The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think that this to be the normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
Douglas Adams in The Scientific Indian Science Fiction Anthology
If you could see the earth illuminated when you were in a place as dark as night, it would look to you more splendid than the moon.
Galileo Galilei, Salviati, p. 88
I used to measure the heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. Although my mind was heaven-bound, the shadow of my body lies here.
Johannes Kepler
- From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Norma Arm of the Milky Way passes through the constellation Norma, and it’s from the constellation that the arm’s name is derived.
- Pictor has attracted attention because of its second-brightest star Beta Pictoris, 63.4 light-years distant from Earth, which is surrounded by an unusual dust disk rich in carbon, as well as two exoplanets (extrasolar planets).
- The Blue Marble (Wikipedia)
- The Blue Marble
- On February 17, 1998, Voyager 1 reached a distance of 69 AU (6.4 billion mi; 10.3 billion km) from the Sun and overtook Pioneer 10 as the most distant spacecraft from Earth. Traveling at about 17 km/s (11 mi/s), it has the fastest heliocentric recession speed of any spacecraft.
- Due to the precession of Earth’s rotational axis, Thuban was the naked-eye star closest to the north pole from 3942 BC, when it superseded Tau Herculis as the pole star, until 1793 BC, when it was superseded by Kappa Draconis.
- celestial sphere
- eclipse
- Planetary Science
- Silicate minerals comprise approximately 90% of the Earth’s crust.
- Tectosilicates, or “framework silicates,” have a three-dimensional framework of silicate tetrahedra with SiO2 in a 1:2 ratio. This group comprises nearly 75% of the crust of the Earth.
- Archean
- Earth in the early Hadean had a very thick carbon dioxide- and methane-rich prebiotic atmosphere, but eventually oceans made of liquid water were formed.
- Hadean
- Phanerozoic
- One of the most important events of the Proterozoic was the accumulation of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere.
- Proterozoic
- During the Lopingian, most of the earth was in the supercontinent Pangaea.
- Paleoproterozoic
- Cretaceous
- Two of the largest known impact events on Earth occurred during the Orosirian. Early in the period, 2023 Mya, a large asteroid collision created the Vredefort impact structure. The event that created the Sudbury Basin structure occurred near the end of the period, 1850 Mya.
- During the Permian, all the Earth’s major landmasses were collected into a single supercontinent known as Pangaea, with the microcontinental terranes of Cathaysia to the east.
- Mississippian
- Pennsylvanian
- Cascadia subduction zone
- geology
- lithosphere
This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?
Henry David ThoreauThe important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet and our visions go rather further than that and our opportunities are unlimited.
Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 30th Anniversary Press Conference, NASA- Pangaea
- North American Plate
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9 KJVBlessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5 NIV- Earthrise
- Earth (Wikipedia)
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only place known in the universe where life has originated and found habitability. Earth is the only planet known to sustain liquid surface water, with ocean water extending over 70.8% of the planet, making it an ocean world. Most of all other water is retained in Earth’s polar regions, with large sheets of ice covering ocean and land, dwarfing Earth’s groundwater, lakes, rivers and atmospheric water. The other 29.2% of the Earth’s surface is land, consisting of continents and islands, and is widely covered by vegetation. Below the planet’s surface lies the crust, consisting of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Inside the Earth’s crust is a liquid outer core that generates the magnetosphere, deflecting most of the destructive solar winds and cosmic radiation.
