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Posted by on Apr 15, 2020 in TellMeWhy |

What Is the Scientific Name of Earth?

What Is the Scientific Name of Earth?

What Is the Scientific Name of Earth? Earth, our planet, is the third farthest from the sun, and orbits it in 365.24 days. The Earth rotates on its axis in about 24 hours. The earth is made up of three main parts: the core, the mantle and the crust. The core is mainly iron and nickel, and it is the metal of the core which gives the earth its magnetic field. The crust is the surface of earth. It rests on a layer called the mantle. The crust and mantle move very slowly, and their movements has created rift valleys and mountains.

Oceans cover about 60 per cent of the crust and the continents cover the rest. The Earth has an atmosphere mainly of nitrogen and oxygen. It is the only planet in the solar system with plenty of liquid water and a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere. The Earth has one satellite, the Moon.

Unlike the other planets in the Solar System, in English, Earth does not directly share a name with an ancient Roman deity. The name “Earth” comes from the medieval Anglo-Saxon word “erda”, which means ground (as in dirt) or soil. It became eorthe later, and then erthe in Middle English. These words are all cognates of Jörð, the name of the giantess of Norse myth. Earth was first used as the name of the sphere of the Earth in the early fifteenth century.

The planet’s name in Latin, used academically and scientifically in the West during the Renaissance, is the same as that of Terra Mater, the Roman goddess, which translates to English as Mother Earth. So I guess you could say that our planet’s English name is “Earth”, while our planet’s official scientific name is “Terra”.

Earth has often been personified as a deity, in particular a goddess. In many cultures the mother goddess is also portrayed as a fertility deity. To the Aztec, Earth was called Tonantzin—”our mother”; to the Incas, Earth was called Pachamama—”mother earth”.

The Chinese Earth goddess Hou Tu is similar to Gaia, the Greek goddess personifying the Earth. To Hindus it is called Bhuma Devi, the Goddess of Earth. The Tuluva people of Tulunadu in Southern India celebrate a Three Day “Earth Day” called Keddaso. This festival comes in usually on 10th,12th,13 February every Calendar year.

In Norse mythology, the Earth giantess Jörð was the mother of Thor and the daughter of Annar. Ancient Egyptian mythology is different from that of other cultures because Earth is male, Geb, and sky is female, Nut.

Creation myths in many religions recall a story involving the creation of the world by a supernatural deity or deities. A variety of religious groups, often associated with fundamentalist branches of Protestantism or Islam, assert that their interpretations of the accounts of creation in sacred texts are literal truth and should be considered alongside or replace conventional scientific accounts of the formation of the Earth and the origin and development of life. Such assertions are opposed by the scientific community as well as other religious groups. A prominent example is the creation-evolution controversy.

Content for this question contributed by Johnny Bravo, resident of Newport, Campbell County, Kentucky, USA