Earth how is it made

This means we will never be able to visit it. We know, for example, that the core is full of iron, because Earth acts like a giant magnet, drawing some elements to it. This magnetic core is very useful: it means we can use a compass to find our way, like sailors in the ocean. Lighter minerals floated up toward the surface and formed a thin crust of rock around the outside of the planet which we now live on top of.

If Earth was the size of a plum, the rocky crust would be a bit like the thin purple skin. If we want to see below the surface, we can drill down into the crust for thousands of meters.

The crust is mostly made of minerals such as quartz, feldspar and mica. These are the shiny crystals in granite rocks, which you can see in the southwest of Kenya. Over long periods of time these minerals break down into small pieces and are carried around by winds, currents and waves to form soft sediments like sand.

Look out for sediments when you are by a river, a lake or a beach. Earth sometimes temporarily hosts orbiting asteroids or large rocks. They are typically trapped by Earth's gravity for a few months or years before returning to an orbit around the Sun. Some moons are bits of rock that were captured by a planet's gravity, but our Moon is likely the result of a collision billions of years ago.

When Earth was a young planet, a large chunk of rock smashed into it, displacing a portion of Earth's interior. The resulting chunks clumped together and formed our Moon. With a radius of 1, miles 1, kilometers , the Moon is the fifth largest moon in our solar system after Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, and Io. The Moon is an average of , miles , kilometers away from Earth.

That means 30 Earth-sized planets could fit in between Earth and its Moon. When the solar system settled into its current layout about 4. Like its fellow terrestrial planets, Earth has a central core, a rocky mantle, and a solid crust.

Our home planet Earth is a rocky, terrestrial planet. It has a solid and active surface with mountains, valleys, canyons, plains and so much more. Earth is special because it is an ocean planet. Earth's atmosphere is made mostly of nitrogen and has plenty of oxygen for us to breathe. The atmosphere also protects us from incoming meteoroids, most of which break up before they can hit the surface.

Earth is composed of four main layers, starting with an inner core at the planet's center, enveloped by the outer core, mantle, and crust. The inner core is a solid sphere made of iron and nickel metals about miles 1, kilometers in radius.

There the temperature is as high as 9, degrees Fahrenheit 5, degrees Celsius. Surrounding the inner core is the outer core.

This layer is about 1, miles 2, kilometers thick, made of iron and nickel fluids. In between the outer core and crust is the mantle, the thickest layer. This hot, viscous mixture of molten rock is about 1, miles 2, kilometers thick and has the consistency of caramel.

The outermost layer, Earth's crust, goes about 19 miles 30 kilometers deep on average on land. At the bottom of the ocean, the crust is thinner and extends about 3 miles 5 kilometers from the seafloor to the top of the mantle. Like Mars and Venus, Earth has volcanoes, mountains, and valleys.

But slowly over many years, Earth started to cool down. Some rocks full of ice and gas hit it and melted to make the sea. But slowly, over many years, the top layer of the Earth was cool enough to harden. This is the ground we walk on today. Deep down underground, the Earth is still full of melted hot rock. And gradually, over a long time, plants started to grow, bugs started to live and life on Earth began to form which is a whole story on its own.

Earth is really ancient, and humans have only been around for a tiny part of that. Did something have to be there to go boom? Hello, curious kids! Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids theconversation. Tile 11 Description. Tile 12 Description. Tile 13 Description. Tile 14 Description. Tile 15 Description. Tile 16 Description. Tile 17 Description.

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