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Of the Solar System's eight planets and its nine most likely dwarf planets, six planets and seven dwarf planets are known to be orbited by at least 300 natural satellites, or moons. At least 19 of them are large enough to be gravitationally rounded; of these, all are covered by a crust of ice except for Earth's Moon and Jupiter's Io . [ 1 ]
At time 2, the planet has rotated 360 degrees and the distant star is overhead again but the Sun is not (1→2 = one stellar day). It is not until a little later, at time 3, that the Sun is overhead again (1→3 = one solar day). Earth's rotation period relative to the International Celestial Reference Frame, called its stellar day by the ...
Currently most of the objects of mass between 10 9 kg to 10 12 kg (less than 1000 teragrams (Tg)) listed here are near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). The Aten asteroid 1994 WR12 has less mass than the Great Pyramid of Giza, 5.9 × 10 9 kg. For more about very small objects in the Solar System, see meteoroid, micrometeoroid, cosmic dust, and ...
Earth is rounded into an ellipsoid with a circumference of about 40,000 km. It is the densest planet in the Solar System. Of the four rocky planets, it is the largest and most massive. Earth is about eight light-minutes away from the Sun and orbits it, taking a year (about 365.25 days) to complete one revolution.
The precise strength of Earth's gravity varies with location. The agreed upon value for standard gravity is 9.80665 m/s 2 (32.1740 ft/s 2) by definition. [ 4] This quantity is denoted variously as gn, ge (though this sometimes means the normal gravity at the equator, 9.7803267715 m/s 2 (32.087686258 ft/s 2 )), [ 5] g0, or simply g (which is ...
Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet 's or a natural satellite 's potential to develop and maintain environments hospitable to life. [1] Life may be generated directly on a planet or satellite endogenously or be transferred to it from another body, through a hypothetical process known as panspermia. [2]
The Gaia hypothesis ( / ˈɡaɪ.ə / ), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.
When a cruise liner-size asteroid comes within 19,883 miles (32,000 kilometers) of Earth on April 13, 2029, it won’t be alone. ... to our planet than satellites in its orbit and 10 times nearer ...