Reference:
Earth: History, Composition and Atmosphere
Earth – OverviewPhysical Characteristics
Earth, our home, is the third planet from the sun. It is the only planet known to have an atmosphere containing free oxygen, oceans of liquid water on its surface, and, of course, life.
Earth is the fifth largest of the planets in the solar system — smaller than the four gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, but larger than the three other rocky planets, Mercury, Mars and Venus. It has a diameter of roughly 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers), and is round because gravity pulls matter into a ball, although it is not perfectly round, instead being more of an "oblate spheroid" whose spin causes it to be squashed at its poles and swollen at the equator.
Roughly 71 percent of Earth's surface is covered by water, most of it in the oceans. About a fifth of its atmosphere is made up of oxygen, produced by plants.
Orbital Characteristics
The Earth spins on an imaginary line called an axis that runs from the north pole to the south pole, while also orbiting the sun. It takes Earth 24 hours to complete a rotation on its axis, and roughly 365 days to complete an orbit around the sun
History
Earth probably formed at roughly the same time as the sun and other planets some 4.6 billion years ago, when the solar system coalesced from a giant, rotating cloud of gas and dust known as the solar nebula. As the nebula collapsed because of its gravity, it spun faster and flattened into a disk. Most of the material was pulled toward the center to form the sun. Other particles within the disk collided and stuck together to form ever-larger bodies, including the Earth. The solar wind from the sun was so powerful that it swept away most of the lighter elements, such as hydrogen and helium, from the innermost worlds, rendering Earth and its siblings into small, rocky planets.
Composition & Structure
- Atmosphere
- Magnetic field
- Chemical composition
Orbit & Rotation
Average Distance from the Sun
English: 92,955,820 miles
Metric: 149,597,890 km
Perihelion (closest)
English: 91,400,000 miles
Metric: 147,100,000 km
Aphelion (farthest)
English: 94,500,000 miles
Metric: 152,100,000 km
Average Length of Solar Day
24 hours
Length of Year
365.24 Earth days
Equatorial Inclination to Orbit
23.45 degrees