Earth, third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest planet in the solar system in terms of size and mass. Its single most outstanding feature is that its near-surface environments are the only places in the universe known to harbor life. Learn more ab
Is the Number of Hurricanes Increasing? 16 Questions About Earth’s Atmsophere and Weather Answered Current and Historical Droughts Around the World Discover Pablo Escobar: 8 Interesting Facts About the King of Cocaine Cheating Death on Everest ...
Earthquake, any sudden shaking of the ground caused by the passage of seismic waves through Earth’s rocks. Earthquakes occur most often along geologic faults, narrow zones where rock masses move in relation to one another.
Moon, Earth’s sole natural satellite and nearest celestial body. Known since prehistoric times, it is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun. Its name in English, like that of Earth, is of Germanic and Old English derivation.
the highest in the world. The main political division reflects differing views on the importance of free-market forces; but the socialists long ago stopped insisting on nationalization of the country’s industry, and the nonsocialists have accepted extensive governmental control of the country’s ...
Great Red Spot, a long-lived enormous storm system on the planet Jupiter and the planet’s most conspicuous feature.
submarine ridges. The third major unit of the Earth’s crust in Indonesia is an extension of the belt of mountains that formsJapanand thePhilippines; the mountains run southward between Borneo and New Guinea and include a series ofvolcanoesand deep-sea trenches on and around Celebes and the ...
(the movement of large plates of Earth’s crust) created a distinctisland arcandoceanic trenchstructure by theCarboniferous Period(about 359 to 299 million years ago), whendepositionbegan in the downwarps (trenches) of the sedimentary rocks that today make up some three-fourths of New Zealand. ...
coal depositsLocation of the most-important coal occurrences on Earth. Coal is defined as having more than 50 percent by weight (or 70 percent by volume) carbonaceous matter produced by thecompactionand hardening of alteredplantremains—namely,peatdeposits. Different varieties of coal arise because ...
000 in the third decade of the 21st century. The explosive growth was a spin-off of a survey designed to find 90 percent of asteroids with diameters greater than one kilometre that can crossEarth’sorbit and thus have the potential to collide with the planet (see belowNear-Earth asteroids)...