Welcome to our Solar / Planetary Walk which has been established in memorial to Alfred Piff, a longtime member of MBG and supporter of education for all. As you travel along the walk, you will experience the scale model of our solar neighborhood. Our walk is approximately .79 miles, and each planet is marked by Planetary Art Posts created by Nancy Thomas. Scanning the QR at each post will give access to information about each planet. Enjoy your walk!
Planet EARTH
Planet Earth at MBG is sponsored by Honey of the Hill Apiaries
Closest planet to you right now. The Earth is the only planet with just one moon, and since the Moon is over 1% the mass of the Earth, we are often considered a “double planet.” The Earth has polar icecaps like Mars and is the only planet with botanical gardens and plate tectonics. Earth’s surface gravity is exactly one g.
DIAMETER: 7,926 miles
DISTANCE FROM SUN: 1.0 AU = 93 million miles = 8.3 light minutes
ROTATION: 24 hours
REVOLUTION AROUND ORBIT: 365.25 days
MOONS: one
Some Fun Facts - Did you know?
The rising Earth seems to float above the lunar horizon in this famous telephoto view taken from Apollo 8 in 1968. On the Earth, the sunset terminator crosses Africa. The south pole is in the white area near the left end of the terminator. North and South America are under the clouds.
Night falls on Europe and northern Africa, as seen from the International Space Station.
Enroute to Jupiter, the Galileo spacecraft looked back and captured this remarkable view of the Moon in orbit about the Earth, taken from a distance of about 3.9 million miles.
