The Wisdom Academy - Global Vital Stats. Introduction to Earth Sciences I. Introduction to Earth Sciences I Topic 1 The Earth's Macroscopic Properties and What They Can Tell Us To get some very basic descriptions of the Earth we will start by describing some of the simplest of all the Earth's properties - how big, how heavy, how hot, how strong - and how they were deduced. The other world visitor would be remiss if he he did not at least provide a description of those properties. Most of them were deduced many years ago and represent some of the first specific inquiries into the nature of the planet we live on. Even these gross external properties can be used to infer quite a lot of information about the interior properties. 1.1 The Earth's Size and Shape Centuries ago people had very little idea about the total size of the Earth and hardly any notion of its shape. One of the earliest attempts to estimate the Earth's size was done by Eratosthenes about 200 B.C.
If the Earth were flat the "sun angle" would be the same everywhere. Mini-Quiz: Shape of the Earth . The Scale of the Universe. Earth is not revolving around the Sun -- The way you think! by Nassim Haramein. The Sagan Series. Orrery_2011_bce.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash-Objekt) The-Observable-Universe.jpg (JPEG-Grafik, 3850 × 1925 Pixel) Solar System Scope.