GeoMag

T H E L AY E R S 0 F T H E U N I V E R S E

RISHI LAKHANI

THE LAYERS OF THE UNIVERSE

The Layers of Universe The Universe is so big. There are so many creatures and components in this world that we do not know about. Since it was created those 13.8 billion years ago, we have only discovered 4% of the observable universe- only the parts we can see. According to Edwin Hubble, the universe is expanding all the time. So, when the solar system was created 4.6 billion years ago, the universe was much smaller than in the present day. Of the 4% we can see, what are the layers of the universe? The Earth Home to all the living creatures we know of, the Earth has a diameter is about 13,000 km across. Three quarters of our home is water, with the rest being the land we take our steps on. Almost 8.7 million species of animals exist on Earth. Earth is the fourth smallest planet and the only habitable planet in the solar system. It is third from the Sun and has a natural satellite in the Moon. The Moon is nearly 4,000 kilometers in diameter and a total of 12 people have been to the moon, the first being Neil Armstrong in 1969. The Earth also has layers, including the Inner Core, Outer Core, Mantle, and Crust. The Sun The Sun is a star at the centre of the solar system. It was created about 4.5 billion years ago with all the other planets that we know of. The sun’s diameter is about 1.4 million kilometres wide and makes up 98% of the solar system’s total mass. Now you may be thinking, well that’s huge! Well, it’s not. In comparison, a red super giant is about 600 million kilometers in diameter. Our sun is also not the hottest star in the universe either; the hottest stars are the blue hypergiants with a surface temperature of 35,000 degrees Celsius, compared to the Sun’s 6,000. The sun is about halfway through its lifetime and is predicted to explode in another 4.5 billion years: where fusing hydrogen pressurises the core, causes the sun to redden, cool and inflate to 100 times its current size, engulfing Mercury, Venus and, most likely, Earth. The Solar System The solar system is what we call the neighborhood, where eight planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, >

04 | Geographical Magazine • Merchant Taylors’ School

2021/22 Edition | 05