Utah Skies
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Earth - The 3rd Planet

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The Sun | Solar System | The Utah Skies Report
Scrabble at the base of Utah's Kings Peak

While we train our optics skyward nightly, there are visual treasures and marvels to behold earthward. Pictured here is a collection of richly colored rock in the Uinta Mountains, a massive range in Northern Utah carved by glaciers from an immense uplift of Precambrian rock. Some of this rock is exposed as colorful quartzite and shales. The main crest of the Uinta Mountains runs west to east for more than 60 miles, rising over 6,000 feet above the Wyoming and Uinta Basins to the north and south. The highest point in Utah is Kings Peak at 13,528 feet.

 

Facts & Figures

The Planet Earth as imaged by the Galileo spacecraft

Earth. Terra. Mother Earth. The Blue Sphere. The Water Planet. Home. This is the planet - 3rd from the Sun - on which humans dwell, the only planet known to support our definition of life. There are 1.5 to 1.8 million named species on the Earth, but it's estimated that upwards of 20 million species share this largest of the terrestrial planets.

 

 

  Max Min
Distance from Sun 1.017 AU 0.983 AU
Temperature -128.6F 136F
   
Mass 5.976 x 1024kg
Size 12756 km @ Equator
Orbital Period 365.256 days
 
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Events

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Did you ever consider...

"Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering." - Arthur C. Clarke

News

Science Magazines Honor Cutting-Edge NASA Programs
NASA Awards $350,000 to Winning Astronaut Glove Designers
NASA Pushes Social Media Experience to New Heights
Planet 51 Star Brings NASA's Message of Exploration Down to Earth
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2010A PIT released
OT and PIT planning update to Java 6
2009B required OT update available
2010A call for proposals announced
Observing databases offline August 17
Watching a Cannibal Galaxy Dine
Ticking Stellar Time Bomb Identified
Exoplanets Clue to Sun's Curious Chemistry
Shedding Light on the Cosmic Skeleton
Opening up a Colourful Cosmic Jewel Box
Press Release: NASA's Great Observatories Celebrate International Year of Astronomy
What's Happening: Spitzer Space Telescope Mission Status
What's Happening: Spitzer Space Telescope Mission Status
What's Happening: Astronomers Do It Again: Find Organic Molecules Around Gas Planet
What's Happening: 2009 Podcast Awards Nominations
Circulation of LHC Beams Could Resume in Earnest over the Weekend
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Women should undergo fewer Pap tests for cervical cancer, medical group says