我想問呢個世界有幾大?

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest:

orbit: 149,600,000 km (1.00 AU) from Sun
diameter: 12,756.3 km
mass: 5.972e24 kg


Hardcopy Planet Earth
Amazing pictures of Earth from space combine useful science and artistic beauty.

Orbit : Nasa Astronauts Photograph the Earth
A beautiful coffee table book. Kids often ask me which is my favorite planet. My answer is always "Earth". This book shows why.
Earth is the only planet whose English name does not derive from Greek/Roman mythology. The name derives from Old English and Germanic. There are, of course, hundreds of other names for the planet in other languages. In Roman Mythology, the goddess of the Earth was Tellus - the fertile soil (Greek: Gaia, terra mater - Mother Earth).

It was not until the time of Copernicus (the sixteenth century) that it was understood that the Earth is just another planet.



Mir space station and Earth's limb Earth, of course, can be studied without the aid of spacecraft. Nevertheless it was not until the twentieth century that we had maps of the entire planet. Pictures of the planet taken from space are of considerable importance; for example, they are an enormous help in weather prediction and especially in tracking and predicting hurricanes. And they are extraordinarily beautiful.
The Earth is divided into several layers which have distinct chemical and seismic properties (depths in km):


0- 40 Crust
40- 400 Upper mantle
400- 650 Transition region
650-2700 Lower mantle
2700-2890 D'' layer
2890-5150 Outer core
5150-6378 Inner core
The crust varies considerably in thickness, it is thinner under the oceans, thicker under the continents. The inner core and crust are solid; the outer core and mantle layers are plastic or semi-fluid. The various layers are separated by discontinuities which are evident in seismic data; the best known of these is the Mohorovicic discontinuity between the crust and upper mantle.
Most of the mass of the Earth is in the mantle, most of the rest in the core; the part we inhabit is a tiny fraction of the whole (values below x10^24 kilograms):

atmosphere = 0.0000051
oceans = 0.0014
crust = 0.026
mantle = 4.043
outer core = 1.835
inner core = 0.09675

The core is probably composed mostly of iron (or nickel/iron) though it is possible that some lighter elements may be present, too. Temperatures at the center of the core may be as high as 7500 K, hotter than the surface of the Sun. The lower mantle is probably mostly silicon, magnesium and oxygen with some iron, calcium and aluminum. The upper mantle is mostly olivene and pyroxene (iron/magnesium silicates), calcium and aluminum. We know most of this only from seismic techniques; samples from the upper mantle arrive at the surface as lava from volcanoes but the majority of the Earth is inaccessible. The crust is primarily quartz (silicon dioxide) and other silicates like feldspar. Taken as a whole, the Earth's chemical composition (by mass) is:

South America by Galileo

34.6% Iron
29.5% Oxygen
15.2% Silicon
12.7% Magnesium
2.4% Nickel
1.9% Sulfur
0.05% Titanium

地球是太陽系八大行星的第三個行星，擁有一顆衛星月球 (俗稱月亮)，介於金星與火星之間。地球距離太陽的距離定為一天文單位，大約為1億五千萬公里 。 地球是前四顆岩質行星中最大的一個，也是太陽系中密度最大的。地球也是目前唯一發現生物與大量氧氣的地方。 地球的年齡約為45億5千萬年，也許與太陽系的年紀相當。

地球的地形外觀

地球最大的特徵在於它是太陽系中唯一表面有液態水存在的星球，表面約70 ％為海洋所覆蓋，所以能孕育滋養生命。由太空中回首看看地球，可以發現地球是個美麗的藍色星球，包圍著大氣。大氣中有水所構成的白雲。

除了海洋之外，就是佔地較少的陸地 。由太空中可以看到地球上陸地的分布 。由於風化作用的進行，地球上並不會看到許多類似月球以及水星表面的隕石顆構造。除了大型的隕石坑，地球上的隕石撞擊痕跡都會逐漸受到風化而消失。 雖然如此，地球的表面還是留存著許多大型的地質結構。

由太空中看地球，事實上並沒有辦法看到地上的人造建築物如大樓，金字塔，甚至連號稱最大建築物的萬里長城都沒有辦法看見。

地球的表面環境

地球是目前(2007年)在太陽系中發現唯一有生物存在的地方，表面溫度的範圍大致在-60度~50度的範圍，不致過於酷熱或嚴寒 。由於地球的自轉軸有23。44度的傾斜，因此有四季的分別。在太陽直射北半球時，北半球為夏季，而太陽直射南半球的時候，北半球為冬季。

地球的板塊運動仍然很頻繁 ，時常有地震發生，釋放能量。薄板狀地殼隨著地函的對流而做水平漂移的板塊運動，也是地球獨有的重要特徵。板塊運動造成的物質循環對於地球的外觀影響極大。

也許會有人問，為什麼與地球大小相近的姊妹星-金星 ，跟地球的環境差這麼多呢? 原因可能是由於不可逆的溫室效應的結果。據推測，原始金星的成分與地球相近，不過由於大氣中含有的二氧化碳過多，溫室效應的結果使得溫度上升，地殼中的二氧化碳也分解釋出了，更多的二氧化碳又繼續加深溫室效應的效果 ，如此一來，就在也無法回頭了，所以稱為不可逆的反應。

地球的星體結構

地球內部的結構大致可以分成三個部分- 地殼，地函，地核。其中地殼以及地函是由矽酸鹽所構成的，而地核由液態(外部)以及固態(內部)的鐵鎳合金所構成。

地球內部的熱對流仍然頻繁，地震火山的活動仍然隨處可見，由於台灣處於地震帶，台灣的人民應該是世界上最常感受到地震的民族之一。

地球的大氣結構

地球上的氣壓大約為一大氣壓附近。主要由氮氣與氧氣所組成的。高空有由水所形成的白色雲 。地球表面的大氣活動非常明顯而且活躍，容易見到許多氣旋的構造。在台灣夏天的時候常常會受到熱帶氣旋(颱風)的襲擊。