Monday, January 28, 2008

Earth

Earth is the third planet on or after the Sun and the fifth largest of the planet. Earth is the only planet whose English forename does not originate from Greek/Roman mythology. The name derives from Old English and Germanic.

Earth, for sure, can be studied exclusive of the aid of spacecraft. However it was not until the twentieth century that we had maps of the complete planet. Pictures of the planet taken from space are of significant importance; for example, they are a huge help in weather prediction and especially in tracking and predicting hurricanes, they are amazingly beautiful. The Earth's magnetic field and its relationships with the solar wind also generate the Van Allen emission belts, a pair of doughnut shaped rings of ionized gas (or plasma) trapped in orbit just about the Earth. The on the outside belt stretches from 19,000 km in altitude to 41,000 km; the inner belt lies involving 13,000 km and 7,600 km in altitude.

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