Introduction *gasp*

Introduction


We only knew what our world was like since the 16th century. Before that period in history, the only thing people knew about the universe and our planet was what they could see with their own eyes. They didn’t know about the true shape of the Earth, nor the Solar System, the water cycle or the size of the universe. They believed in what the Bible told them, which was written long before the scientific age began, informed the people of the ancient view of the world.

The Earth was seen like a rectangle, flat, with four corners and each corner being supported by a pillar. It was believed that a dome that’s was called ‘heaven’ or ‘sky’ separated waters below and above the Earth. The sun, moon and stars moved about in the dome and there was a window or a floodgate at the top of the dome which could be opened to allow rain through. Apparently, hell, was the pit underneath the Earth.
The people thought that if you sailed too far, you would fall off the world, into hell. This was because the top of the water looked flat and where the sea and sky meets(which is called the horizon), you can’t see beyond that, thus gives the impression that the horizon was the end of the world.
If that was the case, what about the sun? Human beings often need to explain things that they don’t understand, so some ancient people tried to explain the enigma. Some people thought that the Sun was a golden flaming chariot pulled by magical horses that could fly through the air. Then, in the morning, the sun-god would get into the chariot in the east. He and his horses would fly through the air, reaching the top of the sky at noon, race downwards reaching the far western ground in the evening, and then somehow, the sun-god would get back to the east during night-time when his chariot stopped shining.

So how did we find out that the world was actually spherical? Well, it happened over a long period of time that involved many different people’s theory’s. In fact, the Greeks where the first people who thought about the problems of a flat Earth. One of them was a man called Anaximander. After looking into the night-sky for a couple of years, he concluded that the world was a cylinder. Although it answered some of the mysteries, there were still many flaws in it. In the end it was the explorers and sailors who discovered that the world was spherical. Ferdinand Magellan’s crew was the first to sail around the entire globe. After that, many other famous explorers followed, such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama.

Earth is the third planet away from the Sun and is actually the fifth largest and densest eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the most habitable planets in the Solar System. This is because of it’s position away from the Sun-it’s the perfect temperature and contains liquid water, necessary for all known life, is not available on any other planet.
It’s Latin name is Terra.

The Earth is divided into four main layers: the inner core, the outer core, mantle and the crust. The core is mostly composed of iron and is so hot that the outer core is molten, with about 10% sulphur. The inner core is under such pressure that it remains solid. Most of the Earth’s mass is actually mantle, which is made up of iron, magnesium, aluminium, silicon and oxygen. At over 1000°C, the mantle is solid but can deform slowly in a plastic manner. That crust is much thinner than any other layers, and is rocky and brittle, so it can fracture in earthquakes.

Last counted on 24 April 2010, it is estimated that the population of the world is 6, 816, 7000, 000!The world population has been growing continuously since the end of the Black Death around 1400. In fact, the world’s population increases by 1.8% every year!

A continent is a large body of land, above water which has a natural geological border. Depending on how you look at it, there are 4-7 continents as some of them are combined. Here are the seven-they are(in size-smallest to largest): Australia, Europe, Antarctica, South America, North America, Africa and Asia. There are approximately 195 countries in the world as well! Earth is massive…but how big?

What is the surface area of the Earth? The surface area of the planet is 510,066,000 square kilometres and the land are of the planet is 148,647,000 sq km. There are 5 oceans(in order smallest to largest): The Arctic Ocean, the Southern Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Altogether, the ocean area adds up to 335,258,000 sq km which makes the total water area 361,419,000 sq km. Did you know that 97% of the world’s water is salt water and only 3% is fresh water(drinking water)?

So thanks to the advancement of technology, we know now what our planet’s true shape is. Although we know masses of information about the Universe, there’s a whole lot more, just waiting to be discovered…!
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And..I got lazy, so no pictures for now. Sorry.