Earth: One of a Kind
Earth is the only known planet with an abundance of this substance in liquid form.
Answer: What is water?
This is Earth’s thin, rocky outermost compositional layer.
Answer: What is the crust?
This rigid outer shell includes the crust and uppermost mantle.
Answer: What is the lithosphere?
Earth’s magnetic field helps protect the planet from this stream of charged particles from the Sun.
Answer: What is solar wind?
This force pulls objects toward the center of Earth.
Answer: What is gravity?
About this percentage of Earth’s surface is covered by ocean.
Answer: What is 70%?
This layer is about 2,900 km thick and makes up about two-thirds of Earth’s mass.
Answer: What is the mantle?
This plastic-like layer allows tectonic plates above it to move.
Answer: What is the asthenosphere?
Earth’s magnetic field is mainly generated by movement in this layer.
Answer: What is the liquid outer core?
This stays constant even if you travel somewhere with different gravitational strength.
Answer: What is mass?
Earth’s slightly flattened-at-the-poles and bulging-at-the-equator shape is called this.
Answer: What is an oblate spheroid?
This part of the core is liquid and composed mainly of iron and nickel.
Answer: What is the outer core?
This structural zone is the strong lower portion of the mantle.
Answer: What is the mesosphere?
The protective region created by Earth’s magnetic field and extending into space is called this.
Answer: What is the magnetosphere?
You weigh slightly less here than at the poles because you are farther from Earth’s center and Earth’s rotation partially counteracts gravity.
Answer: What is the equator?
Earth’s distance from the Sun places it in this region where temperatures allow liquid water to exist.
Answer: What is the Goldilocks zone?
Although it is extremely hot, this part of Earth remains solid because of immense pressure.
Answer: What is the inner core?
Tectonic plates are pieces of this structural layer.
Answer: What is the lithosphere?
Earth’s magnetic poles do not stay fixed. Over geological time, they can even do this completely.
Answer: What is reverse? / What is undergo a magnetic reversal?
Gravity keeps the Moon moving around Earth and Earth moving around the Sun in these paths.
Answer: What are orbits?
Scientists know most of what they know about Earth’s deep interior by studying these waves produced during earthquakes.
Answer: What are seismic waves?
Put Earth’s three compositional layers in order from the surface to the center. Answer: What are crust → mantle → core?
Answer: What are crust → mantle → core?
Explain the main difference between the lithosphere and asthenosphere.
Answer: What is the lithosphere is rigid, while the asthenosphere is plastic-like and flows slowly?
Explain why the liquid state of the outer core is important to Earth’s habitability.
Answer: Its moving metal generates Earth’s magnetic field, which helps shield the atmosphere and surface from solar wind and harmful solar radiation.
Give the two reasons gravity is slightly weaker at the equator than at the poles.
Answer: The equator is farther from Earth’s center, and Earth’s rotation creates a centrifugal effect that partially opposes gravity.