Читать книгу Universe: The story of the Universe, from earliest times to our continuing discoveries - Peter Grego - Страница 13

From his vantage point in the command module of Apollo 8 above the Moon in December 1968, astronaut Jim Lovell described planet Earth as a ‘grand oasis in the big vastness of space’. This grand oasis, a beautiful blue globe, two-thirds of whose surface is covered with water, measures 12,756km across. Our planet is the only place in the Universe known to have life. The fossil record shows that life has clung tenaciously to the Earth’s surface for billions of years, surviving the devastating effects of numerous major geological and cosmic catastrophes. Although mass extinctions of many species of animals have occurred, life – in one form or another – has carried on. Just a few dozen kilometres beneath the Earth’s solid crust is a hot mantle – a zone of molten rock which hasn’t cooled down since the Earth was born some 4.5 billion years ago. The Earth’s crust occasionally splits in a volcanic eruption, allowing this material to erupt onto the surface.

Earth – the grand oasis.