NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense.
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense.
Planetary Sciences
1 hour ago
0
0
Japan's space agency announced Friday a plan to launch a major upgrade to its satellite imaging system, as a new flagship rocket is put to the test for a third time.
Space Exploration
20 hours ago
0
7
A spaceship carrying three astronauts from China's Shenzhou-18 mission safely docked at Tiangong space station Friday, state-run media reported, the latest step in Beijing's space program that aims to send astronauts to the ...
Space Exploration
Apr 26, 2024
0
6
Scientists have called for a concerted global effort to stem the tide of disposable electronic technologies—such as vapes—contributing to international waste accumulation and environmental degradation.
Environment
Apr 25, 2024
0
1
NASA has developed an advanced propulsion technology to facilitate future planetary exploration missions using small spacecraft. Not only will this technology enable new types of planetary science missions, one of NASA's ...
Space Exploration
Apr 24, 2024
1
66
China's space agency is making final preparations to send a new crew to its space station on Thursday as part of its ambitious program that aims to put people on the moon by 2030.
Space Exploration
Apr 24, 2024
0
11
When talk turns to climate change, certain images pop to mind—maybe polar bears on ever-shrinking ice floes, coral reefs drained of color, or more powerful hurricanes hitting the coast.
Environment
Apr 23, 2024
0
18
CloudSat, a NASA mission that peered into hurricanes, tallied global snowfall rates, and achieved other weather and climate firsts, has ended its operations. Originally proposed as a 22-month mission, the spacecraft was recently ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 23, 2024
0
12
Despite surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead, lava-spewing volcanoes, and puffy clouds of sulfuric acid, uninhabitable Venus offers vital lessons about the potential for life on other planets, a new paper argues.
Astrobiology
Apr 22, 2024
0
80
A small international team of planetary scientists has found evidence supporting the theory that the near-Earth asteroid Kamo'oalewa is ejecta from the moon. In their paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the group ...
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World, the Blue Planet, and Terra.
Home to millions of species, including humans, Earth is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist. The planet formed 4.54 billion years ago, and life appeared on its surface within a billion years. Since then, Earth's biosphere has significantly altered the atmosphere and other abiotic conditions on the planet, enabling the proliferation of aerobic organisms as well as the formation of the ozone layer which, together with Earth's magnetic field, blocks harmful radiation, permitting life on land. The physical properties of the Earth, as well as its geological history and orbit, allowed life to persist during this period. The world is expected to continue supporting life for another 1.5 billion years, after which the rising luminosity of the Sun will eliminate the biosphere.
Earth's outer surface is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that gradually migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of the surface is covered with salt-water oceans, the remainder consisting of continents and islands; liquid water, necessary for all known life, is not known to exist on any other planet's surface. Earth's interior remains active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core.
Earth interacts with other objects in outer space, including the Sun and the Moon. At present, Earth orbits the Sun once for every roughly 366.26 times it rotates about its axis. This length of time is a sidereal year, which is equal to 365.26 solar days. The Earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.4° away from the perpendicular to its orbital plane, producing seasonal variations on the planet's surface with a period of one tropical year (365.24 solar days). Earth's only known natural satellite, the Moon, which began orbiting it about 4.53 billion years ago, provides ocean tides, stabilizes the axial tilt and gradually slows the planet's rotation. Between approximately 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment caused significant changes to the surface environment.
Both the mineral resources of the planet, as well as the products of the biosphere, contribute resources that are used to support a global human population. The inhabitants are grouped into about 200 independent sovereign states, which interact through diplomacy, travel, trade and military action. Human cultures have developed many views of the planet, including personification as a deity, a belief in a flat Earth or in Earth being the center of the universe, and a modern perspective of the world as an integrated environment that requires stewardship.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA