Earth as seen from Meteosat-12 in 2025, during the March equinox

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and, so far, the only known object in the Universe that stubbornly insists that life is possible on it. This is made possible by a rather fortunate set of conditions, the main one being the presence of a large amount of liquid water — so much, in fact, that the planet is essentially an ocean world with a small addition of land. The World Ocean covers approximately 70.8% of Earth’s surface, meaning that most of the planet is in a “water, water, and a bit more water” mode. The remaining 29.2% consists of land, which is mostly concentrated in the form of continents in the land hemisphere — meaning that even the continents are not distributed evenly, but with a certain geographical sense of humor. A large part of this land is not desert (although such areas do exist), but is at least partially humid and covered with vegetation that stubbornly continues to grow despite all of the planet’s climatic experiments. Meanwhile, the polar ice sheets act as giant reservoirs, holding more water than all rivers, lakes, groundwater, and atmospheric moisture combined — essentially storing a “backup version” of the hydrosphere. Beneath all of this surface layer lies the Earth’s crust, which is not static but consists of slowly moving tectonic plates. They constantly interact with one another, sometimes peacefully, sometimes not, and it is precisely these processes that form mountains, volcanoes, and earthquakes — a kind of geological “system update” that the planet has been running for millions of years.