Exploring Earth Ms. Stewart June 18, 2003

Earth From Space From space, Earth is seen as one of the most beautiful planets. Space photos show Earth with a lot of bright blues and swirling white colors. –The Blue is from the great amount of water that covers Earth surface –The white is the various scattered clouds on the Earth

Earth’s Closest Neighbor Earth has 1 known moon, which is actually a natural satellite There are 238,970 miles between Earth and the Moon The diameter of the moon is 2,160 miles

Earth in Relation to the Sun Earth is the third planet from the sun Earth is 150,000,000 km from the sun or 93,000,000 miles! Earth is a planet, but the sun is a star The Sun is the closest star to the Earth!

Spinning Circles Earth orbits around the sun One full orbit around the sun takes 1 year Orbiting around the sun causes the changing of seasons Earth also rotates on its axis, as it orbits It takes hrs for one full rotation Rotating causes day and night

What Was That? Besides planets, you can find lots of other fun things in space! –Stars, the sun is the largest –Meteors, piece of rock that enters the earth’s atmosphere –Comets, formed from ice, dust or gas, which orbits a star –satellites, both man made and natural

Earth’s Basic Facts Earth’s atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen Earth is the only known planet that sustains human life Earth is the largest of the four inner planets The Earth’s Ozone Layer protects us from the harmful rays of the sun! Earth’s Diameter is 7,926 miles

What Did You Learn? Why is the solar system important to us? In the order of planets, what number is Earth? Is the moon close enough to ride our bikes to? What is the difference between man made and natural satellites? How does orbiting the sun affect our lives?

Where I found My Images Google.com – –image of earth with the sun in the background (basic facts slide) Google.com –attadog.com/space/space.html –image of all nine planets from google.com images (title page) Google.com – SpecialRelativity.htm –planets orbiting the sun from Google.com images (title page) Google.com – earthviewer.html –image of sun light on earth from Google.com (spinning circles slide) Google.com – –image of earth in space (Earth from Space slide) Google.com –legislative.nasa.gov/earth.hrtml –image of earth and the moon (Earth’s neighbor slide)

Research Sources Astronomy Fact Pack from Houghton Mifflin, Discovery Works Science. The Solar System and Beyond. Pages B-34-B-46.