Visit the author's website.
This book is a
factual up-to-date overview of this unique, well-balanced, highly livable planet Earth and the space around us.
The book is almost like a
Tour Guide through the entire universe.
The book is
written in 'plain English' to be easily read and understood by almost all 'from 9 to 99'.
All astronomical numerical values are given in most suitable
Metric and English Units, such as ground movements by millimeters and stellar distances by light-years.
The pages of this book have
no pictures and no mathematical formulas.
Pictures
No pictures in the book?
However, from the Internet over 1,400 spectacular and up-to-date photos are only a mouse-click away on the computer monitor. The carefully selected reputable Internet 'Quick Pick Links' (explained below) offer
more and better up-to-date color photos than any book can have on its printed pages.
Units of Speed
For example, if a satellite's orbital velocity in its Earth orbit is given as
15,659 miles per hour = 4.35 miles per second (25,200 km/h = 7 km/s), this book uses more easily understood smaller numerical values.
Units of Distances
Some examples are: the Earth to Sun average distance may be given as
92,955,622 miles = 149,597,871 km, or that the light from Sun reaches Earth in 8 minutes 20 seconds = 500 seconds.
For the same distance, this book uses simply
500 light-seconds = 1 AU (Astronomical Unit).
-- Similarly,
Earth to Moon average distance is given as
1.2 light-seconds (ls) instead of 238,854 miles = 384,399 km.
--Also, the mean distance of planet Mars from the Sun is simply
1.5 AU.
--On the average, Pluto's is 39.5 AU from the Sun.
--Nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is
4.22 ly away instead of 2,500,000,000 miles (39,900.000.000 km) away.
--The outer reaches of the known universe are
13.7 billion ly = 13,700,000,000 ly away. What is beyond the
13.7 billion ly distances in all directions, is totally unknown for everybody.
Small numbers are easier to comprehend than large numbers
for the same item.
Photos, Bibliographies and Expert Descriptions
The photos of the book are just a mouse click away from the over
1,400 'Quick Pick links', recommended on the pages of this book. The links can be quickly downloaded as a
Microsoft Word Document, or as
HTML from the author's website:
www.lakivioja.com Saving this small document on the desktop is recommended to see the recommended photos, bibliographies and expert descriptions during, or after reading the paragraph.
--Many links have daily
Photo Galleries and Archives covering several years.
--In addition to the newest Internet photos, many links have
descriptions written by Astronomy and Earth Science experts complementing and adding to the book's text and offering
'on the spot' Bibliographies.
--Many
'Quick Pick Links' update themselves daily, or whenever new information becomes available. In this way,
the book automatically keeps itself up-to-date about this Earth and the Space around us.
--Many of these Internet sites have the newest available information about the Earth and photographs from the largest
ground based observatories and from
orbiting telescopes and sensors.
--
It is obvious that no printed book can have as many, as up-to-date and as good color photos as the Internet has on its sites listed by the 'Quick Pick links'.
--All Internet sites in the
'Quick Pick Links' are in the Public Domain, so they are free to use by all.
In the Text of the Book
--The book outlines
Earth's constitution from its center core to the top of its atmosphere.
--
Daily news from the Internet about the Earth, the
Sun, its asteroids, comets, meteor showers and occasionally news about its nine (eight in 2006) planets and their moons
are available here like in no other book printed on paper.
--
Locations and movements of our solar system disk in the Milky Way, our home galaxy.
--
Location and movements of Milky Way Galaxy relative to other near-by and far-away galaxies up to the edges of the known universe at 13,700,000,000 light-years away.
--The
overview 3-dimensional model of the entire universe puts the Milky Way galaxy and all other known and unknown galaxies 'into a bottle' so that
the realities of the space around, above, and under us can be better visualized. The described miniature 3-D model contains all estimated 125 - 3,000 billion galaxies, and it is
small enough to fit in many backyards. It has never before been published to the knowledge of the author.
Unique Planet Earth in the Known Universe
This Earth is the
only known livable planet, or moon anywhere. It truly is a unique 'Garden Spot'
with its liquid water, breathable air, food to eat, reasonable temperatures, radiation and gravity. There is
no other known heavenly body where the birds sing and where one can smell the roses. This Earth is 'it'. Love it. Don't mess it up. Improve our Earth the little you can and keep it neat!
Necessary Units used in Earth & Space Sciences
mm = millimeter, km=kilometer, ls = light-second, ly = light-year
in = inch, ft = feet, mi = miles, 1 mi = 1.609344 km
Speed of light = 299,792 458 m/s =186,282.397 mi/s
Average gravity on Earth = 981 m/s/s = 981 Gal = 981,000 mGal
= 32.2 ft/s/s
Radius of Earth = 6371 km = 3959 miles
Circumference of Earth = 40,000 km = 24,850 miles
Distance to Moon = 1.2 ls = 60 times Earth’s radius
Distance to Sun = 500 ls =1 AU = One Astronomical Unit =
149, 598, 000 km = 92,956,000 miles
Radius of Sun = = 2.32 ls = 1.85 times the lunar distance
Distance Sun to Pluto = 39.5 AU = 5.909,121,000 km = 19,700 ls
Sunlight reaches Pluto in 19,700 s = 5 h 28 minutes
Distance to nearest star Proxima Centauri = 4.2 ly
Naked-eye stars are within about 2,000 ly
Diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy disk = 100,000 ly
Distance to Milky Way’s center from Sun = 28,000 ly
Distance to Andromeda, near galaxy similar to Milky Way = 3 million ly
Distance to most distant galaxies (2009) =13,700,000,000 ly
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units
Page 13
No liquid water, food or breathable air has been found (2009) nowhere but on Earth
http://www.nineplanets.org/overview.html
Milky Way has billions of stars and farther out billions of many kinds of galaxies exist
http://cass.ucsd.edu/public/tutorial/MW.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070319.html
Everything moves in space. Some galaxies are colliding; some are a millions of light-years apart
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/the_universe
Page 16
All 1,400 ‘Quick Pick Links’ are reputable such as US government sites: NASA, JPL, NIST, AGU , USGS, NOAA. Bibliographies are on many sites and many are updated daily, keeping this book up-to-date. Download them at:
http://www.lakivioja.com
Page 44
This chapter describes why there cannot be any visits by any living
Aliens to Earth. About 400 extra solar planets have been found (2009), none of them habitable
Page 49
Earth is bulging near its Equator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
Page 53
The mean sea level surface (Geoid) undulates over and under the mathematical Earth Ellipsoid surface. Geoid undulations are usually less than 100 m = 300 ft.
The following site has 7 dozen References in its Bibliography:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu
Page 87
Earth’s average gravity 1 G = 981 Gal = 981,000 mGals = 32.2 ft/s/ is just right for life on Earth. Human bodies cannot tolerate strong gravities. 9 G causes unconsciousness.
Numerical Examples: Gravitational pulls on Sun, Earth and Moon
1. Earth: A pen is dropped from 1 m = 39 in high table to the floor (in air) under the influence of 1 G gravity, the pen hits the floor 0.45 s later at a speed of 10 MPH = 16 km/h
2. Sun: The same pen is dropped under the influence of 27.5 G from a 1 m = 39 in distance to the ‘floor’ in a spinning centrifuge, the pen is ‘sucked’ to the centrifuge wall in 0.09 s hitting the wall at a speed of 51 MPH = 82 km/h
3. Moon: The same pen is dropped from 1 m = 39 in high support to ‘ground’ under the Moon’s gravity of 0.165 G, the pen hits the ‘ground’ 1.1 s later at a speed of 4 MPH = 6.5 km/h
Page 90
Some comets have hyperbolic orbits. After swinging once around the Sun, they will never return
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=mcnaught+comet&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=FKzYSrfmEoKsNrOPtd0H&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCAQsAQwAw
Page 93
By some estimates, 100 to 100,000 metric tons of asteroid material falls to Earth every day
http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/2006/11/19/meteorite-hits-car
Page 94
An asteroid 50 m =150 ft across, collides with Earth once in 600 years. Seventy percent of them will fall in oceans
http://www.barringercrater.com/science
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=tunguska+asteroid&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=6EzWSsDtEemQtgf5jfiYDA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCMQsAQwAw
Page 113
Moon’s surface is as dangerous place for visiting astronauts as an open rifle firing range here on Earth
Page 165
There are areas on Earth where the ground and the sea floors systematically rise or sink by a few millimeters per year, or more
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060509.html
The 15 > 80 km = 9 > 50 mi thick Earth’s Crust floats on underlying viscous denser Mantle, like icebergs float on oceans. The floating equilibrium of Earth’s layers is called isostatic equilibrium.
Page 183
After the development and building of accurate atomic clocks, modern positioning by GPS satellites became capable of measuring ground and sea level movements to millimeters
The 23.5-degree Tilt of Earth’s Spin Axis may seem to be insignificant, but it is the only reason for the existence of annual seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter
Page 222 - 223
Different gravity values at the sports events have significant effects on the World, Olympic and national records
For instance, the same javelin throw, at the same topographical elevation in Columbus, Ohio would have been 11 cm = 4.33 in longer than Jan Zelesky’s 1996 World Record throw of 98.48 m = 323.09 ft in Jena, Germany
Page 254 - 256
Tidal forces produce the ocean tides (averaging 1 m = 3 ft) and solid Earth Tides twice a day. They heave continents and the sea floors up and down over a range of up to 40 centimeters (16 inches)
http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/investigations/es2406/es2406page01.cfm
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051113.html
Pages 304 -315
Isostasy = Archimedes’ Principle for the Innards of Earth. It deals with lighter Earth layers floating upon heavier layers
Approximately 99% of Earth’s land-supported ice masses are in Antarctica and Greenland. If they all melted, all oceans would become deeper by 80 m, or about 90 yards
http://www.b-29s-over-korea.com/lost_squadron/lost_squadron.html
It would be wrong to state that the global sea levels would rise by the same amount, as the media often reports
Pages 318 - 326
The atmospheric pressure is produced by Earth’s gravitation, pulling all air molecules toward lower elevations. – This is the most reliable air compressor. It has been working flawlessly for eons