One of the more fascinating features along yesterday's cycle path walk is a scale model of the Solar System, with scale sized models of the sun and planets placed at scale distances apart. The model of the Sun is a six foot golden globe beside the main A64 bypass at the west side of York, and fairly quickly walking south along the cycle path one passes Mercury, Venus and Earth.
I paused by the Earth for photos, which are the subject of this collage. An information plaque reads 'Earth, third planet from the Sun, derives its name from Old English. To the Romans the Earth goddess was Tellus, to the Greeks it was Gaia. Not until Copernicus in 16th Century was it understood that the Earth was just another planet. First fully mapped in the 20th Century and only viewed in its entirety from space in the 1960s. 71% of the surface is covered with water, the only known water in the Solar System. The land masses float on a core of molten iron, hotter than the surface of the Sun. The only place in the Universe known to sustain any life form. Reports of intelligent life are probably exaggerated. Earth has one moon - the Moon.'
Thank you all for your comments, it is nice to hear from you.
Ian