Noaa environmental visualization
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After all, even with all the spacecraft humans have sent out to explore our neighboring worlds, Earth remains the only one with which we have first-hand knowledge. Scientists also believe that understanding what's unique about Earth is crucial for understanding what other planets might be like. Examining how that life is possible isn't just glorying in our luck to share the planet with everything from amoebas to elephants and from oaks to zebrafish.
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(Image credit: NASA/JSC)įrom the liquid oceans to the steady spin, all these features combine to make Earth unique in one particularly important way: Earth is the only world known to host living beings. Habitability and beautyĪn image of Earth captured during Apollo 11, the mission that saw humans land on the moon for the first time. Meanwhile, plate tectonics keep the planet's temperature regulated, remaining in temperature ranges at which liquid water can endure. "Water is what lubricates plate tectonics, which is what leads to the extreme difference between continents and seafloors, the large amount of earthquakes and volcanoes, fresh mountain-building," Mike Brown, a planetary scientist at Caltech, told in 2008. Many scientists have argued water enables plate tectonics to happen. Intriguingly, water is tied to another unique feature of Earth, its system of plate tectonics, the slip-sliding movements of Earth's crust that are thought to have shaped the planet's towering mountain ranges and plummeting ocean depths. And while scientists have found signs of water ice on worlds from Mercury to large asteroids to Saturn's strange moon Titan, they have so far struggled to find its liquid form. Scientists believe that Mars and Venus may have long ago had oceans, but these are long gone. Earth is the only world in our solar system with liquid water at its surface today. Perhaps the most strikingly unique feature of Earth is its vast oceans, which cover 70% of the planet's surface. (Image credit: NOAA/Historic NWS Collection) The planet's vast oceans are a key trait that make Earth unique.