Significance of Some natural features of the Earth

The Solar System

The solar system is made up of all the planets that orbit the sun. In addition to the planets, the solar system also consists of moons, comets, asteroids, minor planets, dust and gas. Everything in the solar system orbits or revolves around the sun. Because the sun is so large, its powerful gravity attracts all the other objects. The sun is by far the largest object in the solar system. 98% of all matter within the solar system is found within the sun. This means that all the planets, moons, asteroids, minor planets, comets, gas and dust would combine to make up only 2% of all the matter in the solar system.

The Earth

This is the biggest of all the terrestrial planets. A terrestrial planet is a dense planet found in the inner solar system. Terrestrial planets have a solid surface with an atmosphere. They include mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. The earth has one moon called Luna. The other planets have more than one moon.

There are two important movements that affect the earth namely Rotation and Revolution.

Rotation is the movement of the earth around an invisible axis. It takes the earth 24 hours to finish one complete rotation. This movement causes day and night.

Revolution is the movement of the earth around the sun. One revolution takes 365 or 366 days. Acting together, these two movements create variations in temperature, weather and in the seasons.