World
Earth
Earth is a world in the solar system, about 12 742 km across.
Where it is right now is on the live 3D map.
Key facts
- Diameter
- 12 742 km
- Goes round
- The Sun
How the map draws it
Seen from far off it is a light at its computed brightness: the glow is how a camera records a point too bright to resolve · on a larger screen its mountains are from NOAA’s ETOPO 2022 heights, drawn 5 times steeper than they are so that a low Sun shows them; the glow of the air round its edge is drawn 2.5 times taller than the air is; from low orbit on a larger screen its clouds stand up toward the horizon and under a low Sun, drawn 3 times thicker than they are so that their lean, their long shadows and the last light on their tops can be seen (at their true thickness in the Measured look), each top’s height from its measured temperature where today’s picture covers and from the cloud map’s brightness elsewhere.