I introduce my File Facts about earth.pdf, which contain the useful information about Earth planet. There are also some pictures of Earth. I hope that, they will provide to you useful knowledge about astronomy in general and Earth in particular.

1. Discovering Planet Earth
The earth has already been in existence for 4.6 billion years. Humans came into being for
only about 2.5 million years. Knowing these things, it would seem ridiculous to conclude that
humans first discovered the earth. Be that as it may, it is still worthy to know how we, humans,
advanced our way to the discovery of the planet earth.
The Shape of the Earth
During ancient times, people believed
that the Earth’s shape was flat. Different
civilizations had their very own flat model of
the earth which ranged from large circular
discs to a square shaped earth which floated in
water. Believing that the earth was so left
philosopher and educated men into a similar
conclusion that the earth has edges where
explorers could fall. This is the reason why
Christopher Columbus had a very hard time
looking for a crew in his journey around the
world
Pythagoras was the first person known to have publicly called that the Earth was really
round. The theory was further strengthened by Aristotle and the amazingly accurate
measurement of the Earth’s diameter by Eratosthenes. The first person who actually
circumnavigated the earth was the crew of Ferdinand Magellan. However, Magellan himself did
not accomplish the feat of travelling around the world because he was killed during such
expedition.
The Solar System
According to Early Greek philosophy, the Earth was the center of the universe where the
sun, moon and other naked eye planets are circling around it. During medieval times, everyone
believed this theory which is strongly backed up by the church. The geocentric model was not
challenged until the release of Copernicus’ theory that the earth and the other planets was
actually revolving around the sun via the heliocentric model.
In 1610, Galileo Galilei started supporting Copernicus’ theory and was called to recant
his belief of the heliocentric view by the Roman Inquisition. Of course, Galileo did not heed this
which resulted to him being in house arrest for the rest of his life. It was not long when a
scientist named Giordano Bruno formulated his own cosmological theory basing his findings on
Copernicus’ and Galileo’s concept which placed the Sun as merely one of many other stars

2. existing throughout the universe. With this theory, Bruno was burned at the stake after being
convicted of heresy. When his theory was found to be correct by modern science, he was famed
as a martyr of free thinking and scientific ideas.
The Earthrise, Blue Marble and the Small Blue Dot
In the Christmas Eve of 1968, the
most influential photograph in history
was taken. A picture of the earth was
taken by the crew of Apollo 8 while on a
mission passing over the moon. This
photograph was called the earthrise which
shows an image of the earth floating in a
vast void of darkness which reminded
humanity of the delicateness of our
world. This picture launched numerous
environmental movements and brought
public consciousness for the preservation
of the earth. In 1972, astronauts were able
to take a picture of the whole earth
including the south polar ice cap. This
picture called the Blue Marble was the
most widely distributed picture of the Earth.
In 1990, another picture of the Earth was taken from the Voyager 1 spacecraft at a vast
distance of 3.7 billion miles. It showed the Earth as a tiny speck of dust which showed us how
vast the space is and how insignificant our size is compared to the incalculable vastness of space.
With the aid of modern technology, humans will probably have a good shot on the discovery of
the planet earth sooner than we think.
How Humans Came To Be
Human life has been in existence in this world as homo sapiens (the upright human) for
about 100,000 years. However, hominid or human like species has been discovered to exist for
about 4-6 million years ago. There are a lot of theories that seeks to explain how we, human
beings, came into existence in this world. The Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin may very
well explain how the modern man came into existence. In this article, it will be discussed how
humans came to occupy planet Earth.
There are two major theories that try to explain how life existed on earth and how
humans came about. These are the Theory of Intelligent Design and the Theory of Natural
Selection.

3. Theory of Intelligent Design
This theory describes that the formation
of the universe and life was done by virtue of an
intelligent cause and not by any random process
or natural selection. In this theory, a supreme
designer (which could be God or extraterrestrial
beings) is responsible for the existence of life on
earth and possibly explains how humans came
to occupy the planet Earth. Our present form is
the product of the exact biological design that
our designer has intended it to be. As such, our
existence and what we are today is not based on
chance. This only connotes that there is a reason
for our existence here in the universe which we
still do not know.
The theory of intellectual design has been accused to be a form of theological
creationism in the guise of being explained through science by deliberately avoiding the
revelation of the identity of this Intellectual Designer which would probably be the Christian
God. This school of thought has been denied to be a part of science because it violates a
fundamental requirement of science in proving such claim by experimentation. Clearly, the
existence of a supreme designer cannot be proven by any scientific process.
Theory of Natural Selection
This theory also known as the “survival of the fittest” has been formulated by a biologist
named Charles Darwin. In this theory, the existence of humans today is a result of a very long
and continuing process of evolution. It is believed in this theory that all organisms came from a
single organism who continued reproducing. In the process, several accidents would happen
which would result to a better version of such organism to suit the efficiency of reproduction. In
the animal level, certain habitat conditions make animals more efficient than others. Through
time, some animals will be born with irregularities which could give them some advantage in
surviving the environment they are in. While those who do not have such advantage will die in
the process, those who survive will continue on reproduction. Repeating the entire process would
bring us to superior creatures that are more suited to living in their respective habitats.
To make the long story short, the Theory of Natural Selection explains how humans came
to occupy the planet Earth through evolution. Certain similarities between human and ape
species show that there is a strong possibility that they share the same genetic ancestry. Our
human form today and superior intellectual capacity is a product of a very long and tedious
deduction process in singling out the most superior qualities to obtain the best chance of survival.

4. Planet Earth May Not Be Able To Support Us In The
Near Future
The question of "how much human life can the earth sustain?" could prove to be very
difficult. As early as 200AD, Tertullian wrote about the finiteness of the world’s resources to
sustain human life. At that time, the population of the earth was just about in its hundredth
million or so. In 1679, Anton Van Leeuwenhoek first estimated the human carrying capacity of
the earth to be about 13.4 billion. The Germans in 1765 however claimed that the world could
support 13.9 billion people.
Thomas Malthus
In 1798, Thomas Malthus
produced a writing which provoked a hot
debate on the carrying capacity of the
earth and asserted the imminent doom of
mankind due to overpopulation. He
argued that the Earth population is
increasing geometrically which means that
it is almost always being multiplied by a
minimum of 2. This poses a great problem
since food production could only increase
arithmetically. As such, there will come a
time where the availability of food will
not be enough to feed enough humans if
the population growth is to remain
uncontrolled.
The writings of Thomas Malthus were very controversial as it criticized the view of the
Utopians who believed that life could only become better and perfected as time goes by. He also
criticized some pro-poor laws that seem to encourage people to have more kids which can lead a
bad effect to the population and food supply.
Given this situation, there are two kinds of checks that could hold the population to a
manageable and sustainable level. These are the positive checks and the preventive checks.
Positive checks are those that increase humans’ death rate. It includes wars, diseases, calamity
and famine. Moreover, Malthus believed that if the people are made aware of famine or
developed a fear for famine, they will somewhat be prevented from procreating due to fear of
starvation. Preventive check, however, is a different story. This talks about the lowering of birth
rate such as moral restraint to marry and have children at a certain age, abstinence,
homosexuality and birth control.

5. How Can We Cope
In the mid-1800s, the human population was able to obtain its first billion. In the mid-
1900s the population more than doubled to 2.5 billion. Today, the human population is nearly
reaching a whopping 7 billion. While it may take some time to reach the earlier predicted 13-plus
billion marks, it must be noted that the human lifestyle back then was more in harmony with
nature than what we are doing today. Despite the fact that technology is able to provide us with
more efficient ways of growing and producing food, it may not be enough due to high rate of
population growth rate.
How much human life the Earth could sustain? The answer does not rely on food
production alone. There still are things that should be taken into consideration. Such other
problems to deal with are the availability of fresh water that are safe for humans to use, the
protection of the atmosphere to prevent global warming and the depletion of oil and fossil fuels
as sources of energy.
Since overpopulation is starting to become a big threat as it is shown by mass poverty
especially in third world countries, it is about time for our leaders to think beyond the current
status quo and formulate ways on how to control the population and equally distributing wealth
to avoid wastage of resources.
Life and the Planet Earth
For quite a number of years, we have
been learning things about our planet Earth.
While we are still in the process of
discovering its mysterious secrets, one thing
that we can be sure of is that life exists here in
our planet. Thus, it is safe to assume that life
is nothing without planet Earth. In this article,
it will be discussed how our planet is able to
support life.
Temperature
The earth is the third planet from the
Sun. Its location in the solar system is such
that it is not too cold and not too hot. This zone in the solar system is called the Goldilocks zone.
Moreover, the Earth moderates the heat received from the sun by air currents that distributes heat
and cold to different parts of the globe. Moreover, the greenhouse effect also helps by stabilizing
the temperature on the ground and providing heat in the atmosphere by absorbing the heat of the
sun and thus limiting the albedo effect.

6. Atmosphere
A breathable atmosphere is probably the most obvious reason why our life exists here on
Earth. The gas that we and most other animals breathe is called oxygen. It is present in the
Earth’s atmosphere and in water as well. While the Earth’s supply of oxygen is limited, it is
constantly being refreshed because plants reconvert the carbon dioxide gases that animals
exhales through photosynthesis. As such, plants play a very significant role in maintaining life on
Earth. Moreover, the Earth’s atmosphere protects the surface from harmful radiation given off by
the sun and from small asteroids from crashing hard on the Earth’s surface.
Water
Two-thirds of the Earth is composed of
water. It can mostly be found in liquid form,
solid in the form of ice, and gas floating in
the atmosphere in the form of clouds.
Moreover, there is no creature in the world
that is made up of less than 50% of water.
Water is a vital ingredient for life. It allows
an environment for life producing molecules
and contains oxygen that is considered
necessary for life.
Water is also necessary for drinking.
Without it, we and the other life forms on
earth will die of thirst and starvation. While
water from the oceans are not suitable for
drinking, it is converted to fresh water by the
process of evaporation and condensation in the form of rain. As
such, water is then transported to the land which animals, humans and plants use to drink.
Sun
The earth receives ample amount of heat from the sun. Without it, the Earth would just be
a barren planet made of ice. Furthermore, the Earth’s rotation on its axis for 24 hours provides
just the right amount of heat and light to be equally distributed around it. The light provided by
the Sun is also needed by plants to produce food and oxygen for animals through the process of
photosynthesis. Light is also responsible for the survival of living creatures in order to see things
that can be used for food and avoid danger.
The Sun’s gravity is also very important in keeping the planets in the solar system within
its axis. Without it, the Earth and other planets will be merely floating defenselessly in the vast
field of the universe.

7. Conclusion
Indeed, life is nothing without planet earth. The conditions brought about by this
seemingly perfect combination of circumstances made it possible for the Earth to host life in its
very complexity.
The Late Great Planet Earth Review
In 1973, the book called The Late, Great Planet Earth by the American writer and
evangelist Hal Lindsey was published by Zondervan. Due to the way things were during the 70’s
and 80’s the book became a very big hit which sold around fifteen million copies and was later
produced in film. Soon, most people and the religious were taking the book seriously and were
studying it carefully through passages in the bible.
In this book, Hal Lindsey
created a straightforward
assertion where our world was
headed to. By using some
passages from the Old and New
Testament of the bible, he was
able to reconcile and put together
that time’s current events to the
prophecies indicated in it. The
central point of this story is that
the end times will come soon as
Jesus Christ will soon be coming
to Earth by 1988.
Israel, becoming a nation
state in 1948 probably triggered
Lindsey to write this book as it
was predicted by the bible that
the rebirth of Israel is a mark of
the Second Coming of Christ. This was also pointed out by Jesus in the New Testament that
when the fig tree’s buds starts to sprout, it will be as sign that summer is near. As it is well
known that the bible symbolically refers to Israel as a fig tree, Lindsey pointed out that the other
events happening around the world may also relate to the other prophecies on the Second
Coming of Christ. The bible also prophesized that Israel will soon repossess Jerusalem which
really did actually happened in 1967. These events merely strengthened the credibility of
Lindsey’s assertion at that time.

8. At the peak of the book’s success, the contents of The Late Great Planet Earth was being
thoroughly studied in schools and has become a required to be read among Christian schools.
Soon, everyone was expecting that the rapture is happening very soon and news reports were
being compared to what is written in The Late, Great Planet Earth.
Today, most of what is
written in the book did not
occur. As far as we all know,
Jesus Christ did not come
back to Earth in 1988, nor did
the Antichrist did not manage
to exert his influence to the
world. The third world war
did not come into realization
and all those prophesy about
other countries did not take
place. In the final chapters of
his book, he told readers to
keep an eye out on Israel as it
will become “fantastically
wealthy and influential in the
future.” (p.173) As far as we
know, Israel is not doing great given what is happening in the Middle East today and all that it
endured during the past century. While some of the book’s prophecies were a total failure, there
are still some of them that came about. In his book Lindsey warned the world about drug
addiction becoming a worldwide problem.
To come to the point, this book is still an interesting read despite the obsolete arguments
that it claims as true. It could be nostalgic to read for some of us who enjoyed the 70’s and 80’s.
It could also be fun to read for the younger generation to discover parts of our history and what
people were thinking back then.