Geography (PMS)

CHAPTER #01

THE UNIVERSE

The Solar System and Earth

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system that consists of the Sun and the objects
that orbit it. The four gas and ice giants and four terrestrial planets are the largest of the bodies
that orbit the Sun directly, followed by an unknown number of dwarf planets and innumerable
small Solar System bodies.

Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity
– the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune;
dwarf planets such as Pluto; dozens of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets,
and meteoroids.

 The solar system is enormous, with a diameter of at least 100 Astronomical Units
(15 trillion km). Our Solar System is thought to be over 4.6 billion years old,
according to several experts.

Namesake:
 There are many planetary systems like ours in the universe, with planets
orbiting a host star. Our planetary system is called “the solar system” because
we use the word “solar” to describe things related to our star, after the Latin
word for Sun, "solis."

Size and Distance

Our solar system extends much farther than the eight planets that orbit the Sun. The
solar system also includes the Kuiper Belt that lies past Neptune's orbit. This is a
sparsely occupied ring of icy bodies, almost all smaller than the most popular Kuiper
Belt Object – dwarf planet Pluto. Beyond the fringes of the Kuiper Belt is the Oort
Cloud. This giant spherical shell surrounds our solar system. It has never been
directly observed, but its existence is predicted based on mathematical models and
observations of comets that likely originate there.
The Oort Cloud is made of icy pieces of space debris - some bigger than mountains
– orbiting our Sun as far as 1.6 light-years away. This shell of material is thick,
extending from 5,000 astronomical units to 100,000 astronomical units. One
astronomical unit (or AU) is the distance from the Sun to Earth, or about 93 million
miles (150 million kilometers). The Oort Cloud is the boundary of the Sun's
gravitational influence, where orbiting objects can turn around and return closer to
our Sun.

The Sun's heliosphere doesn't extend quite as far. The heliosphere is the bubble
created by the solar wind – a stream of electrically charged gas blowing outward
from the Sun in all directions. The boundary where the solar wind is abruptly slowed
by pressure from interstellar gases is called the termination shock. This edge occurs
between 80-100 astronomical units.

Two NASA spacecraft launched in 1977 have crossed the termination shock:
Voyager 1 in 2004 and Voyager 2 in 2007. Voyager 1 went interstellar in 2012
and Voyager 2 joined it in 2018. But it will be many thousands of years before the
two Voyagers exit the Oort Cloud.

Formation of Solar System

 The solar system, according to scientists, was formed when a cloud of gas and dust in
space was disturbed, possibly by the explosion of a nearby star known
as SUPERNOVA.
 This explosion sent shockwaves into space, compressing the gas and dust cloud.
Gravity drew the gas and dust together, forming a solar nebula, as the cloud began to
collapse.
 At the dense centre of this nebula, the sun's nuclear flames erupted. In the churning
currents of the vast cloud, the planets were created.
 Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars all began as rock globes orbiting the Sun. It was
impossible to capture them since they were too small and had weak gravitational fields.
 The enormous planets Jupiter and Saturn, which are far from the sun and have powerful
gravitational fields, did, nevertheless, draw and hold thick gaseous atmospheres of
Hydrogen and Helium.

The Sun

 Our solar system's largest object is the sun. It is roughly 109 times the size of Earth. The
Sun has a diameter of 1,392,000 kilometres. It comprises 99.8% of the mass of the solar
system.
 The sun is a star with a surface temperature of 60000 degrees Celsius. It is largely made
up of hydrogen gas, with a minor quantity of helium thrown in for good measure.
 The Sun is the solar system's closest star. It belongs to the Milky Way galaxy. It's
thought to be more than 4 billion years old. The Sun is a yellow dwarf, a medium-sized
star. As it rotates around the galaxy, the Sun spins gently on its axis.
 Solar flares are large energy bursts that occur on the Sun. Fast-moving particles are
ejected from the Sun's surface during these flares. When these particles collide with the
Earth's atmosphere, they produce an Aurora.
  The core, radiation zone, convection zone, and photosphere are the four layers that
make up the Sun (which is the surface of the Sun).
 Above the photosphere, there are two layers of gas termed the chromosphere and the
corona.
 Sunspots, solar flares, solar wind, and solar prominences are some of the most common
occurrences on the Sun.
 The Earth would be a dead sphere of rock and ice if it were not for the Sun. The Sun
warms our globe, influences our weather, and provides energy to plants, which provides
food and energy for life on Earth.
 The Sun's energy reaches the Earth and other planets in all directions. The planet
absorbs less energy as it gets further away from the Sun.

Other Objects in the Solar System

 Asteroids: Asteroids are rocky and metallic objects that orbit the Sun but aren't large
enough to be termed planets. They are called Minor Planets. The majority of the
asteroids in our solar system orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter's orbits. The
"asteroid belt" is a term used to describe this region. A few asteroids are getting closer to
the Sun.
 Asteroid belt: The asteroid belt is a doughnut-shaped cluster of asteroids orbiting the
Sun between Mars and Jupiter's orbits, closer to Mars' orbit.
 Meteorites: Aside from asteroids, the Sun is also orbited by smaller rocks and dust
particles. These particles of rock or dust make their way into the atmosphere.
 They come into contact with a lot of friction as they pass, which causes them to heat up
and burn out. Meteors are little shards of rock or dust that burn.
 The majority of meteors burn up before they reach Earth. Some are so massive that a
piece of it falls to Earth as a meteorite.
 A meteorite is a piece of debris that collides with the Earth. When it collides with the
ground, it can create a hole or crater. The hole gets bigger as the meteorite gets bigger.
 Satellites: Satellites are celestial objects that orbit planets and are part of the solar
system. The Moon is the Earth's satellite. Some satellites, like Ganymede (which orbits
Jupiter), are larger than Mercury and have atmospheres.
 Artificial satellites: Man-made artificial satellites are also an important part of the solar
system. These satellites orbit the Earth far closer than the moon, which is the Earth's
natural satellite. Aryabhata is India's first artificial satellite. India has launched a number
of other satellites, including INSAT, IRS, and EDUSAT.
 Comets: Comets are small icy objects with irregular shapes. They usually come from
the Kuiper Belt, which is located beyond Neptune in the solar system's far reaches.
 When these objects approach the sun, the ice evaporates, leaving behind a lovely tail.
 Some of these comets return on a regular basis, such as Halley's Comet, which returns
every 76 years. The next time in 2061.

Structure
The order and arrangement of the planets and other bodies in our solar system is
due to the way the solar system formed. Nearest to the Sun, only rocky material
could withstand the heat when the solar system was young. For this reason, the first
four planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – are terrestrial planets. They are all
small with solid, rocky surfaces.

Meanwhile, materials we are used to seeing as ice, liquid, or gas settled in the outer
regions of the young solar system. Gravity pulled these materials together, and that
is where we find gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, and the ice giants Uranus and
Neptune.

Earth, our home planet, is a world unlike any other. The third planet
from the sun, Earth is the only place in the known universe confirmed
to host life.

With a radius of 3,959 miles, Earth is the fifth largest planet in our solar
system, and it's the only one known for sure to have liquid water on its
surface. Earth is also unique in terms of monikers. Every other solar
system planet was named for a Greek or Roman deity, but for at least a
thousand years, some cultures have described our world using the
Germanic word “earth,” which means simply “the ground.”
Our dance around the sun

Earth orbits the sun once every 365.25 days. Since our calendar years
have only 365 days, we add an extra leap day every four years to account
for the difference.

Though we can't feel it, Earth zooms through its orbit at an average
velocity of 18.5 miles a second. During this circuit, our planet is an
average of 93 million miles away from the sun, a distance that takes
light about eight minutes to traverse. Astronomers define this distance
as one astronomical unit (AU), a measure that serves as a handy cosmic
yardstick. Earth rotates on its axis every 23.9 hours, defining day and
night for surface dwellers. This axis of rotation is tilted 23.4 degrees
away from the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun, giving us seasons.
Whichever hemisphere is tilted closer to the sun experiences summer,
while the hemisphere tilted away gets winter. In the spring and fall,
each hemisphere receives similar amounts of light. On two specific
dates each year—called the equinoxes—both hemispheres get
illuminated equally.

Many layers, many features

About 4.5 billion years ago, gravity coaxed Earth to form from the
gaseous, dusty disk that surrounded our young sun. Over time, Earth's
interior—which is made mostly of silicate rocks and metals—
differentiated into four layers.

At the planet's heart lies the inner core, a solid sphere of iron and nickel
that's 759 miles wide and as hot as 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The inner
core is surrounded by the outer core, a 1,400-mile-thick band of iron
and nickel fluids. Beyond the outer core lies the mantle, a 1,800-mile-
thick layer of viscous molten rock on which Earth's outermost layer, the
crust, rests. On land, the continental crust is an average of 19 miles
thick, but the oceanic crust that forms the seafloor is thinner—about
three miles thick—and denser.

Like Venus and Mars, Earth has mountains, valleys, and volcanoes. But
unlike its rocky siblings, almost 70 percent of Earth's surface is covered
in oceans of liquid water that average 2.5 miles deep. These bodies of
water contain 97 percent of Earth's volcanoes and the mid-ocean ridge,
a massive mountain range more than 40,000 miles long.

Earth's crust and upper mantle are divided into massive plates that
grind against each other in slow motion. As these plates collide, tear
apart, or slide past each other, they give rise to our very active geology.
Earthquakes rumble as these plates snag and slip past each other. Many
volcanoes form as seafloor crust smashes into and slides beneath
continental crust. When plates of continental crust collide, mountain
ranges such as the Himalaya are pushed toward the skies.

Discussion on Shape and size of earth

The shape of the earth is an oblate spheroid and its radius is 6,371 km. There are mainly two types
of activity that are aphelion and perihelion seen on the earth. When the sun comes closest to the
earth, the particular point of the earth which has the nearest distance from the sun is called
perihelion. On the other hand, during the revolution of the earth around the sun, the point on the
earth which is farthest from the sun is called aphelion. These two activities show that the shape of
the earth is neither spherical nor oval. After detailed research on the shape of the earth, it has been
found that the shape of the earth is an oblate spheroid. The earth is an oblate spheroid in shape
instead of round as a sphere. In the older times, it was considered that the shape of the earth was
spherical. After reviewing the shape of the earth through satellite, it has been seen that the earth is
bumped at the equator and flattened at the poles. As the earth is bumped from the equator and
flattened at the pole, it is named an oblate spheroid. The orbit in which the earth rotates around the
sun has a significant contribution in the Perihelion and aphelion. If the orbital of the earth has a
completely round shape instead of an elliptical shape,the condition of Perihelion and aphelion was
not possible as the distance of all the points of the earth remained the same.

Rotation and Revolution

"Rotation" refers to an object's spinning motion about its own axis.

"Revolution" refers the object's orbital motion around another object. For
example, Earth rotates on its own axis, producing the 24-hour day.
Earth revolves about the Sun, producing the 365-day year. A satellite
revolves around a planet.
Earth's Rotation

The Earth rotates on its axis relative to the Sun every 24.0 hours mean
solar time, with an inclination of 23.45 degrees from the plane of its orbit
around the Sun. Mean solar time represents an average of the variations
caused by Earth's non-circular orbit. Its rotation relative to "fixed" stars
(sidereal time) is 3 minutes 56.55 seconds shorter than the mean solar
day, the equivalent of one solar day per year.

Revolution of Earth

Earth revolves in orbit around the Sun in 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes
with reference to the stars, at a speed ranging from 29.29 to 30.29 km/s.
The 6 hours, 9 minutes adds up to about an extra day every fourth year,
which is designated a leap year, with the extra day added as February
29th. Earth's orbit is elliptical and reaches its closest approach to the
Sun, a perihelion of 147,090,000 km, on about January fourth of each
year. Aphelion comes six months later at 152,100,000 km.
Distribution of Water and Land on Earth  
Our planet Earth comprises land and water of which water is present in the
majority. The distribution of land and water on Earth in percentage is - water
covers approximately 70.8 % of the area while land covers 29.2 %. Water
distribution on Earth's surface is highly unequal. Only 3 % of the water on the
surface is clean; the other 97 % is in the ocean. 

Freshwater is found in glaciers 69 % of the time, underground 30 % of the time,

and in lakes, rivers, and swamps less than 1 % of the time. In other words, just 1
% of the water on Earth's surface is consumable for people, while 99 % of the
useful quantity is underground.
Types of Water on Earth 
There are three different types of water resources in the world. 
 Surface Water - Surface water is water found in streams and lakes. This
water is mostly utilised for drinking water, recreation, irrigation, industry,
cattle, transportation, and hydroelectric electricity. The maintenance and
purity of surface water are essential.
 Saltwater - The planet's surface is rich with salt water. However, saltwater
is ineffective when it comes to drinkable water supplies. Many people's
diets across the world include saltwater fish. Coastal waters have also
been used to create hydroelectric power.
 Groundwater - Groundwater is the most abundant freshwater resource.
Some of the water that filters down into the ground through layers of soil,
clay, and rock, sticks to the highest layers providing water to plants.
Gravity keeps the water moving downward through the earth. The water
eventually reaches the saturated zone, when all the pores are filled with
water. Groundwater feeds surface water through springs, while surface
water may also restore groundwater supplies. Humans often obtain
groundwater using wells.
 We live on the land which constitutes 71% of area covered with water and 29%
of the area of Earth. The huge bodies of water are called the seas and oceans
and the big land masses are known as continents.
 Continents
 On the Earth there are seven continents. These continents are named as Asia,
Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica.