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Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. [23] This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all of Earth's water is contained in its global ocean, covering 70.8% of Earth's crust.
The atmosphere of Earth is composed of a layer of gas mixture that surrounds the Earth's planetary surface (both lands and oceans), known collectively as air, with variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates (which create weather features such as clouds and hazes), all retained by Earth's gravity.
Superior planets: Planets whose orbits lie outside the orbit of Earth. [nb 1] Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune: Trojan planet: A planet co-orbiting with another planet. The discovery of a pair of co-orbital exoplanets has been reported, but later retracted. [3] One possibility for the habitable zone is a trojan planet of a gas giant close to ...
The internal structure of the inner planets. The internal structure of the outer planets. A planetary core consists of the innermost layers of a planet. [1] Cores may be entirely liquid, or a mixture of solid and liquid layers as is the case in the Earth. [2]
Earth is unique among the rocky planets in the Solar System in having oceans of liquid water on its surface. [2] Liquid water, which is necessary for all known forms of life , continues to exist on the surface of Earth because the planet is at a far enough distance (known as the habitable zone ) from the Sun that it does not lose its water, but ...
The distance separating the planet and its star is just 7% of the distance between Earth and the Sun, and the planet receives 1.6 times more energy from its star than Earth does from the Sun.
The average magnetic field strength in Earth's outer core is estimated to be 2.5 millitesla, 50 times stronger than the magnetic field at the surface. [9] [10] As Earth's core cools, the liquid at the inner core boundary freezes, causing the solid inner core to grow at the expense of the outer core, at an estimated rate of 1 mm per year.
“The planet is basically super fluffy” because it's made mostly of light gases rather than solids, lead author Khalid Barkaoui of Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a statement