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Sep 6, 2010 · Today I found out how ‘Earth’ came to be called so. Firstly, it’s important to understand that nearly every language has its own name for the planet. It’s called ‘terra’ in Portuguese, ‘dünya’ in Turkish and ‘aarde’ in Dutch, just to name a few with their own etymology. However, the common thread in all languages is that ...
- Namesake. The name Earth is at least 1,000 years old. All of the planets, except for Earth, were named after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. However, the name Earth is a Germanic word, which simply means “the ground.”
- Potential for Life. Earth has a very hospitable temperature and mix of chemicals that have made life abundant here. Most notably, Earth is unique in that most of our planet is covered in liquid water, since the temperature allows liquid water to exist for extended periods of time.
- Size and Distance. With an equatorial diameter of 7926 miles (12,760 kilometers), Earth is the biggest of the terrestrial planets and the fifth largest planet in our solar system.
- Orbit and Rotation. As Earth orbits the Sun, it completes one rotation every 23.9 hours. It takes 365.25 days to complete one trip around the Sun. That extra quarter of a day presents a challenge to our calendar system, which counts one year as 365 days.
Earth is orbited by one permanent natural satellite, the Moon, which orbits Earth at 384,400 km (1.28 light seconds) and is roughly a quarter as wide as Earth. The Moon's gravity helps stabilize Earth's axis, causes tides and gradually slows Earth's rotation .
1 day ago · Earth, third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest planet in the solar system in terms of size and mass. Its single most outstanding feature is that its near-surface environments are the only places in the universe known to harbour life. It is designated by the symbol ♁.
- Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest planet in the solar system in terms of size and mass. Its near-surface environments ar...
- Earth is located in the Orion-Cygnus Arm, one of the four spiral arms of the Milky Way, which lies about two-thirds of the way from the centre of t...
- Earth’s name in English, the international language of astronomy, derives from Old English and Germanic words for ground and earth, and it is the o...
- Earth and the other planets in the solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago. The early Earth had no ozone layer and no free oxygen, lacked o...
- Viewed from another planet, Earth would appear bright and bluish in colour. In latitudinal belts, swirling white cloud patterns of midlatitude and...
Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, all unknown in classical times, were named by the modern astronomers who discovered them, but still after Greek and Roman gods. Earth is the one exception. Its name, according to the official gazetteer of planetary discovery, comes from the Indo-European base 'er', which produced the Germanic noun 'ertho', the modern ...
Apr 27, 2021 · Physical Characteristics. Origin Of The Name. Earth is the third planet from the Sun in the Solar System. All the planets, except Earth, were named after Roman and Greek gods and goddesses. Earth is a modern English name derived from an Old English word “oerde” or “erda,” meaning soil or ground.
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For example, the modern English word ‘Earth’ derives from the Germanic ‘erde’, meaning ‘ground’. The roots of such words all date from a time when humankind was unaware that Earth is actually a planet. They merely signified the ground beneath our feet, and were adopted for the planet later on.
