Sun, Earth, and Moon
Third Rock From the Sun
Name _______________________________________
Earth Facts
Age: 4.6 billion years
Total Surface: About 197 million square miles
Surface Makeup: About 71% water, 29% land
Total Land Area: About 58 million square miles
Weight (Mass): 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000(6.6 sextillion) tons
Human Population: 6.3 billion
Identified Living Species: About 1.8 million
Natural Satellite: The Moon
Earth travels around the Sun once every 365¼ days, this journey is called Earth’s orbit. The time it takes a
planet to orbit the Sun once is called a year. Planets are always spinning. A day is the time it takes a planet to
rotate one time; one day on Earth is 24 hours long. Earth is the only planet that has a crust split into moving
plates, oxygen in its atmosphere, and liquid water and life on its surface.
Earth’s surface, where you live, is made of a very thin layer of rock. Earth’s rocky surface is called the
lithosphere. Above Earth’s surface is a mixture of gases that make up the air you breathe. The air surrounding
Earth is called the atmosphere. Earth’s water makes up the hydrosphere. The hydrosphere includes all the
liquid water and ice on Earth’s surface, liquid water in the ground, and water vapor in the atmosphere.
The lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere interact with each other. For example, water evaporates from a
lake and enters the atmosphere. Some of this water falls back to Earth as rain. The rain fills streams and rivers.
Moving water wears away, weathers Earth’s rock surface – the lithosphere.
About 2/3 of the Earth’s crust is covered by water. The planet Earth consists of four major layers. The inner
core is about 750 miles thick and it is made of solid metals, nickel and iron. The outer core is made of molten
metals – nickel and iron – about 1,400 miles deep. The mantle is made of molten and solid rock and is about
1,800 miles thick. The thinnest layer of the Earth is the crust or lithosphere, which is made of solid rock. There
are three kinds of rock that make up the thin outer layer of the Earth called the lithosphere.
Sedimentary rocks are rocks made from layers of sediments – like sand, mud, clay, and seashells. Fossils are
found in between the layers of sedimentary rock. They are the remains of ancient animals and plants, the traces
or impressions of living things from long ago. The fossil of a bone doesn't have any bone in it! A fossilized
object has the same shape as the original object, but is chemically more like a rock.
Igneous rocks are rocks formed from cooled magma or lava (melted rock material).
Metamorphic rocks are rocks that have changed from extreme heat and pressure deep inside the Earth’s crust.
http://www.learner.org/interactives/dynamicearth/
Earth’s Four Layers
Label the four layers of the Earth by writing each of the words below on of the corresponding lines.
Name of layer
Materials in each layer
Lithosphere (crust)
Solid Metals (nickel & iron)
Inner core
Molten Metals (nickel & iron)
Mantle
Solid Rock
Outer core
Molten Rock (magma) and Solid Rock
Earth’s crust is not one solid piece of rock!
Earth’s crust is broken into huge pieces of rock called plates. These plates are
constantly moving very slowly on the layer of the Earth called the mantle.
Scientists study the movements, known as plate tectonics, to learn how the surface
of the Earth changes.
A geologist named Alfred Wegener hypothesized that 200 million years ago
all the continents were joined into one super continent. He called this
great landmass Pangaea which means “all Earth.”
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072482621/student_view0/animations.html#
Click on Chapter 8 “Plate Motion Over Time”
Looking at a globe reveals coincidences that are difficult to ignore
1. The Eastern coast of South America seams to fit perfectly, almost like a puzzle, into the Western coast of
Africa.
2. At the same time, North America can be rotated slightly, and made to fit comfortably next to Europe, and
Asia.
3. Identical plant and animal fossils of the same age have been found in rocks in Africa and South America.
This strongly suggests that the two were once joined. We can say that fossils help tell about the history of the
Earth.
Video
1. A large body of solid rock, liquid or gases that revolve around the Sun. __________________________________
2. Billions of stars, planets, gas, and dust held together in space by gravity. __________________________________
3. All of the planets, stars, & celestial bodies in our Solar System belong to this galaxy: _________________________
4. The third planet from the Sun has breathable atmosphere & water: ______________________________________
5. The layer of gases that surround a planet: ___________________________________________________________
6. The gas in the Earth’s atmosphere that all animals breathe: ______________________________________________
7. The first layer of the atmosphere where we live and weather occurs: _______________________________________
8. A protective layer of the Earth’s atmosphere that absorbs the harmful ultraviolet rays of the Sun: ________________
9. A heavy, colorless gas created in part from the burning of fossil fuels. It is also the gas that animals exhale when they
breathe. ___________________________________
10. The continuing process of evaporation (liquid to a gas), condensation (clouds form) and precipitation (water
returns to Earth’s surface) that recycles the Earth’s water supply: _________________________________________
11. The moving pieces of rock that form the crust of the Earth: _____________________________________________
12. The process of wearing away rock and soil by water, wind, and glaciers: ___________________________________
13. A hot ball of solid metals at the center of the Earth: ___________________________________________________
14. The very hot liquid metals that surround the inner core: ______________________________________________
15. The layer of the Earth made of thick molten rock and solid rock material: ________________________________
16. Earth’s thin surface layer, covered with solid rock, which is broken into huge pieces called plates:________________
17. The force that pulls objects toward each other. With inertia, it keeps all the planets revolving around the Sun in a
straight line: _______________________________________________
Earth Science – Plate Tectonics
Name ____________________________________
http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/
Earth’s crust is constantly changing. Forces within the Earth cause the crust,
lithosphere, to move. The Earth's rocky outer crust solidified, hardened, billions of years ago,
soon after the Earth formed. This crust is not a solid shell; it is broken up into huge, thick plates
that drift atop the soft, underlying mantle.
The plates are made of rock and drift all over the globe; they move both horizontally
(sideways) and vertically (up and down). Over long periods of time, the plates also change
in size as their margins are added to, crushed together, or pushed back into the Earth's
mantle. These plates are from 50 to 250 miles thick.
The plates are moving at a speed that has been estimated at 1 to 10 cm per year.
Most of the Earth's seismic activity, volcanoes and earthquakes, occurs at the plate
boundaries as they interact. Volcanoes rise up as one plate is forced under another plate.
The magma and lava creates new crust. Where continental plates meet, mountains form as
the plates’ edges are pushed up. Earthquakes result wherever plates grind past each other.
Around 1912, Alfred Wegener, a geologist, hypothesized that 200 million years ago all
the continents were once joined into one super continent. He called this great landmass
Pangaea, which means “all Earth.” The fossil record supports and gives evidence to the
theory of plate tectonics. A fossil called Mesosaurus has been found in both South America
and Africa.
1. What do plates float on?
Inner Core
Upper mantle
2. What is the name of the super continent that formed from about 200 million years ago?
Pangaea
Laurasia
3. New crust is created by _____?
Magma from the mantle
Metal from the core
4. Who first proposed the theory of continental drift?
Galileo
Wegener
All About the Earth Video
Name _________________________________
1. Earth’s satellite, which orbits the Earth and is our closest neighbor in space. _____________________________
2. The Moon “shines” because it is _______________________________________ the Sun’s light.
3. One star is the center of this system; all the planets, moons, and other celestial bodies orbit the Sun. This
system is called a _______________________________________________
4. The Earth’s ________________________________ makes the Sun look like it is moving across the sky each day.
5. The amount of time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun: 1____________________ OR ___________________ days.
6. The distance around the middle part of a sphere, the perimeter of a circle: ________________________________
(the equator of planet Earth)
7. Fossils tell about the Earth’s history; fossils can be found in ________________________________________ rock.
8. How is the tilt of the Earth’s axis related to the four seasons? When the Northern hemisphere is tilted
toward the Sun, we have _____________________________. When the Northern hemisphere is tilted away the Sun,
we have _____________________________________.
9. It takes the Earth 24 hours to turn once; one day on Earth is equal to one _________________________________
10. The layers of gases that surround a planet. _____________________________________________
11. All the water on planet Earth is called the ______________________________________________
12. Another name for the crust of the Earth. ______________________________________________
13. The gas that water becomes during the process of evaporation: ____________________________________
14. The process by which heated water changes from a liquid to a gas: ______________________________________
15. The process by which water vapor changes from a gas to a liquid (clouds form): __________________________
16. The process in which green plants create nutrients from sunlight, carbon dioxide, water, and chlorophyll:
___________________________________________________________
17. Plants get their energy for photosynthesis from the __________________________ .
Planet Earth is surrounded by a thin layer of gases called the atmosphere, which protects its surface from the
harshness of space. Heated unevenly by the Sun and spun around by Earth’s rotation, the air is forced into everchanging swirling patterns.
Earth’s atmosphere is essential to the survival of living organisms
1. The atmosphere is an essential blanket for life on Earth, keeping the planet at a comfortable temperature; it
holds in the Sun’s warmth.
2. It protects life on Earth’s surface from dangerous radiation. The atmosphere blocks much of the Sun’s
incoming ultraviolet rays.
3. The atmosphere allows living things to breathe.
The atmosphere is a mixture of gases, mainly nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%), the remaining 1% is made of
gases, water, and dust. Take a vertical slice of Earth’s atmosphere and it forms several distinct layers:
troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere. The layer closest to the crust where most
of our weather occurs is the troposphere. The temperature decreases with height in the Troposphere because
rising air expands and cools.
The circulating atmosphere produces strong winds, blowing in a pattern caused by the Sun’s heat and Earth’s
rotation. Satellites monitor the world’s temperature in the troposphere. Scientists believe the world’s
temperature in the Troposphere is warming because extra carbon dioxide enhances the green house effect.
This increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes mostly from the burning of coal and oil in factories
and automobiles, and the destruction of rain forests, which absorb the carbon dioxide gas. As more forests are
cut down, leaving fewer trees to absorb carbon dioxide, there is an increase of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere.
GREENHOUSE EFFECT – Without the atmosphere,
Earth would be much colder, below freezing almost
everywhere. The atmosphere traps heat like a greenhouse:



Sunlight shines down on Earth’s surface, warming
it up
Heat rises up in the atmosphere, some of it escapes
the atmosphere
But some of the heat is “bounced back” to Earth’s
surface by the gases in the atmosphere.
http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/
Earth’s Atmosphere
1. The Earth is tilted at about 23 ½  and it revolves around the Sun.
This is why we have ________________________________________ .
2. What is the name of the star in our Solar System? _______________________
3. We have day and night because of the Earth’s __________________________________
4. How much of the Earth is illuminated by the Sun at all times? _____________________________
5. Give 3 reasons why living things thrive on planet Earth:
1. _______________________________________________________________
2. _______________________________________________________________
3. _______________________________________________________________
6. The continuous path of an object (the Moon) around another object (the Earth) is called a
_______________________________________________________
7. It takes Earth 24 hours to spin once. Earth’s _______________________________ is why we have day and night.
8. Earth’s diameter is about 8,000 miles, how many miles would you travel if you went all the way around
the world following the equator? Earth’s circumference (C=3.14  d) is about________________________ miles.
9. Earth’s inner core made of
________________________________________________
10. Name the layer of the atmosphere where our weather occurs: ________________________________________
11. The blanket of gases that surrounds planet Earth is called: ________________________________________
12. The atmosphere: blocks out harmful _______________________, creates the greenhouse effect which traps in
sunlight and keeps Earth’s _________________________________ steady, creates clouds by collecting water
evaporated by the Sun which give us rain and other forms of ______________________________, and gives living
things _________________________________________ to breathe.
13. The ____________________________________________________ keeps all the planets orbiting around the Sun
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/flash/flash_watercycle.html
http://www.actewagl.com.au/education/_lib/Flash/Water_cycle/water.swf
About 2/3 of Earth’s lithosphere is covered with water. There is also water in the atmosphere, we call it water vapor.
Water can be found at the North and South Poles too. All of Earth’s water makes up the hydrosphere.
And without water, there would be no life. Earth is the only planet we know of where water exists in all three states:
solid, liquid, and gas. As a liquid, it blankets most of Earth, averaging a depth of two miles in the oceans. As a solid, ice,
it covers the North Pole and South Pole. As a gas, it forms clouds in our atmosphere and influences the weather.
Drought hits a region when its normal rainfall drops off for a long period. In the 1930’s drought and bad farming methods
in the Great Plains combined to create the Dust Bowl. Windstorms whipped up about 350 million tons of parched soil
from Texas to North Dakota, carrying it as far east as the Atlantic Ocean. However, almost all the environmental damage
was done in the Great Plains region. The Dust Bowl was one of history’s worst environmental disasters.
We use names like Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean. But really Earth has just one big ocean, and its impact on
the climate is huge. The Northern Hemisphere has most of Earth’s land, which heats and cools quickly, while
the Southern Hemisphere has more water, which heats and cools more slowly. As a result, the Northern
Hemisphere tends to see hotter summers and colder winters. The Southern Hemisphere generally has milder
weather with fewer temperature extremes.
All humans are made up of about 65 percent water. Water helps regulate our temperature, carries important
nutrients and oxygen, and removes wastes. The chemical reactions that turn nutrients into energy have to take
place in water as well. Each of us needs to consume water each day to survive.
Earth recycles everything. Water’s recycling process begins when it falls from clouds as rain or other
precipitation. Most of it runs into rivers, lakes, and oceans or goes underground. Plants and animals use some
water. The Sun’s heat causes water to evaporate, meaning it becomes a gas, called water vapor, which rises into
the air. The water vapor in the air cools and condenses into droplets of liquid water, which form clouds, this is
called condensation. Eventually, the droplets in the clouds get too heavy and return to the Earth’s surface,
continuing the water cycle.
Condensation
Water Cycle
Suppose snow falls, precipitates, in
your area early on a winter morning.
Then the temperature rises and the
solid snow turns to puddles of liquid
water. By the time you come home
from school, some of the puddles
have vanished.
Water vapor rises up in the
troposphere, the molecules
squeeze together forming tint
raindrops which make
clouds.
Did they really vanish? No, the Sun’s
heat evaporated the liquid water.
When the puddles evaporated, the
water became a gas called water
vapor. During this day, water existed
in three states- solid, liquid, and gas.
Precipitation
Evaporation
As the droplets condense in clouds, they become
too heavy and they cannot stay suspended in the
atmosphere. They fall to the Earth’s surface as
rain, sleet, snow. or hail.
What force pulled the droplets back to the Earth?
Gravity!
Liquid water evaporates
From Earth’s surface and enters the
atmosphere as water vapor.
Mount Everest in the Himalayas is the highest place on Earth – 29,035 feet above sea level. Yet the rocks and
fossils at its top came from an ancient ocean floor. How did that happen?
Earth’s crust is like a jigsaw puzzle; it is broken up into huge, thick plates that drift atop the soft, underlying
mantle. The plates are made of rock and drift all over the globe; they move horizontally and vertically. They
change in size as their margins are added to, crushed together, or pushed back into the Earth’s mantle. The
upper mantle beneath the plates is hot and moldable. This allows the plates to slide around. Sometimes they slip
past each other; other times they collide.
All of these movements cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. But the collisions can also make Earth’s
crust buckle and form mountains, like Everest. The motion of tectonic plates is the biggest force reshaping
Earth’s surface.
Most earthquakes occur at the edges of tectonic plates, along fault lines, fractures in the uppermost crust.
Average plate movement is about one inch a year. The southern half of the California Pacific Coast lies across
the San Andreas Fault. Some scientists believe that within 50 million years, this coast will break off completely
and form a new landmass.
Even without earthquakes, Earth’s crust takes a beating. Wind and water needed only 65 million years to
weather and erode limestone, sandstone, and other rocks to create the Grand Canyon. Meanwhile, the weight
and size of glaciers, huge rivers of ice, carve valleys and fjords out of solid rock. Human activities also reshape
Earth. Coal mining practices in many parts of the U.S. cause whole mountaintops to be sheared off, as seen in
West Virginia.
Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico was formed by water eating away at limestone and other vulnerable rocks for
thousands of years. Like most caves, Carlsbad also teems with life. Its most famous residents are about one
million bats.
About 10,000 tons of space rock head toward Earth every day. Almost all of these meteors burn up in the
atmosphere or do no damage. But some leave, well, a lasting impression. To date, scientists have found more
than 150 impact craters worldwide, but the true number will never be known because many are covered by
water or plant life. A 55-yard wide iron-and-nickel rock left a crater near Winslow, Arizona, 50,000 years ago.
It slammed into Earth at 25,000 miles per hour!
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/forces-of-nature.html?section=e
Earth Science – Earth’s Layers
Name ______________________________
Many scientists believe that the Earth and its Solar System formed about five billion years ago
from a huge cloud of dust. Over time, the cloud shrank. Parts of the cloud began spinning, eventually
forming a star, the Sun, then the planets, moons, and countless asteroids and comets.
Earth is the largest of the rocky planets. Using instruments such as the seismograph, scientists
have discovered that as Earth slowly cooled, it formed four major layers. Many geologists believe that
as the Earth cooled the heavier, denser materials sank to the center and the lighter materials rose to
the surface.
The thin, rocky surface layer that we live on is called the crust or lithosphere. Earth’s crust is
composed of various kinds of rocks: sedimentary (layered rock), metamorphic (rock that has
changed), and igneous (“fire” rock from cooled lava or magma). The crust is not uniform in thickness;
it is thicker under the continents than it is under the oceans.
The next layer is called the mantle. The mantle is much hotter and is subdivided into two areas,
the upper mantle and the lower mantle. The rocks of the lower mantle are semisolid; we call this
material magma. If magma spills out of a volcano it is called lava.
Traveling still deeper within the Earth, below the mantle is the outer core. It is made mostly of
molten, melted, metals: nickel and iron. This material moves around inside the Earth; some scientists
believe this movement is responsible for the Earth’s magnetic field.
The inner core of the Earth has extremely hot temperatures and pressures so great that the
metals, nickel and iron, are squeezed together into a solid ball. If you traveled to the center of the
Earth you would be squeezed into a ball smaller than a marble!
1. The thinnest layer of the Earth is called the ________________ or _____________________________
2. The inner and outer cores are made of these two metals: _____________________________________
3. What are the three kinds of rocks in the Earth’s lithosphere? __________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
4. The inner core is made of (solid or molten) metals. _______________________________
5. The outer core is made of (solid or molten) metals. _______________________________