A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Solar System - Earth

Look where we’ve finally arrived. I’ll admit that ever since I started writing these posts I have both been excited to write this part, but baffled as to what I should include. Our planet is one which is truly unique to us, even with the discovery of a new “superearth” (otherwise known as kepler 452b), our planet remains unique because of one simple factor. Us, the birds outside, the earthworms beneath your feet. Life.

Earth is the largest rocky planet in our solar system. It is also the densest with a Deity of about 5.5 grams per cubic centimeter approximately. Surprisingly it rotates exactly once a day and shockingly it orbits our sun exactly once per year. Although the rotation is currently in the process of slowing down which means that it adds an extra 17 milliseconds per day per 100 years.

Our moon is also pretty special as it is the largest in relation to its planet out of any in our solar system and it is also Earth’s only moon. It is thought to have been created when a few billion years ago, a younger earth collided with a planet about the size of Mars. The debris formed the current Earth and our beloved moon.

But what makes Earth really unique is the sheer amount of life that has flourished there. We have studies thousands of exo planets and have yet to find one where life is likely to be as abundant as Earth. Because not only has life formed on Earth, but life has thrived, for millions and millions of years life has prevailed, our delicate complex carbon structures refusing to be destroyed by meteorites, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts and while our Earth has grown mountains and created whole continents since the first slimy little thing crawled out of the sea there has always been life. And likely as not there will always be life, until the planet itself dies.

If that doesn’t make it the most incredible place we know then I don’t know what does.