Rocky planet

Blue/Brown/Green

Diameter: 7900 Miles

Rotation: 1 day

Orbit: 365 days

Temperature average: 10 to 20 C

Moons: 1

Number from the sun: 3

Distance from the sun: 93 million miles

Atmosphere: Oxygen/Nitrogen

Earth is the only planet that has advanced life forms. No other planet has an atmosphere and air just like Earth has. No other planet has water the way Earth has water, either. Seventy percent of Earth is covered with water. That's more than half!

The big parts of land on the Earth are called continents. Earth has a lot of mountains. It also has deserts and rain forests. In the coldest parts of the Earth, there are big chunks of ice called glaciers.

People used to think that the Earth was at the middle of the universe and everything else moved around the Earth. An astronomer named Copernicus proved that this was not true. Now we know that the earth spins. This is what causes day and night. We  also know that the Earth orbits around the Sun. The earth moves in a big circle around the Sun. It takes 365 days for the Earth to make this circle. That's why we have 365 days in a year.

Earth is not a small planet, but it is not a large planet either. It is just medium sized. The Earth has layers. The outside is called the crust. That's where people live. Under the crust is the mantle. Under that is the core. The mantle is very hot rock. The core is probably made of melted metal. The core is about the same temperature as the Sun! The crust is not nearly that hot. The temperature on the crust is different in places. Some places have ice while some places have warm beaches.

The Earth has one moon. We do not have a special name for our Moon. We first visited the Moon in 1969. There is less gravity on the Moon than there is on Earth.

Since we are the only planet that has life, we should be careful to take care of our planet and keep it clean.

Think about it:  What will happen to the Earth if we don't take care of it? What will happen to our rivers and lakes? What will happen to our plants? If something happens to the water and plants, what will happen to us?

To learn more about Earth, visit this site:  http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/Earth/