Earth

• The only planet that supports life.• Earth is a complex system of air, water , and

land.• It’s thin yet dynamic veil of atmosphere,

and it’s brown and green jigsaw of continents all give Earth a vitality unknown anywhere else in the universe.• Earth is the only planet in our solar system not to be named after a Greek or Roman deity.

• Third planet from the sun.• Of all the planets in the solar system, Earth

has the greatest density.

Theodore Von Karman(1881-1963) Hungarian American engineer and physicist. He was the first to calculate that around this altitude, the atmosphere becomes too thin to support aeronautical flight, because a vehicle at this altitude would have to travel faster than orbital velocity to derive sufficient aerodynamic lift to support itself (neglecting centrifugal force).-

LithosphereAsthenosphere

Mesosphere

The Outer Core is liquid

The Inner Core is solid

The internal structure of Earth is probed using seismic waves, vibrations caused by earthquakes, which travel through the interior.

Compressional Wave – or “P Waves”, they can travel through both solid and liquid zones

Transverse Waves – or “S Waves”, they can pass through the solid earth but not liquid zones.

“L Wave” (also a Transverse Wave) - these waves travel over Earth’s surface only.

Van Allen belts

4.54 Billion Years Old This age is based on

evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the radiometric ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples.