{"id":4684,"date":"2018-04-05T13:20:40","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T19:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/?p=4684"},"modified":"2018-04-05T13:20:40","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T19:20:40","slug":"earth-the-first-frontier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/earth-the-first-frontier\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth the First Frontier"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Terrestrial
Relative sizes of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted with respect to its orbital plane, producing seasons on the Earth. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and relatively large Moon<\/a> causes ocean tides and stabilizes the Earth’s orientation on its axis. Earth is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets.<\/p>\n

Earth’s interior remains active and hot with a solid iron inner core (5,400 \u00b0C), a\u00a0 molten liquid outer core (2,730\u20134,230 \u00b0C) that generates a magnetic field that extends far out into space. The Earth’s magnetic field<\/a> serves to deflect most of the solar wind<\/a>, whose charged particles would otherwise strip away the ozone layer that protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.\u00a0 Combined with all the water and atmosphere, it makes Earth a relatively comfortable and safe place for life to evolve.<\/p>\n

\"Apollo
Apollo 17 view of Earth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Life began in the ocean over 3.5 billion years ago and evolved into the complex tree of life<\/a> we see today.\u00a0 In 2016, researchers estimated<\/a> that there might be 1 trillion species currently on Earth<\/strong> with only one thousandth of 1 percent (0.001%) identified\/classified by us.\u00a0 This is up from 10-14 million estimated in 2012.\u00a0 Those numbers do not account for all the species that have already disappeared from the Earth.\u00a0 Some estimates are 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth are extinct, but that is very difficult to verify.<\/p>\n

There is only ONE global ocean<\/strong> covering approximately 71% of Earth’s surface and 90% of the Earth’s biosphere<\/a>. The global ocean has been geographically divided into distinct named regions<\/a>. The boundaries between these regions have evolved over time for a variety of historical, cultural, geographical, and scientific reasons.\u00a0 Most of the ocean is unexplored<\/strong> \u2014 about 95 percent of this underwater realm is unseen by human eyes.\u00a0 The world ocean is the habitat of 230,000 known species<\/strong>, but because much of it is unexplored, the number of species that exist in the ocean is much larger.<\/p>\n

Out of sight does not mean we (humans) do not have a huge impact on the ocean.\u00a0 The ocean is a vast source of food, but we are depleting the fish stocks with modern fishing methods.\u00a0 We dump our waste into the ocean, thinking it will disappear.\u00a0 Since 1996, NOAA has removed 904 tons of debris from Papah\u0101naumoku\u0101kea Marine National Monument<\/a> in Hawaii including 57 tons from a 2014 mission.<\/p>\n

Over 7.6\u00a0billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and natural resources for their survival.\u00a0 We must learn how to care for this ecosystem before we try to create an artificial one on another planet, otherwise we will be doomed anywhere else and on Earth.<\/p>\n

Sources and more about the Earth:<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Earth<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.noaa.gov\/oceans-coasts<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ocean<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/tolweb.org\/tree\/phylogeny.html<\/a>
\nTree of Life Explorer at http:\/\/www.onezoom.org\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/visibleearth.nasa.gov\/view_cat.php?categoryID=1484<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Extinction<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earth, third rock from the Sun, our home for at least a few million or billion years (depending on when you start the clock) and the next 4 or 5 billion years…I hope. The Earth was our first universe until we realized there was more out there and here on Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4684"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4706,"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4684\/revisions\/4706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.secularhub.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}