Earth
Earth, also known as Sol III, or 'Terra' in jingoistic, human-centric jargon, is the homeworld and cradle of the human species. It is a garden world, noted for its biodiversity as well as a high amount of its native lifeforms sharing common ancestors at some point in ancient history.
Earth's history is humanity's history; war, strife, industry, and discovery. Industry and conflict had taken its toll on the world, and things were on a downhill slide until the discovery of modern technologies in 2149 CE on Mars.
In the modern day, the homeworld of humanity is entering a new golden age. The resource wealth of a dozen settled colonies and a hundred industrial outposts flows back to Earth, fueling great works of industry, commerce, and art. The great cities are greening as arcology skyscrapers and telecommuting allow more efficient use of land. While every human enjoys longer and better life than ever, the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever before. Advanced nations have eliminated most genetic disease and pollution, while less fortunate regions have not progressed beyond 20th century technology, and are often smog-choked, overpopulated slums.
Sea levels have risen two meters in the last 200 years, and violent weather is common due to environmental damage inflicted during the late 21st century. The past few decades, however, have seen significant improvement due to recent technological advances.
Earth's history is humanity's history; war, strife, industry, and discovery. Industry and conflict had taken its toll on the world, and things were on a downhill slide until the discovery of modern technologies in 2149 CE on Mars.
In the modern day, the homeworld of humanity is entering a new golden age. The resource wealth of a dozen settled colonies and a hundred industrial outposts flows back to Earth, fueling great works of industry, commerce, and art. The great cities are greening as arcology skyscrapers and telecommuting allow more efficient use of land. While every human enjoys longer and better life than ever, the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever before. Advanced nations have eliminated most genetic disease and pollution, while less fortunate regions have not progressed beyond 20th century technology, and are often smog-choked, overpopulated slums.
Sea levels have risen two meters in the last 200 years, and violent weather is common due to environmental damage inflicted during the late 21st century. The past few decades, however, have seen significant improvement due to recent technological advances.
Geography
Earth is incredibly diverse in geography as well as ecology, and its many biomes are slowly recovering from centuries of widespread pollution and global warming thanks to modern efforts.
Most of Earth's surface is ocean water: 71.2% of its total surface area is water. This vast pool of salty water is often called the world ocean, and makes Earth, to some, a water world or ocean world. Indeed, in Earth's early history the oceans may have covered Earth's crust completely. At Earth's polar regions, the ocean surface is covered by seasonally variable amounts of sea ice that often connects with polar land, permafrost and ice sheets, forming polar ice caps.
Earth's land covers 28% of the planet's surface. The land surface includes many islands around the globe, but most of the land surface is taken by the four continental landmasses, which are (in descending order): Africa-Eurasia, the Americas, Antarctica, and Australia. These landmasses are further broken down and grouped into continents. The terrain of the land surface varies greatly and consists of mountains, deserts, plains, plateaus, and other landforms.
Land can be covered by surface water, snow, ice, artificial structures or vegetation. Most of Earth's land hosts vegetation, but ice sheets (10%, not including the equally large land under permafrost) or cold as well as hot deserts (33%) also occupy considerable amounts of it.
Most of Earth's surface is ocean water: 71.2% of its total surface area is water. This vast pool of salty water is often called the world ocean, and makes Earth, to some, a water world or ocean world. Indeed, in Earth's early history the oceans may have covered Earth's crust completely. At Earth's polar regions, the ocean surface is covered by seasonally variable amounts of sea ice that often connects with polar land, permafrost and ice sheets, forming polar ice caps.
Earth's land covers 28% of the planet's surface. The land surface includes many islands around the globe, but most of the land surface is taken by the four continental landmasses, which are (in descending order): Africa-Eurasia, the Americas, Antarctica, and Australia. These landmasses are further broken down and grouped into continents. The terrain of the land surface varies greatly and consists of mountains, deserts, plains, plateaus, and other landforms.
Land can be covered by surface water, snow, ice, artificial structures or vegetation. Most of Earth's land hosts vegetation, but ice sheets (10%, not including the equally large land under permafrost) or cold as well as hot deserts (33%) also occupy considerable amounts of it.
Climate
Extreme weather, such as tropical cyclones (including hurricanes and typhoons), occurs over most of Earth's surface and has a large impact on life in those areas. From 2080 to 2100, these events caused an average of 22,500 human deaths per year. Many places are subject to earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, droughts, wildfires, and other calamities and disasters. Human impact is felt in many areas due to pollution of the air and water, acid rain, loss of vegetation (overgrazing, deforestation, desertification), loss of wildlife, species extinction, soil degradation, soil depletion and erosion. Human activities release greenhouse gases and chemical pollutants into the atmosphere which cause global warming, though in more modernized regions of the planet this is no longer the case, and Earth's climate has slowly begun to recover.
Fauna & Flora
Earth's life has over time greatly diversified, allowing the biosphere to have different biomes, which are inhabited by comparatively similar plants and animals. The different biomes developed at distinct elevations or water depths, planetary temperature latitudes and on land also with different humidity. Earth's species diversity and biomass reaches a peak in shallow waters and with forests, particularly in equatorial, warm and humid conditions. While freezing polar regions and high altitudes, or extremely arid areas are relatively barren of plant and animal life.
Alternative Name(s)
Sol III, Terra
Owning Organization
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