Blog #2 How is the earth adapted to supporting life while mars do not?

a) Characteristics of earth as a supporting planet of life

 Earth has liquid water on its surface

Approximately 71% of Earth’s surface is covered in water. All of that makes up about 96% of all the water on the planet. The rest is divided between air vapor, ice caps, glaciers, and moisture in the soil.

 Earth is the only planet with continents

Continents are large, continuous masses of land that sit on top of plate tectonics and “float” on the planet’s mantle. As plate tectonics move and geological activity happen in the form of volcanoes, for example, contents drift and re-adjust. That’s how we went from a single one to the seven that we know today.

But Earth is the only planet in the Solar system that has continents. And that is because it is also the only one of the inner (rocky) planets to have plate tectonics. Without them, the geological activity that is necessary to form these huge land masses just doesn’t happen.

Earth is the only planet with just one Moon

The following table lists the number of moons (satellites) each planet in the Solar system has.

Number of moons for each planet are below

Mercury – 0

Venus – 0

Earth – 1

Mars – 2

Jupiter – 80

Saturn – 83

Uranus – 27

Neptune – 14

 Earth’s atmosphere is very different from the other planets’

The atmosphere is an outer layer of gas that planets have that is located between the planet and space. On Earth and other rocky planets, the atmosphere sits on top of the surface, and it is what contains the air we breathe.

One of the characteristics that make Earth so unique when compared to the other planets is the composition of its atmosphere. Most planet’s atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen or carbon dioxide. But Earth is the only planet with an atmosphere that is primarily made up of nitrogen

Earth’s temperature is stable

While other planets have seen extreme changes in their temperatures, Earth’s has remained more or less stable for most of its lifespan. It is believed that both Venus and Mars had the necessary temperature conditions to support liquid water on their surfaces too, but the changes they went through turned them into what we know today. For Venus, it was an extreme greenhouse effect that raised its temperature, while on Mars, it was probably due to a thin, leaky atmosphere.

Earth, on the other hand, has had a relatively stable temperature for the last 4 billion years.