1 The Earth as a Unique Planet.pdf

Recognize the uniqueness
of the Earth, being the only
planet in the solar system
with properties necessary
to support life.
(S11/12ES-Ia-e-3)

After studying this lesson, you are expected to
recognize the uniqueness of the Earth, being the
only planet in the solar system with properties
necessary to support life. (S11/12ES-Ia-e-3)
Specifically, you will be able to:
1. name the unique properties of the Earth that
enables it to support life;
2. compare Earth to the other planets in the solar
system; and
3. recognize the impact of human activities to our
planet.

Direction: Read each item carefully. Choose the
letter of the best answer and write it in your
notebook.
1. The Earth is the only planet in the solar system
that supports life. Which of these best
explains the statement?
a. The Earth is exposed to the sun’s rays.
b. The Earth has only one moon that orbits
around it.
c. The Earth has breathable atmosphere.
d. The Earth rotates in its axis.

2. Which of the following contributes to Earth’s ability to
sustain life?
a. The Earth is just at the right distance from the sun.
b. The Earth’s core creates a strong and stable magnetic
field.
c. The Earth has a precisely tuned amount of water.
d. All of these.

3. How does the giant planet Jupiter help in
sustaining life on Earth?
a.It protects the Earth from solar flares.
b.It stabilizes the Earth’s rotation.
c.Jupiter’s gravitational pull prevents
asteroids from entering the Earth.
d.It shields the Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet
radiation.

4. Below are the unique properties
of the Earth, EXCEPT:
a. strong magnetic field
b. presence of the moon
c. scarce amount of liquid water
d. located in the Goldilocks zone

5. How does the core help in sustaining life
on our planet?
a.It creates magnetic field that protects
living things from cosmic rays.
b.It regulates the temperature inside the
earth.
c.It facilitates the formation of magma.
d.It supplies the people with enough iron to
fight common diseases.

6. Which of the following features is
formed when there is a continuous
grinding of two colliding lithospheric
plates?
a.mountain
b.tsunami
c.volcano
d.valley

7. Which of the following materials
serves as supporting evidences to
the Continental Drift Theory?
a.edges of the continents
b.fossils
c.coal deposits
d.all of these

8. Which of the following is the
thinnest and outermost layer of the
Earth?
a.crust
b.mantle
c.inner core
d.outer core

9. What makes up the
lithosphere?
a.crust and the whole mantle
b.crust and upper mantle
c.mantle and core
d.crust and outer core

10. What happens when two
oceanic plates collide?
a.Tsunamis may occur.
b.Formation of volcanic island
arc.
c.Trench is formed.
d.All of these

Earth is the third planet from the
sun and the fifth largest planet
with a radius of 3,959 miles. The
name “earth” is a Germanic
word which means “the
ground.”

Earth revolves around the sun
once every 365.25 days and
rotates in its axis every 23.9
hours. Among all these facts,
one stands out.

It is the only planet that can
support life which makes Earth
unique among all the planets in
the solar system. But what are
these characteristics that made
Earth capable of harboring life?

Our Earth is the only place in the
universe that can support life. It
is a modest sized planet that
orbits an average-sized star, the
sun. Life on Earth is abundant.
Some type of life is found in
every niche on the Earth.

Even in the extremely cold
Antarctica, hardy microscopic
beings exist in ponds, tiny
wingless insects live in patches
of moss and lichen, and even
two types of plants flower
yearly.

From the top of the atmosphere
to the bottom of the oceans,
from the coldest part of the
poles to the warmest part of the
equator, life persists here.

SIX THINGS THAT
MAKE LIFE ON
EARTH POSSIBLE

SIX THINGS THAT MAKE LIFE ON
EARTH POSSIBLE
1. Our location is far from many
hazards.

EARTH POSSIBLE
The solar system sits far from the
galactic core (almost 30,000
light-years), between two major
spiral arms. More so, the solar
system's circular orbit helps it

EARTH POSSIBLE
avoid that dangerous part of the
galaxy. The galactic core likely
contains a massive black hole
and releases consistent bursts of
radiation.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Also, there are relatively few
stars near the sun, reducing risks
to Earth from gravitational tugs,
gamma-ray bursts, or collapsing
stars called supernovae.

EARTH POSSIBLE
The presence of our big brother
planet, Jupiter, farther out in the
solar system blocking Earth from
much of the incoming debris,
has also helped

EARTH POSSIBLE
Earth become a safe haven for
life. Jupiter acts like a giant
broom, sweeping the solar
system of debris rocks as small

EARTH POSSIBLE
as cars and as huge as moons
that could snuff out life in one
fatal blow.

EARTH POSSIBLE
2. Our sun is a stable and long-
lasting star

EARTH POSSIBLE

EARTH POSSIBLE
Our sun is a yellow dwarf, a
relatively rare type of star that is
both small and stable. It also has a
long life and probably would not
start to fizzle out for another five
billion years or so.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Stars more massive than the sun
burn hotter and usually do not live
long enough for planets to develop
life.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Less massive, younger stars are
often unstable and are prone to
blasting their planets with bursts of
radiation.

EARTH POSSIBLE
The sun radiates light and heat, or solar
energy, which makes it possible for life to
exist on Earth. The sun provides the earth
with energy estimated at over 239 trillion
horsepower, about 35,000 horsepower for
each current resident. Plants need
sunlight to grow.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Animals, including humans, need
plants for food and the oxygen they
produce. Without heat from the sun,
Earth would freeze. There would be
no winds, ocean currents, or clouds
to transport water.

EARTH POSSIBLE
3. We are at just the right
distance from the sun.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Earth is at an average distance
of 93 million miles or 150 million
kilometers away from the sun.

EARTH POSSIBLE
It orbits in the so-called Goldilocks
zone, where the planet receives
enough energy to allow water to
exist as a liquid on its surface. Too
far, and the vital compound stays
locked up as ice.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Too close, and the water would
rapidly evaporate into the
atmosphere.

SIX THINGS
THAT MAKE LIFE
ON EARTH
POSSIBLE
The Earth is the only planet with
huge bodies of water—70% of its
surface area consists of oceans,
lakes, and seas surrounding huge
bodies of land.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Water is unique because it absorbs
large amounts of heat without much
alteration in its temperature. Its
absorption speed is extremely
rapid—about ten times as fast as
steel.

EARTH POSSIBLE
During the day, the seas rapidly soak up a
great deal of heat, thus the Earth stays fairly
cool. At night, the oceans release the vast
amounts of heat that they soaked up during
the day, which combined with atmospheric
effects, keeps the surface from getting too
cold at night.

EARTH POSSIBLE
If it were not for the tremendous amount of
water on Earth, there would be far greater
day and night temperature variations. Many
parts of the surface would be hot enough to
boil water in the day and the same part
would be cold enough to freeze water at
night.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Water is an excellent temperature
stabilizer. The large oceans on Earth
are a vital part of our survival!

EARTH POSSIBLE
4. We have the right stuff to host
a dynamic core.

EARTH POSSIBLE
The interstellar cloud of gas and dust
that gave rise to Earth contained
enough radioactive elements
(potassium, uranium and thorium) to
power a churning core for
billions of years.

EARTH POSSIBLE
This creates a magnetic field which
is crucial to life on our planet
because it protects the planet from
dangers like solar flares and solar
wind.

EARTH POSSIBLE
The Earth's magnetic field serves to
deflect most of the solar wind, whose
charged particles would otherwise strip
away the ozone layer that protects the
Earth and the life on it from harmful
ultraviolet radiation.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Other than this, it also keeps the planet’s
atmosphere in place and helps humans
and animals to find their way around.

EARTH POSSIBLE
5. We have a big moon to
stabilize our axial wobble.

EARTH POSSIBLE
The Earth has a slight tilt and teeters like
a top as it spins, which can cause
drastic shifts in climate over the course
of thousands of years. But because of
the moon's stabilizing effect on our orbit,
our climate is a lot steadier.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Plus, the moon causes the tides, so if the
Moon were much nearer to the Earth, say 20
times closer, it would exert a gravitational
force 400 times greater than what we are
used to. It would result to huge tides which
would overflow onto the lowlands, causing
great flooding.

EARTH POSSIBLE
6. We have an ozone layer to
block harmful ray.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Ancient plantlike organisms in the
oceans added oxygen to the
atmosphere and created a high-
altitude layer of ozone that shielded
early land species from lethal
radiation.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Ozone (O3) is a gas in the atmosphere
that protects everything living on the
Earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays
from the sun. Without the layer of ozone
in the atmosphere, it would be very
difficult for anything to survive on the
surface.

EARTH POSSIBLE
Plants cannot live and grow in heavy
ultraviolet radiation, nor can the
plankton that serve as food for most of
the ocean life. The ozone layer acts as a
shield to absorb the UV rays, and keep
them from doing damage at the Earth's
surface.

EARTH POSSIBLE
The mixture of gases found in the
atmosphere, without man's
pollution, is perfect for life. Nitrogen
accounts for 78% of the
atmosphere, oxygen 21% and
argon 0.9%

EARTH POSSIBLE
Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide,
nitrous oxides, and methane are trace
gases that account for about a tenth
of one percent of the atmosphere.
These gases trap the sun’s heat to
keep the planet warm.

EARTH POSSIBLE
If it were much different, life would
cease to exist on Earth. If our
atmosphere were thinner, many of the
millions of meteors which now are
burned up would reach the Earth's
surface, causing death, destruction and
fires everywhere.

WHAT’S THE MISSING WORD?
Direction: Complete each
statement by filling in the
blanks with the missing word.
Choose your answers from
the box.

(1) __________ is the only place
in the universe that can
support (2) __________.
Our planet has molten metallic
(3) __________ which enables it to
hold a strong and stable
(4) __________ field.

This prevents stripping of the
Earth’s atmosphere by lethal
cosmic rays and (5) __________
flares.
The planet’s distance from the
sun also allows the presence of
liquid (6) __________

and an active water cycle.
The Earth is also protected by
a/an (7) __________ which
shields life from harmful
(8) __________ rays.

The atmosphere is also
composed of the right mixture of
gases with 78% (9) __________
and 21% oxygen, which are
perfect for life to exist.

The (10) __________ also plays an
important role for Earth to
support life since it stabilizes the
Earth’s rotation preventing
drastic climate changes to
occur.

1 The Earth as a Unique Planet.pdf

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