essay on revolution of earth

Earth and Space Science

Earth’s rotation and revolution explained.

• The Albert Team
• Last Updated On: March 6, 2024

Have you ever wondered what keeps the day transitioning into the night and back again? This daily cycle is all thanks to Earth’s rotation, which affects everything from the time zones we follow to the weather patterns we experience. This post will review Earth’s rotation and revolution and illustrate how they impact our daily lives. Understanding Earth’s motion isn’t just about knowing why the sun rises and sets but also about comprehending a basic principle that underpins life on our planet.

What We Review

Rotation vs Revolution: What’s the Difference?

Often, the terms “rotation” and “revolution” are used interchangeably. However, they describe distinct movements of Earth that profoundly affect our environment. So, what is the difference between rotation and revolution?

Rotation refers to the Earth spinning around its axis. Imagine an invisible line running through the Earth from the North Pole to the South Pole; this is Earth’s axis. Every 24 hours, Earth completes one full rotation, which is why we have day and night.

Revolution , on the other hand, is the Earth’s journey around the sun. This path isn’t a perfect circle but rather an elliptical orbit, and it takes about 365.25 days to complete. This revolution is the reason we have seasons.

Understanding Earth’s Rotation

Earth’s rotation is how our planet spins around its axis. Picture Earth like a giant top spinning in space, completing a full turn every 24 hours . This rotation gives us the cycle of day and night—daytime when your location faces the sun and nighttime when it turns away.

Historically, the realization that Earth rotates came from observing the sun’s and stars’ apparent movement. Ancient astronomers initially thought that Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. However, figures like Copernicus and Galileo challenged this view, providing evidence that the Earth spins on its axis. The Foucault pendulum , introduced in the 19th century, offered direct, observable proof of the Earth’s rotation. As you can see , it swings in a consistent direction while the Earth turns beneath it.

Earth’s Revolution Around the Sun

Earth’s revolution around the sun describes our planet’s yearly journey in space. This orbit isn’t a perfect circle; it’s slightly stretched, causing Earth’s distance from the sun to vary throughout the year.

This elliptical path brings us closer to the sun at perihelion in early January and farther away at aphelion in early July. This slight variation doesn’t significantly impact our climate. The primary influence on seasons is Earth’s axial tilt. As Earth revolves, its tilted axis leads to varying sunlight angles across the globe, resulting in seasonal changes. For example, when the Northern Hemisphere tilts towards the sun, it experiences summer. Meanwhile, the Southern Hemisphere faces away, experiencing winter, and vice versa.

Earth completes this orbit in about 365.25 days, a fact that defines the length of our year. This is why we have a leap day every four years to keep our calendar in sync with Earth’s orbit.

Real-Life Implications of Earth’s Rotation and Revolution

Impact on navigation.

Historically, Earth’s rotation has been crucial for navigation, especially before the advent of modern technology. Mariners relied on the position of the stars in the night sky to find their way. The postition of the stars change predictably as the Earth rotates, an d seafarers use this to determine their latitude and longitude at sea. Even today, with GPS technology, understanding Earth’s rotation is vital as it influences the positioning of satellites and the accuracy of GPS signals.

Influence on Timekeeping

The concept of a day is directly tied to Earth’s rotation. Our 24-hour day is Earth’s period to complete one full rotation on its axis. Time zones are determined by the Earth’s rotation relative to the sun, dividing the planet into different time zones based on longitudinal degrees. As Earth rotates, different parts of the world experience sunrise and sunset at different times, leading to various time zones.

Effects on Technology

Earth’s rotation and revolution have significant impacts on technology, particularly in the fields of telecommunications and space exploration. Satellite communication systems must account for Earth’s movement to maintain alignment and provide consistent coverage. Astronomical observatories and space launch facilities must also consider Earth’s rotation when planning observations and launches.

Frequently Asked Questions About Earth’s Rotation

What causes the earth’s rotation.

Earth’s rotation is due to how it formed and the conservation of angular momentum. When our solar system formed, the cloud of gas and dust that became the Earth was spinning, and as it condensed to form the planet, it retained this spinning motion.

What is Earth’s rotational speed?

Earth’s rotational speed is fastest at the equator, reaching about 1,670 kilometers per hour (or around 1,040 miles per hour). It decreases as you move toward the poles, where it is effectively zero. This variation affects phenomena such as weather patterns and the Coriolis effect, which influences the direction of ocean currents and wind.

Why can’t we feel Earth’s rotation?

Earth’s rotation is very consistent and doesn’t change speed abruptly, so we don’t feel any acceleration or deceleration. Plus, the Earth is so large that its curvature is difficult to perceive, making the rotation feel even less apparent.

What would happen if the Earth stopped rotating?

If the Earth stopped rotating, it would be catastrophic. One side of the Earth would be in constant sunlight, while the other side would be in perpetual darkness. This would cause extreme temperature changes, disrupt weather patterns, and eliminate the day-night cycle as we know it.

How does Earth’s revolution around the sun influence seasons?

The seasons are influenced by Earth’s axis tilt and elliptical orbit around the sun. As Earth revolves, different parts of the planet receive varying amounts of sunlight, leading to seasonal changes.

Why is a year 365.25 days long and not exactly 365 days?

A year is 365.25 days long. This is the time it takes for Earth to complete one full orbit around the sun. The extra 0.25 day adds on over four years to an additional day. So, we have a leap year every four years to keep our calendar in sync with Earth’s orbit.

How does Earth’s elliptical orbit affect our distance from the sun?

Earth’s elliptical orbit means its distance from the sun varies throughout the year. We are closest to the sun (perihelion) around early January and farthest (aphelion) around early July, but this difference in distance doesn’t significantly affect our planet’s climate.

In this post, we’ve reviewed how Earth’s rotation and its orbit around the sun shape our world. The rotation of Earth creates the cycle of day and night, setting a natural rhythm for all life forms. Even though we don’t feel it, this rotation influences our weather and the environment every single day.

Then there’s Earth’s journey around the sun, which, combined with its tilt, gives us the seasons. This revolution impacts everything from the weather we experience to the crops farmers grow.

Earth’s spinning on its axis and its path around the sun do more than just mark time; they define our days, bring about the seasons, and shape the world we call home.

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• Celestial Bodies
• Rotation And Revolution

Rotation and Revolution

We have heard the terms rotation and revolution associated with celestial objects. Let us know more about rotation and revolution and the difference between rotation and revolution.

What is Rotation?

What is revolution.

Rotation of the Earth

Earth rotates on its axis from west to east, and the Sun and the Moon appear to move from east to west across the sky. The spinning of the Earth around its axis is called ‘rotation’. The axis has an angle of 23 1/2º and is perpendicular to the plane of Earth’s orbit. This means the Earth is tilted on its axis, and because of this tilt, the northern and southern hemispheres lean in a direction away from the Sun. The rotation of the Earth divides it into a lit-up half and a dark half, which gives rise to day and night. The direction of the Earth’s rotation depends on the direction of viewing. When viewed looking down from the North Pole, Earth spins counterclockwise. On the contrary, when viewed looking down from the south pole, the earth spins in the clockwise direction.

Importance of Earth Rotation

Some of the importance of the rotation of the Earth are listed below:

• The Earth’s rotation creates the diurnal cycle of lightness and darkness, temperature and humidity changes.
• The Earth’s rotation causes tides in the oceans and seas.

Revolution of the Earth

The movement of the Earth around the Sun in a fixed path is called a revolution. The Earth revolves from west to east, i.e., in the anticlockwise direction. The one revolution of the Earth around the Sun takes around one year or precisely 365.242 days. The revolution speed of the earth is 30 km/s -1 .

Importance of Revolution

• Revolution causes seasons.
• Revolution creates perihelion and aphelion. Perihelion occurs when the Earth is closest to the Sun. Aphelion occurs when the Earth is far from the Sun.
• Revolution has a direct influence on the varied length of day and night time. The duration of days and nights are the same at the equator. This is known as the equinox. The duration of days and nights vary in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. This is known as solstices.

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Rotation and Revolution of Planets

Difference between rotation and revolution.

The table given below provides the basic differences between rotation and revolution.

Watch the video below to understand what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

What is meant by rotation, what is meant by revolution, do earthquakes affect the earth’s rotation.

Using the data from the Indonesian Earthquake, NASA calculated that the earthquake affected Earth’s rotation, decreased the length of the day, shifted the North Pole by centimetres and slightly changed the planet’s shape. The earthquake that created a huge tsunami also changed the Earth’s rotation.

Has the Earth’s rotation ever speeded up in the past?

Probably, but in the last 900 million years, any speed-ups have been superimposed on a more or less steady slow down in spin rate. Even today, we can identify how the Earth’s rotation rate changes fast and slow by milliseconds per day, depending on how the mass distribution of the Earth and its atmosphere change from earthquakes and the movement of water and air.

Is it possible to slow down the Earth’s rotation artificially?

It is said that humans have made a measurable change in the Earth’s rotation period by several microseconds by accumulating vast reservoirs with trillions of tons of water. There may be a weak interaction between this activity and the weather over the long term, and possibly even in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field, which is very sensitive to the Earth’s rotation rate.

What is the angle made by the axis of the earth with its orbital plane?

The angle made by the axis of the earth, which is an imaginary line with the orbital plane, is 66 degrees.

What is an equinox?

An equinox is defined as the time when the sun crosses the celestial equator such that the length of the day and night are equal. Every year has two equinoxes. Also, the length of nights at latitudes L degree north and L degree south are equal.

In this video, we have provided important questions and concepts of Rotation for JEE Advanced 2023

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So What Happens When We Have Long Day And Short Night And Vice Vesa

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4.3: Earth’s Motions

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Earth’s Rotation

Earth’s Revolution

• Dynamic Earth: Introduction to Physical Geography. Authored by : R. Adam Dastrup. Located at : http://www.opengeography.org/physical-geography.html . Project : Open Geography Education. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Axial Tilt Obliquity. Authored by : Dennis Nilsson. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AxialTiltObliquity.png . License : CC BY: Attribution
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3.5: Earth's Revolutions

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What kind of revolution are we talking about?

Copernicus caused a revolution. He said that Earth revolved around the Sun. With his telescope, Galileo found a lot of evidence for this. He could see moons orbiting Jupiter. If moons can orbit Jupiter, surely Earth can orbit the Sun. Yes? In the two images above, you can see Jupiter at two different times, showing moons in different places.

Earth's Revolution

Earth orbits a star. That star is our Sun. One revolution around the Sun takes 365.24 days. That is equal to one year. Earth stays in orbit around the Sun because of the Sun's gravity ( Figure below).

Earth's orbit is not a circle. It is a bit elliptical. So as we travel around the Sun, sometimes we are a little farther away from the Sun. Sometimes we are closer to the Sun.

Students sometimes think the slightly oval shape of our orbit causes Earth's seasons. That's not true! The seasons are due to the tilt of Earth’s axis, as discussed in the previous concept.

Earth and the other planets in the solar system make elliptical orbits around the Sun. The ellipses in this image are highly exaggerated.

The distance between the Earth and the Sun is about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers. Earth revolves around the Sun at an average speed of about 27 kilometers (17 miles) per second. Mercury and Venus are closer to the Sun, so they take shorter times to make one orbit. Mercury takes only about 88 Earth days to make one trip around the Sun. All of the other planets take longer amounts of time. The exact amount depends on the planet's distance from the Sun. Saturn takes more than 29 Earth years to make one revolution around the Sun. How old would you be if you were on Jupiter?

• Earth's orbit around the Sun is somewhat elliptical.
• Earth's seasons are not caused by the shape of its orbit.
• Earth and the other planets of the solar system revolve around the Sun.
• How long does it take for Earth to make one revolution around the Sun?
• Is Earth farther from the Sun in the winter and closer in the summer? Explain.
• Describe Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Describe the orbits of the other planets.

Explore More

Use this resource to answer the questions that follow.

• What did Aristotle and Ptolemy say about the relationship of Earth to other celestial bodies?
• In what ways did planets not fit their ideas?
• Why was the geocentric model a hypothesis that needed to be thrown out?
• What did Copernicus say about the solar system? What was the heliocentric model?
• Why was Copernicus’ model wrong?
• What was Kepler’s innovation?
• What contributions did Galileo’s telescope make to accepting the Copernicus/Kepler model of the solar system?
• What did The Church do with the heliocentric model?
• What is wrong with the heliocentric model?
• Why do we know that the geocentric model is wrong today?

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Revolutions that made the Earth

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The Earth that sustains us today was born out of a few remarkable, near-catastrophic revolutions, started by biological innovations and marked by global environmental consequences. The revolutions have certain features in common, such as an increase in complexity, energy utilisation, and information processing by life. This book describes these revolutions, showing the fundamental interdependence of the evolution of life and its non-living environment. We would not exist unless these upheavals had led eventually to ‘successful’ outcomes – meaning that after each one, at length, a new stable world emerged. The current planet-reshaping activities of our species may be the start of another great Earth system revolution, but there is no guarantee that this one will be successful. The book explains what a successful transition through it might look like, and whether we are wise enough to steer such a course. It places humanity in context as part of the Earth system, using a new scientific synthesis to illustrate our debt to the deep past and our potential for the future.

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Formation of Earth

Our planet began as part of a cloud of dust and gas. It has evolved into our home, which has an abundance of rocky landscapes, an atmosphere that supports life, and oceans filled with mysteries.

Chemistry, Earth Science, Astronomy, Geology

Manicouagan Crater

Asteroids were not only important in Earth's early formation, but have continued to shape our planet. A five-kilometer (three-mile) diameter asteroid is theorized to have formed the Manicouagan Crater about 215.5 million years ago.

We live on Earth’s hard, rocky surface, breathe the air that surrounds the planet , drink the water that falls from the sky, and eat the food that grows in the soil. But Earth did not always exist within this expansive universe, and it was not always a hospitable haven for life. Billions of years ago, Earth, along with the rest of our solar system, was entirely unrecognizable, existing only as an enormous cloud of dust and gas. Eventually, a mysterious occurrence—one that even the world’s foremost scientists have yet been unable to determine—created a disturbance in that dust cloud, setting forth a string of events that would lead to the formation of life as we know it. One common belief among scientists is that a distant star collapsed, creating a supernova explosion, which disrupted the dust cloud and caused it to pull together. This formed a spinning disc of gas and dust, known as a solar nebula . The faster the cloud spun, the more the dust and gas became concentrated at the center, further fueling the speed of the nebula . Over time, the gravity at the center of the cloud became so intense that hydrogen atoms began to move more rapidly and violently. The hydrogen protons began fusing, forming helium and releasing massive amounts of energy. This led to the formation of the star that is the center point of our solar system—the sun—roughly 4.6 billion years ago. Planet Formation The formation of the sun consumed more than 99 percent of the matter in the nebula . The remaining material began to coalesce into various masses. The cloud was still spinning, and clumps of matter continued to collide with others. Eventually, some of those clusters of matter grew large enough to maintain their own gravitational pull, which shaped them into the planets and dwarf planets that make up our solar system today. Earth is one of the four inner, terrestrial planets in our solar system. Just like the other inner planets —Mercury, Venus, and Mars—it is relatively small and rocky. Early in the history of the solar system, rocky material was the only substance that could exist so close to the Sun and withstand its heat. In Earth's Beginning At its beginning, Earth was unrecognizable from its modern form. At first, it was extremely hot, to the point that the planet likely consisted almost entirely of molten magma . Over the course of a few hundred million years, the planet began to cool and oceans of liquid water formed. Heavy elements began sinking past the oceans and magma toward the center of the planet . As this occurred, Earth became differentiated into layers, with the outermost layer being a solid covering of relatively lighter material while the denser, molten material sunk to the center. Scientists believe that Earth, like the other inner planets , came to its current state in three different stages. The first stage, described above, is known as accretion, or the formation of a planet from the existing particles within the solar system as they collided with each other to form larger and larger bodies. Scientists believe the next stage involved the collision of a proto planet with a very young planet Earth. This is thought to have occurred more than 4.5 billion years ago and may have resulted in the formation of Earth’s moon. The final stage of development saw the bombardment of the planet with asteroids . Earth’s early atmosphere was most likely composed of hydrogen and helium . As the planet changed, and the crust began to form, volcanic eruptions occurred frequently. These volcanoes pumped water vapor, ammonia, and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere around Earth. Slowly, the oceans began to take shape, and eventually, primitive life evolved in those oceans. Contributions from Asteroids Other events were occurring on our young planet at this time as well. It is believed that during the early formation of Earth, asteroids were continuously bombarding the planet , and could have been carrying with them an important source of water. Scientists believe the asteroids that slammed into Earth, the moon, and other inner planets contained a significant amount of water in their minerals, needed for the creation of life. It seems the asteroids , when they hit the surface of Earth at a great speed, shattered, leaving behind fragments of rock. Some suggest that nearly 30 percent of the water contained initially in the asteroids would have remained in the fragmented sections of rock on Earth, even after impact. A few hundred million years after this process—around 2.2 billion to 2.7 billion years ago—photosynthesizing bacteria evolved . They released oxygen into the atmosphere via photosynthesis and, in a few hundred million years, were able to change the composition of the atmosphere into what we have today. Our modern atmosphere is comprised of 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen, among other gases, which enables it to support the many lives residing within it.

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• Published: 13 January 2020

The emergence and evolution of Earth System Science

• Will Steffen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1163-6736 1 , 2 ,
• Katherine Richardson 3 ,
• Johan Rockström 2 , 4 ,
• Hans Joachim Schellnhuber 4 ,
• Opha Pauline Dube 5 ,
• Sébastien Dutreuil 6 ,
• Timothy M. Lenton 7 &
• Jane Lubchenco 8  

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume  1 ,  pages 54–63 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 03 September 2020

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Earth System Science (ESS) is a rapidly emerging transdisciplinary endeavour aimed at understanding the structure and functioning of the Earth as a complex, adaptive system. Here, we discuss the emergence and evolution of ESS, outlining the importance of these developments in advancing our understanding of global change. Inspired by early work on biosphere–geosphere interactions and by novel perspectives such as the Gaia hypothesis, ESS emerged in the 1980s following demands for a new ‘science of the Earth’. The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme soon followed, leading to an unprecedented level of international commitment and disciplinary integration. ESS has produced new concepts and frameworks central to the global-change discourse, including the Anthropocene, tipping elements and planetary boundaries. Moving forward, the grand challenge for ESS is to achieve a deep integration of biophysical processes and human dynamics to build a truly unified understanding of the Earth System.

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A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-020-0100-8

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Acknowledgements

JR was supported for this work by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene, grant no. ERC-2016-ADG 743080).

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Rotation and Revolution of Earth

Rotation and Revolution of The Earth full process explained here. The Earth revolves around the Sun, for example, and the Moon revolves around the Earth.

Table of Contents

Revolution of Earth

The term “revolution of Earth” refers to Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Earth travels in an elliptical (oval-shaped) path around the Sun, completing one full orbit approximately every 365.25 days. This orbit is responsible for the changing seasons and the length of our calendar year.

What is Revolution of the Earth Depends Upon?

Here are some key points about Earth’s revolution:

Orbit Shape: Earth’s orbit is not a perfect circle; it’s an ellipse, which means that at certain times of the year, Earth is closer to the Sun (perihelion) and at other times, it’s farther away (aphelion). However, the difference in distance is relatively small and doesn’t significantly affect the climate.

Speed of Revolution: Earth travels at an average speed of about 29.78 kilometers per second (about 107,000 kilometers per hour or 67,000 miles per hour) in its orbit around the Sun.

Tilted Axis: Earth’s axis is tilted at an angle of approximately 23.5 degrees relative to its orbit around the Sun. This tilt is responsible for the changing seasons as different parts of Earth receive varying amounts of sunlight during different times of the year.

Seasons: As Earth orbits the Sun, the tilt of its axis causes different parts of the planet to receive more or less direct sunlight. This variation in sunlight leads to the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn (fall), and winter.

Equinoxes and Solstices: There are two equinoxes and two solstices during Earth’s orbit. The vernal (spring) and autumnal (fall) equinoxes occur when day and night are approximately equal in length, marking the start of spring and autumn, respectively. The summer and winter solstices occur when one hemisphere (either the Northern or Southern) is tilted closest to the Sun, resulting in the longest or shortest day of the year, respectively.

Length of a Year: A year, as we commonly define it, is approximately 365.25 days long. To account for the extra 0.25 days, we add an extra day to the calendar every four years, creating a leap year with 366 days.

Earth’s revolution around the Sun is a fundamental astronomical event that governs our calendar and is responsible for the changing seasons, which play a crucial role in Earth’s climate and ecology.

Rotation and Revolution of the Earth

Rotation and Revolution of The Earth full process explained here. The movement of a planet around a star, or a moon around a planet, is known as orbital revolution. The Earth revolves around the Sun, for example, and the Moon revolves around the Earth.

Planets and moons follow elliptical paths around the sun. A planet’s orbital revolution takes one year.

A revolution is a round movement of the Earth around the Sun in a fixed path. The Earth rotates in an anticlockwise motion, from west to east. In one year or 365.242 days, the Earth completes one revolution around the Sun. The earth’s rotational speed is 30 km/s-1.

Earth Rotation and Revolution

Every 365.2564 mean solar days, Earth circles the Sun at a distance of around 150 million kilometres. This causes the Sun to appear to travel eastward in relation to the stars at a pace of around 1° every day, or one apparent Sun or Moon diameter every 12 hours. Because of this motion, it takes the Earth 24 hours to complete a full rotation around its axis, allowing the Sun to return to the meridian. Earth’s orbital speed is roughly 29.78 km/s (107,200 km/h; 66,600 mph), which is fast enough to travel a distance of about 12,742 km (7,918 mi) in seven minutes and 384,000 km (239,000 mi) in about 3.5 hours. Read About: Global Warming Read About: Afforestation Read About: Rainwater Harvesting Read About: Monsoon Read About: Irrigation System Read About: Ecosystem

Rotation and Revolution of the Earth around the Sun

The term “revolution” is frequently used interchangeably with “rotation.” However, revolution is referred to as an orbital revolution in many domains, such as astronomy and related subjects. It refers to the movement of one body around another, whereas rotation refers to the movement around an axis. The Moon, for example, revolves around the Earth, and the Earth, in turn, revolves around the Sun.

Rotation and Revolution

When an object is in orbit, it is said to be “revolving,” whereas a planet’s spin is said to be “rotating.” ‘A year’ is the time it takes for an item to revolve around the Sun, and one day is the time it takes for it to rotate about its axis.

The term “revolution” is used to describe Earth’s motion (or orbit) through space. Seasonal change and leap years are caused by the Earth’s rotation around the sun. This route is elliptical in shape, including points where Earth is closer to and farther from the sun.

Moreover, a year on Earth is 365 days long, according to the Gregorian calendar, with an extra day added every four years.

The time it takes for an object to revolve around the sun differs depending on the thing. The planet Mercury, for example, revolves around the sun in around 88 days, but the dwarf planet Pluto takes almost 248 years to do it.

However, the Earth’s typical solar day—its rotation period relative to the Sun—is 86,400 seconds (86,400.0025 SI seconds). Because of tidal slowdown, Earth’s solar day is currently slightly longer than it was in the nineteenth century, each day fluctuates between 0 and 2 milliseconds longer than the mean solar day.

Rotation refers to the circular movement or spinning of an object around an axis or a center point. It is a fundamental concept in physics and geometry and has various applications in different fields.

Here are some key points about rotation:

• Axis of Rotation: Every rotation has an axis, which is an imaginary line around which the object rotates. For example, the Earth rotates on its axis, which runs from the North Pole to the South Pole.
• Degrees and Radians: Rotations can be measured in degrees or radians. A complete rotation of 360 degrees is equivalent to 2π radians.
• Direction: Rotation can occur in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, depending on the orientation of the axis and the direction of the spin.
• Angular Velocity: Angular velocity measures how quickly an object is rotating. It is usually expressed in degrees per second or radians per second.
• Rotational Inertia: Rotational inertia, also known as moment of inertia, describes an object’s resistance to changes in its rotation. Objects with larger rotational inertia require more torque to change their rotational speed.
• Applications: Rotation is fundamental in various fields, including physics, engineering, and mathematics. It is used to describe the motion of objects, such as the rotation of planets, the spinning of wheels, or the motion of gears in machinery.
• Mathematics: In mathematics, rotation matrices and quaternions are used to represent and manipulate rotations in three-dimensional space.
• Gyroscopes: Gyroscopes are devices that utilize the principles of rotation to maintain stability and orientation. They are commonly used in navigation systems, aviation, and spacecraft.
• Sports and Entertainment: Rotation is important in sports like gymnastics, figure skating, and diving, where athletes perform various rotational movements. It is also a key element in dance and acrobatics.
• Everyday Examples: Everyday examples of rotation include the rotation of the Earth, the spinning of a top, the turning of a steering wheel, and the movement of a wind turbine rotor.

Understanding rotation is crucial in many scientific and practical applications, as it helps us describe and predict the behavior of rotating objects and systems.

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What is the Earth's revolution?

The movement of a planet around a star, or a moon around a planet, is known as orbital revolution. The Earth revolves around the Sun, for example, and the Moon revolves around the Earth. Planets and moons follow elliptical paths around the sun. A planet's orbital cycle takes a year, while the Moon's revolution takes a month.

What is the significance of revolution to the Earth?

The seasons are determined by the revolution of the Earth.

What are the consequences of the Earth's revolution?

The Earth's rotating causes day to turn to night and night to day, and the Earth's whole rotation/revolution causes summer to turn to winter and vice versa. The Earth's spinning and revolution, when combined, affect wind direction, temperature, ocean currents, and precipitation, resulting in our daily weather and global climate.

How long does it take for the Earth to go through a revolution?

In 365 days, 5 hours, 59 minutes, and 16 seconds, the Earth revolves around the sun. A year is the length of time it takes for a planet to orbit the sun.

What do we name 'one Earth revolution'?

It takes 365.25 days and we call it 'one year'.

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July 1, 2005

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Evolution of Earth

The evolution of this planet and its atmosphere gave rise to life, which shaped Earth's subsequent development. Our future lies in interpreting this geologic past and considering what changes--good and bad--may lie ahead

By Claude J. Allègre & Stephen H. Schneider

Like the lapis lazuli gem it resembles, the blue, cloud-enveloped planet the we recognize immediately from satellite pictures seems remarkably stable. Continents and oceans, encircled by an oxygen-rich atmosphere, support familiar life-forms. Yet this constancy is an illusion produced by the human experience of time. Earth and its atmosphere are continuously altered. Plate tectonics shift the continents, raise mountains and move the ocean floor while processes not fully understood alter the climate.

Such constant change has characterized Earth since its beginning some 4.5 billion years ago. From the outset, heat and gravity shaped the evolution of the planet. These forces were gradually joined by the global effects of the emergence of life. Exploring this past offers us the only possibility of understanding the origin of life and, perhaps, its future.

Scientists used to believe the rocky planets, including Earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars, were created by the rapid gravitational collapse of a dust cloud, a deation giving rise to a dense orb. In the 1960s the Apollo space program changed this view. Studies of moon craters revealed that these gouges were caused by the impact of objects that were in great abundance about 4.5 billion years ago. Thereafter, the number of impacts appeared to have quickly decreased. This observation rejuvenated the theory of accretion postulated by Otto Schmidt. The Russian geophysicist had suggested in 1944 that planets grew in size gradually, step by step.

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According to Schmidt, cosmic dust lumped together to form particulates, particulates became gravel, gravel became small balls, then big balls, then tiny planets, or planetesimals, and, nally, dust became the size of the moon. As the planetesimals became larger, their numbers decreased. Consequently, the number of collisions between planetesimals, or meteorites, decreased. Fewer items available for accretion meant that it took a long time to build up a large planet. A calculation made by George W. Wetherill of the Carnegie Institution of Washington suggests that about 100 million years could pass between the formation of an object measuring 10 kilometers in diameter and an object the size of Earth.

The process of accretion had significant thermal consequences for Earth, consequences that forcefully directed its evolution. Large bodies slamming into the planet produced immense heat in its interior, melting the cosmic dust found there. The resulting furnace--situated some 200 to 400 kilometers underground and called a magma ocean--was active for millions of years, giving rise to volcanic eruptions. When Earth was young, heat at the surface caused by volcanism and lava ows from the interior was intensified by the constant bombardment of huge objects, some of them perhaps the size of the moon or even Mars. No life was possible during this period.

Beyond clarifying that Earth had formed through accretion, the Apollo program compelled scientists to try to reconstruct the subsequent temporal and physical development of the early Earth. This undertaking had been considered impossible by founders of geology, including Charles Lyell, to whom the following phrase is attributed: No vestige of a beginning, no prospect for an end. This statement conveys the idea that the young Earth could not be re-created, because its remnants were destroyed by its very activity. But the development of isotope geology in the 1960s had rendered this view obsolete. Their imaginations red by Apollo and the moon ndings, geochemists began to apply this technique to understand the evolution of Earth.

Dating rocks using so-called radioactive clocks allows geologists to work on old terrains that do not contain fossils. The hands of a radioactive clock are isotopes--atoms of the same element that have different atomic weights--and geologic time is measured by the rate of decay of one isotope into another [see "The Earliest History of the Earth," by Derek York; Scientific American , January 1993]. Among the many clocks, those based on the decay of uranium 238 into lead 206 and of uranium 235 into lead 207 are special. Geochronologists can determine the age of samples by analyzing only the daughter product--in this case, lead--of the radioactive parent, uranium.

Panning for zircons ISOTOPE GEOLOGY has permitted geologists to determine that the accretion of Earth culminated in the differentiation of the planet: the creation of the core--the source of Earth's magnetic field--and the beginning of the atmosphere. In 1953 the classic work of Claire C. Patterson of the California Institute of Technology used the uranium-lead clock to establish an age of 4.55 billion years for Earth and many of the meteorites that formed it. In the early 1990s, however, work by one of us (Allègre) on lead isotopes led to a somewhat new interpretation.

As Patterson argued, some meteorites were indeed formed about 4.56 billion years ago, and their debris constituted Earth. But Earth continued to grow through the bombardment of planetesimals until some 120 million to 150 million years later. At that time--4.44 billion to 4.41 billion years ago--Earth began to retain its atmosphere and create its core. This possibility had already been suggested by Bruce R. Doe and Robert E. Zartman of the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver two decades ago and is in agreement with Wetherills estimates.

The emergence of the continents came somewhat later. According to the theory of plate tectonics, these landmasses are the only part of Earth's crust that is not recycled and, consequently, destroyed during the geothermal cycle driven by the convection in the mantle. Continents thus provide a form of memory because the record of early life can be read in their rocks. Geologic activity, however, including plate tectonics, erosion and metamorphism, has destroyed almost all the ancient rocks. Very few fragments have survived this geologic machine.

Nevertheless, in recent decades, several important nds have been made, again using isotope geochemistry. One group, led by Stephen Moorbath of the University of Oxford, discovered terrain in West Greenland that is between 3.7 billion and 3.8 billion years old. In addition, Samuel A. Bowring of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explored a small area in North America--the Acasta gneiss--that is thought to be 3.96 billion years old.

Ultimately, a quest for the mineral zircon led other researchers to even more ancient terrain. Typically found in continental rocks, zircon is not dissolved during the process of erosion but is deposited in particle form in sediment. A few pieces of zircon can therefore survive for billions of years and can serve as a witness to Earths more ancient crust. The search for old zircons started in Paris with the work of Annie Vitrac and Jol R. Lancelot, later at the University of Marseille and now at the University of Nmes, respectively, as well as with the efforts of Moorbath and Allgre. It was a group at the Australian National University in Canberra, directed by William Compston, that was nally successful. The team discovered zircons in western Australia that were between 4.1 billion and 4.3 billion years old.

Zircons have been crucial not only for understanding the age of the continents but for determining when life rst appeared. The earliest fossils of undisputed age were found in Australia and South Africa. These relics of blue-green algae are about 3.5 billion years old. Manfred Schidlowski of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz studied the Isua formation in West Greenland and argued that organic matter existed as long ago as 3.8 billion years. Because most of the record of early life has been destroyed by geologic activity, we cannot say exactly when it rst appeared--perhaps it arose very quickly, maybe even 4.2 billion years ago.

Stories from gases ONE OF THE MOST important aspects of the planet's evolution is the formation of the atmosphere, because it is this assemblage of gases that allowed life to crawl out of the oceans and to be sustained. Researchers have hypothesized since the 1950s that the terrestrial atmosphere was created by gases emerging from the interior of the planet. When a volcano spews gases, it is an example of the continuous outgassing, as it is called, of Earth. But scientists have questioned whether this process occurred suddenly--about 4.4 billion years ago when the core differentiated--or whether it took place gradually over time.

To answer this question, Allègre and his colleagues studied the isotopes of rare gases. These gases--including helium, argon and xenon--have the peculiarity of being chemically inert, that is, they do not react in nature with other elements. Two of them are particularly important for atmospheric studies: argon and xenon. Argon has three isotopes, of which argon 40 is created by the decay of potassium 40. Xenon has nine, of which xenon 129 has two different origins. Xenon 129 arose as the result of nucleosynthesis before Earth and solar system were formed. It was also created from the decay of radioactive iodine 129, which does not exist on Earth anymore. This form of iodine was present very early on but has died out since, and xenon 129 has grown at its expense.

Like most couples, both argon 40 and potassium 40 and xenon 129 and iodine 129 have stories to tell. They are excellent chronometers. Although the atmosphere was formed by the outgassing of the mantle, it does not contain any potassium 40 or iodine 129. All argon 40 and xenon 129, formed in Earth and released, are found in the atmosphere today. Xenon was expelled from the mantle and retained in the atmosphere; therefore, the atmosphere-mantle ratio of this element allows us to evaluate the age of differentiation. Argon and xenon trapped in the mantle evolved by the radioactive decay of potassium 40 and iodine 129. Thus, if the total outgassing of the mantle occurred at the beginning of Earths formation, the atmosphere would not contain any argon 40 but would contain xenon 129.

The major challenge facing an investigator who wants to measure such ratios of decay is to obtain high concentrations of rare gases in mantle rocks because they are extremely limited. Fortunately, a natural phenomenon occurs at mid-ocean ridges during which volcanic lava transfers some silicates from the mantle to the surface. The small amounts of gases trapped in mantle minerals rise with the melt to the surface and are concentrated in small vesicles in the outer glassy margin of lava ows. This process serves to concentrate the amounts of mantle gases by a factor of 10 4 or 10 5 . Collecting these rocks by dredging the seaoor and then crushing them under vacuum in a sensitive mass spectrometer allows geochemists to determine the ratios of the isotopes in the mantle. The results are quite surprising. Calculations of the ratios indicate that between 80 and 85 percent of the atmosphere was outgassed during Earths rst one million years; the rest was released slowly but constantly during the next 4.4 billion years.

The composition of this primitive atmosphere was most certainly dominated by carbon dioxide, with nitrogen as the second most abundant gas. Trace amounts of methane, ammonia, sulfur dioxide and hydrochloric acid were also present, but there was no oxygen. Except for the presence of abundant water, the atmosphere was similar to that of Venus or Mars. The details of the evolution of the original atmosphere are debated, particularly because we do not know how strong the sun was at that time. Some facts, however, are not disputed. It is evident that carbon dioxide played a crucial role. In addition, many scientists believe the evolving atmosphere contained sufficient quantities of gases such as ammonia and methane to give rise to organic matter.

Still, the problem of the sun remains unresolved. One hypothesis holds that during the Archean eon, which lasted from about 4.5 billion to 2.5 billion years ago, the suns power was only 75 percent of what it is today. This possibility raises a dilemma: How could life have survived in the relatively cold climate that should accompany a weaker sun? A solution to the faint early sun paradox, as it is called, was offered by Carl Sagan and George Mullen of Cornell University in 1970. The two scientists suggested that methane and ammonia, which are very effective at trapping infrared radiation, were quite abundant. These gases could have created a super-greenhouse effect. The idea was criticized on the basis that such gases were highly reactive and have short lifetimes in the atmosphere.

What controlled co? IN THE LATE 1970s Veerabhadran Ramanathan, now at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Robert D. Cess and Tobias Owen of Stony Brook University proposed another solution. They postulated that there was no need for methane in the early atmosphere because carbon dioxide was abundant enough to bring about the super-greenhouse effect. Again this argument raised a different question: How much carbon dioxide was there in the early atmosphere? Terrestrial carbon dioxide is now buried in carbonate rocks, such as limestone, although it is not clear when it became trapped there. Today calcium carbonate is created primarily during biological activity; in the Archean eon, carbon may have been primarily removed during inorganic reactions.

The rapid outgassing of the planet liberated voluminous quantities of water from the mantle, creating the oceans and the hydrologic cycle. The acids that were probably present in the atmosphere eroded rocks, forming carbonate-rich rocks. The relative importance of such a mechanism is, however, debated. Heinrich D. Holland of Harvard University believes the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rapidly decreased during the Archean and stayed at a low level.

Understanding the carbon dioxide content of the early atmosphere is pivotal to understanding climatic control. Two conicting camps have put forth ideas on how this process works. The rst group holds that global temperatures and carbon dioxide were controlled by inorganic geochemical feedbacks; the second asserts that they were controlled by biological removal.

James C. G. Walker, James F. Kasting and Paul B. Hays, then at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, proposed the inorganic model in 1981. They postulated that levels of the gas were high at the outset of the Archean and did not fall precipitously. The trio suggested that as the climate warmed, more water evaporated, and the hydrologic cycle became more vigorous, increasing precipitation and runoff. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mixed with rainwater to create carbonic acid runoff, exposing minerals at the surface to weathering. Silicate minerals combined with carbon that had been in the atmosphere, sequestering it in sedimentary rocks. Less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere meant, in turn, less of a greenhouse effect. The inorganic negative feedback process offset the increase in solar energy.

This solution contrasts with a second paradigm: biological removal. One theory advanced by James E. Lovelock, an originator of the Gaia hypothesis, assumed that photosynthesizing microorganisms, such as phytoplankton, would be very productive in a high carbon dioxide environment. These creatures slowly removed carbon dioxide from the air and oceans, converting it into calcium carbonate sediments. Critics retorted that phytoplankton had not even evolved for most of the time that Earth has had life. (The Gaia hypothesis holds that life on Earth has the capacity to regulate temperature and the composition of Earth's surface and to keep it comfortable for living organisms.)

In the early 1990s Tyler Volk of New York University and David W. Schwartzman of Howard University proposed another Gaian solution. They noted that bacteria increase carbon dioxide content in soils by breaking down organic matter and by generating humic acids. Both activities accelerate weathering, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. On this point, however, the controversy becomes acute. Some geochemists, including Kasting, now at Pennsylvania State University, and Holland, postulate that while life may account for some carbon dioxide removal after the Archean, inorganic geochemical processes can explain most of the sequestering. These researchers view life as a rather weak climatic stabilizing mechanism for the bulk of geologic time.

Oxygen from algae THE ISSUE OF CARBON remains critical to how life inuenced the atmosphere. Carbon burial is a key to the vital process of building up atmospheric oxygen concentrations--a prerequisite for the development of certain life-forms. In addition, global warming is taking place now as a result of humans releasing this carbon. For one billion or two billion years, algae in the oceans produced oxygen. But because this gas is highly reactive and because there were many reduced minerals in the ancient oceans--iron, for example, is easily oxidized--much of the oxygen produced by living creatures simply got used up before it could reach the atmosphere, where it would have encountered gases that would react with it.

Even if evolutionary processes had given rise to more complicated life-forms during this anaerobic era, they would have had no oxygen. Furthermore, un ltered ultraviolet sunlight would have likely killed them if they left the ocean. Researchers such as Walker and Preston Cloud, then at the University of California at Santa Barbara, have suggested that only about two billion years ago, after most of the reduced minerals in the sea were oxidized, did atmospheric oxygen accumulate. Between one billion and two billion years ago oxygen reached current levels, creating a niche for evolving life.

By examining the stability of certain minerals, such as iron oxide or uranium oxide, Holland has shown that the oxygen content of the Archean atmosphere was low before two billion years ago. It is largely agreed that the present-day oxygen content of 20 percent is the result of photosynthetic activity. Still, the question is whether the oxygen content in the atmosphere increased gradually over time or suddenly. Recent studies indicate that the increase of oxygen started abruptly between 2.1 billion and 2.03 billion years ago and that the present situation was reached 1.5 billion years ago.

The presence of oxygen in the atmosphere had another major bene t for an organism trying to live at or above the surface: it ltered ultraviolet radiation. Ultraviolet radiation breaks down many molecules--from DNA and oxygen to the chlorouorocarbons that are implicated in stratospheric ozone depletion. Such energy splits oxygen into the highly unstable atomic form O, which can combine back into O 2 and into the very special molecule O 3 , or ozone. Ozone, in turn, absorbs ultraviolet radiation. It was not until oxygen was abundant enough in the atmosphere to allow the formation of ozone that life even had a chance to get a root-hold or a foothold on land. It is not a coincidence that the rapid evolution of life from prokaryotes (single-celled organisms with no nucleus) to eukaryotes (single-celled organisms with a nucleus) to metazoa (multicelled organisms) took place in the billion-year-long era of oxygen and ozone.

Although the atmosphere was reaching a fairly stable level of oxygen during this period, the climate was hardly uniform. There were long stages of relative warmth or coolness during the transition to modern geologic time. The composition of fossil plankton shells that lived near the ocean oor provides a measure of bottom water temperatures. The record suggests that over the past 100 million years bottom waters cooled by nearly 15 degrees Celsius. Sea levels dropped by hundreds of meters, and continents drifted apart. Inland seas mostly disappeared, and the climate cooled an average of 10 to 15 degrees C. Roughly 20 million years ago permanent ice appears to have built up on Antarctica.

About two million to three million years ago the paleoclimatic record starts to show signi cant expansions and contractions of warm and cold periods in 40,000-year or so cycles. This periodicity is interesting because it corresponds to the time it takes Earth to complete an oscillation of the tilt of its axis of rotation. It has long been speculated, and recently calculated, that known changes in orbital geometry could alter the amount of sunlight coming in between winter and summer by about 10 percent or so and could be responsible for initiating or ending ice ages.

The warm hand of man MOST INTERESTING and perplexing is the discovery that between 600,000 and 800,000 years ago the dominant cycle switched from 40,000-year periods to 100,000-year intervals with very large uctuations. The last major phase of glaciation ended about 10,000 years ago. At its height 20,000 years ago, ice sheets about two kilometers thick covered much of northern Europe and North America. Glaciers expanded in high plateaus and mountains throughout the world. Enough ice was locked up on land to cause sea levels to drop more than 100 meters below where they are today. Massive ice sheets scoured the land and revamped the ecological face of Earth, which was ve degrees C cooler on average than it is currently.

The precise causes of the longer intervals between warm and cold periods are not yet sorted out. Volcanic eruptions may have played a signi cant role, as shown by the effect of El Chichón in Mexico and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. Tectonic events, such as the development of the Himalayas, may have inuenced world climate. Even the impact of comets can inuence short-term climatic trends with catastrophic consequences for life [see "What Caused the Mass Extinction? An Extraterrestrial Impact," by Walter Alvarez and Frank Asaro; and "What Caused the Mass Extinction? A Volcanic Eruption," by Vincent E. Courtillot; Scientific American , October 1990]. It is remarkable that despite violent, episodic perturbations, the climate has been buffered enough to sustain life for 3.5 billion years.

One of the most pivotal climatic discoveries of the past 30 years has come from ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica. When snow falls on these frozen continents, the air between the snow grains is trapped as bubbles. The snow is gradually compressed into ice, along with its captured gases. Some of these records can go back more than 500,000 years; scientists can analyze the chemical content of ice and bubbles from sections of ice that lie as deep as 3,600 meters (2.2 miles) below the surface.

The ice-core borers have determined that the air breathed by ancient Egyptians and Anasazi Indians was very similar to that which we inhale today--except for a host of air pollutants introduced over the past 100 or 200 years. Principal among these added gases, or pollutants, are extra carbon dioxide and methane. Since about 1860--the expansion of the Industrial Revolution--carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased more than 30 percent as a result of industrialization and deforestation; methane levels have more than doubled because of agriculture, land use and energy production. The ability of increased amounts of these gases to trap heat is what drives concerns about climate change in the 21st century [see "The Changing Climate," by Stephen H. Schneider; Scientific American , September 1989].

The ice cores have shown that sustained natural rates of worldwide temperature change are typically about one degree C per millennium. These shifts are still signi cant enough to have radically altered where species live and to have potentially contributed to the extinction of such charismatic megafauna as mammoths and saber-toothed tigers. But a most extraordinary story from the ice cores is not the relative stability of the climate during the past 10,000 years. It appears that during the height of the last ice age 20,000 years ago there was 50 percent less carbon dioxide and less than half as much methane in the air than there has been during our epoch, the Holocene. This nding suggests a positive feedback between carbon dioxide, methane and climatic change.

The reasoning that supports the idea of this destabilizing feedback system goes as follows. When the world was colder, there was less concentration of greenhouse gases, and so less heat was trapped. As Earth warmed up, carbon dioxide and methane levels increased, accelerating the warming. If life had a hand in this story, it would have been to drive, rather than to oppose, climatic change. It appears increasingly likely that when humans became part of this cycle, they, too, helped to accelerate warming. Such warming has been especially pronounced since the mid-1800s because of greenhouse gas emissions from industrialization, land-use change and other phenomena. Once again, though, uncertainties remain.

Nevertheless, most scientists would agree that life could well be the principal factor in the positive feedback between climatic change and greenhouse gases. There was a rapid rise in average global surface temperature at the end of the 20th century [ see illustration on opposite page ]. Indeed, the period from the 1980s onward has been the warmest of the past 2,000 years. Nineteen of the 20 warmest years on record have occurred since 1980, and the 12 warmest have all occurred since 1990. The all-time record high year was 1998, and 2002 and 2003 were in second and third places, respectively. There is good reason to believe that the decade of the 1990s would have been even hotter had not Mount Pinatubo erupted: this volcano put enough dust into the high atmosphere to block some incident sunlight, causing global cooling of a few tenths of a degree for several years.

Could the warming of the past 140 years have occurred naturally? With ever increasing certainty, the answer is no.

The box at the right shows a remarkable study that attempted to push back the Northern Hemisphere's temperature record a full 1,000 years. Climatologist Michael Mann of the University of Virginia and his colleagues performed a complex statistical analysis involving some 112 different factors related to temperature, including tree rings, the extent of mountain glaciers, changes in coral reefs, sunspot activity and volcanism.

The resulting temperature record is a reconstruction of what might have been obtained had thermometer-based measurements been available. (Actual temperature measurements are used for the years after 1860.) As shown by the confidence range, there is considerable uncertainty in each year of this 1,000-year temperature reconstruction. But the overall trend is clear: a gradual temperature decrease over the first 900 years, followed by a sharp temperature upturn in the 20th century. This graph suggests that the decade of the 1990s was not only the warmest of the century but of the entire past millennium.

By studying the transition from the high carbon dioxide, low-oxygen atmosphere of the Archean to the era of great evolutionary progress about half a billion years ago, it becomes clear that life may have been a factor in the stabilization of climate. In another example--during the ice ages and interglacial cycles--life seems to have the opposite function: accelerating the change rather than diminishing it. This observation has led one of us (Schneider) to contend that climate and life coevolved rather than life serving solely as a negative feedback on climate.

If we humans consider ourselves part of life--that is, part of the natural system--then it could be argued that our collective impact on Earth means we may have a signi cant co-evolutionary role in the future of the planet. The current trends of population growth, the demands for increased standards of living and the use of technology and organizations to attain these growth-oriented goals all contribute to pollution. When the price of polluting is low and the atmosphere is used as a free sewer, carbon dioxide, methane, chlorouorocarbons, nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides and other toxics can build up.

Drastic changes ahead IN THEIR REPORT Climate Change 2001 , climate experts on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that the world will warm between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees C by 2100. The mild end of that range--a warming rate of 1.4 degrees C per 100 years--is still 14 times faster than the one degree C per 1,000 years that historically has been the average rate of natural change on a global scale. Should the higher end of the range occur, then we could see rates of climatic change nearly 60 times faster than natural average conditions, which could lead to changes that many would consider dangerous. Change at this rate would almost certainly force many species to attempt to move their ranges, just as they did from the ice age/interglacial transition between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago. Not only would species have to respond to climatic change at rates 14 to 60 times faster, but few would have undisturbed, open migration routes as they did at the end of the ice age and the onset of the interglacial era. The negative effects of this significant warming--on health, agriculture, coastal geography and heritage sites, to name a few--could also be severe.

To make the critical projections of future climatic change needed to understand the fate of ecosystems on Earth, we must dig through land, sea and ice to learn as much from geologic, paleoclimatic and paleoecological records as we can. These records provide the backdrop against which to calibrate the crude instruments we must use to peer into a shadowy environmental future, a future increasingly inuenced by us.

THE AUTHORS CLAUDE J. ALLGRE and STEPHEN H. SCHNEIDER study various aspects of Earths geologic history and its climate. Allgre is professor at the University of Paris and directs the department of geochemistry at the Paris Geophysical Institute. He is a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences. Schneider is professor in the department of biological sciences at Stanford University and co-director of the Center for Environmental Science and Policy. He was honored with a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1992 and was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 2002.

Essay on Earth

500 words essay on earth.

The earth is the planet that we live on and it is the fifth-largest planet. It is positioned in third place from the Sun. This essay on earth will help you learn all about it in detail. Our earth is the only planet that can sustain humans and other living species. The vital substances such as air, water, and land make it possible.

All About Essay on Earth

The rocks make up the earth that has been around for billions of years. Similarly, water also makes up the earth. In fact, water covers 70% of the surface. It includes the oceans that you see, the rivers, the sea and more.

Thus, the remaining 30% is covered with land. The earth moves around the sun in an orbit and takes around 364 days plus 6 hours to complete one round around it. Thus, we refer to it as a year.

Just like revolution, the earth also rotates on its axis within 24 hours that we refer to as a solar day. When rotation is happening, some of the places on the planet face the sun while the others hide from it.

As a result, we get day and night. There are three layers on the earth which we know as the core, mantle and crust. The core is the centre of the earth that is usually very hot. Further, we have the crust that is the outer layer. Finally, between the core and crust, we have the mantle i.e. the middle part.

The layer that we live on is the outer one with the rocks. Earth is home to not just humans but millions of other plants and species. The water and air on the earth make it possible for life to sustain. As the earth is the only livable planet, we must protect it at all costs.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

There is No Planet B

The human impact on the planet earth is very dangerous. Through this essay on earth, we wish to make people aware of protecting the earth. There is no balance with nature as human activities are hampering the earth.

Needless to say, we are responsible for the climate crisis that is happening right now. Climate change is getting worse and we need to start getting serious about it. It has a direct impact on our food, air, education, water, and more.

The rising temperature and natural disasters are clear warning signs. Therefore, we need to come together to save the earth and leave a better planet for our future generations.

Being ignorant is not an option anymore. We must spread awareness about the crisis and take preventive measures to protect the earth. We must all plant more trees and avoid using non-biodegradable products.

Further, it is vital to choose sustainable options and use reusable alternatives. We must save the earth to save our future. There is no Planet B and we must start acting like it accordingly.

Conclusion of Essay on Earth

All in all, we must work together to plant more trees and avoid using plastic. It is also important to limit the use of non-renewable resources to give our future generations a better planet.

FAQ on Essay on Earth

Question 1: What is the earth for kids?

Answer 1: Earth is the third farthest planet from the sun. It is bright and bluish in appearance when we see it from outer space. Water covers 70% of the earth while land covers 30%. Moreover, the earth is the only planet that can sustain life.

Question 2: How can we protect the earth?

Answer 2: We can protect the earth by limiting the use of non-renewable resources. Further, we must not waste water and avoid using plastic.

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Short Essay on Our Planet Earth [100, 200, 400 words] With PDF

Earth is the only planet that sustains life and ecosystems. In this lesson, you will learn to write essays in three different sets on the planet earth to help you in preparing for your upcoming examinations.

Short Essay on Our Planet Earth in 100 Words

Earth is a rare planet since it is the only one that can support life. On Earth, life is possible for various reasons, the most essential of which are the availability of water and the presence of oxygen. Earth is a member of the Solar System. The Earth, along with the other seven planets, orbits the Sun.

One spin takes approximately twenty-four hours, and one revolution takes 365 days and four hours. Day and night, as well as the changing of seasons, occurs due to rotation and revolution. However, we have jeopardized our planet by our sheer ignorance and negligence. We must practise conservation of resources and look after mother earth while we have time.

Short Essay on Our Planet Earth in 200 Words

Earth is a blue planet that is special from the rest of the planets because it is the only one to sustain life. The availability of water and oxygen are two of the most crucial factors that make life possible on Earth. The Earth rotates around the Sun, along with seven other planets in the solar system. It takes 24 hours to complete one rotation, and approximately 365 days and 4 hours to complete one revolution. Day and night, as well as changing seasons, are all conceivable due to these two movements. 

However, we are wasting and taking advantage of the natural resources that have been bestowed upon us. Overuse and exploitation of all-natural resources produce pollution to such an alarming degree that life on Earth is on the verge of extinction. The depletion of the ozone layer has resulted in global warming. The melting of glaciers has resulted in rising temperatures.

Many animals have become extinct or are endangered. To protect the environment, we must work together. Conversation, resource reduction, reuse, and recycling will take us a long way toward restoring the natural ecosystem. We are as unique as our home planet. We have superior intelligence, which we must employ for the benefit of all living beings. The Earth is our natural home, and we must create a place that is as good as, if not better than, paradise.

Short Essay on Our Planet Earth in 400 Words

Earth is a unique planet as it is the only planet that sustains life. Life is possible on Earth because of many reasons, and the most important among them is the availability of water and oxygen. Earth is a part of the family of the Sun. It belongs to the Solar System.

Earth, along with seven other planets, revolves around the Sun. It takes roughly twenty-four hours to complete one rotation and 365 days and 4 hours to complete one revolution. Rotation and revolution make day and night and change of seasons simultaneously possible. The five seasons we experience in one revolution are Spring, Summer, Monsoon, Autumn, and Winter.

However, we are misusing resources and exploiting the natural gifts that have been so heavily endowed upon us. Overuse and misuse of all the natural resources are causing pollution to such an extent that it has become alarming to the point of destruction. The most common form of pollution caused upon the earth by us is Air Pollution, Land Pollution, Water Pollution, and Noise Pollution.

This, in turn, had resulted in Ozone Layer Depletion and Global Warming. Due to ozone layer depletion, there harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun are reaching the earth. It, in turn, is melting glaciers and causing a rise in temperature every year. Many animals have either extinct or are endangered due to human activities.

Some extinct animals worldwide are Sabre-toothed Cat, Woolly Mammoth, Dodo, Great Auk, Stellers Sea Cow, Tasmanian Tiger, Passenger Pigeon, Pyrenean Ibex. The extinct animals in the Indian subcontinent are the Indian Cheetah, pink-headed duck, northern Sumatran rhinoceros, and Sunderban dwarf rhinoceros.

The endangered animals that are in need of our immediate attention in India are Royal Bengal Tiger, Snow leopard, Red panda, Indian rhinoceros, Nilgiri tahr, Asiatic lion, Ganges river dolphin, Gharial and Hangul, among others. We have exploited fossil fuels to such an extent that now we run the risk of using them completely. We must switch to alternative sources of energy that are nature friendly. Solar power, windmills, hydra power should be used more often, and deforestation must be made illegal worldwide.

We must come together to preserve the natural environment. Conversation, reduction, reuse and recycling of the resources will take us a long way in rebuilding the natural habitat. We are as unique as our planet earth. We have higher intelligence, and we must use it for the well-being of all living organisms. The Earth is our natural abode, and we must make a place as close to Paradise, if not better.

Hopefully, after going through this lesson, you have a holistic idea about our planet Earth. I have tried to cover every aspect that makes it unique and the reasons to practise conversation of natural resources. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, kindly let me know through the comment section below. To read more such essays on many important topics, keep browsing our website. 

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