest standing and most debated questions for geoscientists.

Life formation

Evidence suggests that life first evolved around 3.5 billion years ago. Our real, ancestors were microbes. These microbes were the result of cyanobacterial photosynthesis. From these microbes, evolved different species.

Throughout the history of the earth, different species evolved and have become extinct too. Everyday new species of animals and plants are being discovered and many are awaiting discovery.

If we compact the 4.6 billion years of Earth history this is how it would appear:
View attachment 245321
Image courtesy: earthinhistory.tumblr.stfi

Some interesting facts

Our Earth is an oblate spheroid. Oblate refers to oblong and spheroid means almost a sphere, but not quite

Before 500 BC people thought earth was flat. But scientists like Pythagoras and Aristotle helped us understand that Earth is spherical.

It was Sir Isaac Newton showed us that Earth is not a perfect sphere but a spheroid (compressed a bit on the top and bottom)

The average depth of the ocean is about 12,100 feet.

The deepest part of the ocean is called the Challenger Deep and is located beneath the western Pacific Ocean in the southern end of the Mariana Trench, which runs several hundred kilometers southwest of the U.S. territorial island of Guam. Challenger Deep is approximately 36,200 feet deep. It is named after the HMS Challenger, whose crew first sounded the depths of the trench in 1875.

Did you know that due to the motions of the Earth, the Sun, and the Milky Way Galaxy, you have moved nearly 60,000 km since you started reading this? …and you thought you were sitting still.

If the Earth was an apple the crust would be just as thin as the apple's skin - Yes, that thin!

Information Sources: teachthemhowtothink.tumblr.com, Windows to the Universe, Wikipedia, space.com, Swpc/noaa/, physics.org, nasa, Quartz.com, space-awareness.org., livescience.com
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" Did you know that due to the motions of the Earth, the Sun, and the Milky Way Galaxy, you have moved nearly 60,000 km since you started reading this? …and you thought you were sitting still." got goose bumps reading it Ma'am !

kkrish · Feb 8, 2017

Madhumagie said: ↑

" Did you know that due to the motions of the Earth, the Sun, and the Milky Way Galaxy, you have moved nearly 60,000 km since you started reading this? …and you thought you were sitting still." got goose bumps reading it Ma'am !
Click to expand...

Yes, isn't it amazing!
Our Earth moves @ 30 km/second around the Sun and it takes 365 days to complete one circle.
Goes to show how vast a space we cover in one year.

Yes, and this globe, spins at the equator of about 1,670 km/h. As we move up towards the pole the spin rate lessens and at the poles the spin is slowest taking 24 hours for a single spin.

This information is critical when it comes to launching rockets.

Caughtinbetween · Nov 15, 2017

Dear @kkrish ,

hope you are doing well .
Could not find a better place to post this link . So posting here : Newly discovered nearby planet could support life - CNN

Nearby Star Ross 128’s Planet May Have Conditions for Life

this new discovery i guess is as interesting as finding possible life forms on the surface of mars .
Would like to know more about it when ever you get a chance . I was reading other solar system related posts from you and your explanation is very simple for common people like me to understand it . Keep it up. Thanks .

kkrish · Nov 16, 2017

Caughtinbetween said: ↑

Dear @kkrish ,

hope you are doing well .
Could not find a better place to post this link . So posting here : Newly discovered nearby planet could support life - CNN

Nearby Star Ross 128’s Planet May Have Conditions for Life

this new discovery i guess is as interesting as finding possible life forms on the surface of mars .
Click to expand...

Hi @Caughtinbetween
I am doing well, thank you.
Thanks for this information. Yes, feel free to post any information about space in any of the space threads. More the information, more it reaches others.

Your link was the first time I read about this discovery. I searched other places but there was no other information.
Many questions rose in my mind as I read it.
The foremost was the proximity of the planet to its sun.
Despite the sun being older than ours, I am not sure if that alone can generate life.

I have questions such as: Does the presence of huge planets like Jupiter and Saturn contribute? Size of the planet, axis tilt, rotation speed, magnetic field, and so many more.
So I am sceptical about possibility of life on this planet also.

We can only wait and see. I am also keeping an eye on more information on TRAPPIST- the multi planet system that was discovered a little earlier. will certainly provide updates when I come across any.

Caughtinbetween said: ↑

I was reading other solar system related posts from you and your explanation is very simple for common people like me to understand it . Keep it up.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much. This means a lot to me.

kkrish · Nov 18, 2017

Here is a compilation of pictures of our Mother Earth from outer space over a period of many years.
Seeing Earth from Outer Space

Credit for this information goes to @Iravati from this post Gabfest: And Thereby Hangs A Tail

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