Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Solar System: Earth

Earth was probably the most fun to paint so far. There's tons of reference photos for it. Oh, and in answer to a question that was posted in one of the comments, these planet "models" are not smooth. The "sculpts" have raised sections on them to represent the patterned surfaces of the planets. The intention of the kit is to do a paint-by-numbers type of thing. I of course have abandoned the simple and added more personal fun to the project. The raised sections for Earth come in handy for obvious reasons. Anyway, without further ado, here's some little known facts about our home planet...
  • Due to erosion and tectonic activity, the Earth literally replaces its crust every half billion years, erasing any past geological history such as crater impacts.
  • The Earth's composition (by mass) is approximately 1/3 iron and 1/3 oxygen.
  • Earth is the only planet in the solar system where water can exist in liquid form on the surface.
  • The Moon's gravitation is actually causing the Earth's rotation to slow very gradually (2 milliseconds per century). That means in another 180 million years, we'll get an extra hour in each day for painting and playing!
References:
The Nine Planets

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