Earth Questions Answers - Commonly Asked Earth Questions with Answers
Why does Earth have seasons?
Earth has seasons because it is titled at an angle. This means that as it orbits around the Sun different parts are titled towards the Sun. when the northern hemisphere or top half of the Earth, points to the Sun, this area gets summer. At the same time, the southern hemisphere, or bottom half of the Earth, is pointing away from the Sun and this area experiences its winter.
What causes night and day?
Night and day happen because Earth rotates, or makes one complete turn, every 24 hours. As well as traveling in an orbit around the Sun, planet Earth spins around its axis, an imaginary line going through the North and South Poles. This means that at any one time, half of Earth is facing the Sun and has daytime, while the other half faces away from the Sun, so it has night.
What is inside the Earth?
Inside the centre of the Earth there is red-hot, liquid rock. This rock is called magma. The land and oceans at the Earth’s surface lie on an outer layer of cool, hard rock called the crust. The hot magma below rises and sinks slowly in a layer called the mantle. At the very centre of the Earth is a super-hot ball of iron called the core.
The earth’s surface is cracked into large pieces, called plates, which fit together like an enormous jigsaw. There are nine large plates and several smaller ones.
How did the land divide into continents?
The land sits on top of the large pieces, or plates, that make up the Earth’s surface. These plates are slowly moving. Before about 200 million years ago, all the land was joined to form one big continent, or super continent. Over millions of years, as the plates moved, the land split and slowly divided into the seven continents we know today: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.