01. How did Earth get its name? And why do we call our home "Mother Earth"? (A K2S Question)

From The Space Library

The Earth got its name from an early English word for the soil beneath our feet. The ancients referred to it as "Mother Earth" because it provided everything we needed, just as our human mothers did. When the first astronauts circled the Moon at Christmas in 1968 and saw for themselves how desolate it was, they looked back at their home planet, which looked so welcoming in contrast, and called it the "Good Earth." How old is Earth? Earth is about 4,600 million years old, give or take a few million years. But it was only about two million years ago that humans started to appear. We certainly took our time getting started! Only in the last century did we leave the Earth for the first time.

---

Answer provided by Derek Webber

Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer

Buy This Book Click here