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Earth [♁] is the third planet orbiting the Sun in the Solar System and the largest terrestial planet (solid as opposed to gaseous).
The “great circle” distance on Earth's equatorial circumference is roughly 24,902 miles (40,000 km). The polar circumcumference is 24,860 miles which means the Earth “spreads out” around at the equator as it spins on its polar axis. See circumnavigate.
The Earth's orbit of the Sun takes approximately 365 days; days are approximately 24 hours, measured by the rotation of the Earth on its polar axis. Seasons are the result of the tiny differences in the distance of the Earth's surface from the Sun due to axis tilt of Earth as we orbit the Sun. The Earth's largest natural orbiting satellite is the Moon.
Scientific theory states that the planet Earth formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago and has evolved through geological and biological processes. It is the only planet currently known to harbor life which consists of approximately 7 billion humans (2013).
Geography is scientific study of the Earth's physical features, resources, climate, and human interventions.
Quotes about Earth ~
• “We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the earth.” ~ William A. Anders
• “For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.” ~ James Baldwin
• “...the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.” ~ Wendell Berry
• “With the moon walk, the religious myth that sustained these notions could no longer be held. With our view of earthrise, we could see that the earth and the heavens were no longer divided but that the earth is in the heavens.” ~ Joseph Campbell
• “It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.” ~ Rachel Carson
• “What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the moon but that they set eye on the Earth.” ~ Norman Cousins
• “Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.” ~ Jacques-Yves Cousteau
• “The earth laughs in flowers.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “I see Earth! It is so beautiful.” ~ Yuri Gagarin
• “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
• “Now we, if not in the spirit, have been caught up to see our earth, our mother, Gaia Mater, set like a jewel in space. We have no excuse now for supposing her riches inexhaustible nor the area we have to live on limitless because unbounded. We are the children of that great blue white jewel. Through our mother we are part of the solar system and part through that of the whole universe. In the blazing poetry of the fact we are children of the stars.” ~ William Golding
• “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
• “The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the center of each and every town or city.” ~ Oliver Wendel Holmes, Sr.
• “Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside, is available, a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.” ~ Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, 1948
• “We are the intelligent elite among animal life on earth and whatever our mistakes, [Earth] needs us. This may seem an odd statement after all that I have said about the way 20th century humans became almost a planetary disease organism. But it has taken [Earth] 2.5 billion years to evolve an animal that can think and communicate its thoughts. If we become extinct she has little chance of evolving another.” ~ James E. Lovelock
• “On the earth, satellite of a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's history; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it, so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
• “Suddenly, from behind the rim of the Moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth . . . home.” ~ Astronaut Edgar Mitchell
• “Man makes a great fuss about this planet which is only a ballbearing in the hub of the universe.” ~ Christopher Morley
• “The Earth is the Lord's fullness thereof: this is no longer a hollow dictum of religion, but a directive for economic action toward human brotherhood.” ~ Lewis Mumford
• “Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do—back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
• “There are many good inventions on earth, some useful, some pleasing: for their sake, the earth is to be loved. And there is such a variety of well-invented things that the earth is like the breasts of a woman: useful as well as pleasing.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
• “The earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.” ~ Pope John Paul II
• “The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
• “It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” ~ Rilke
• “The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.” ~ Sultan bin Salman Al Saud
• “Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch.” ~ Chief Seattle
• “What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?” ~ Henry David Thoreau
• “This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?” ~ Henry David Thoreau
• “We are the children of the earth and removed from her our spirit withers.” ~ George Macaulay Trevelyan
• “I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna during my lifetime” ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
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