Earth
12,742 kmacross
Earth is 12,742 km across and orbits the Sun at 1 AU — about 149,597,870 km. Sunlight takes 8.3 minutes to reach it. The only world we know of that hosts life — a thin film of biosphere on a ball of rock and water.
▶ Visit Earth in 3D
What kind of world is it?
Seen from space, Earth is the odd one out: liquid water oceans, an oxygen-rich atmosphere maintained by life, and city lights tracing the night side. Everything humanity has ever done has happened on this one ball of rock, 12,742 km across, orbiting a star 109 times wider — and the deepest we have ever drilled into it is 12 km, less than 0.1% of the way through.
The sunlight warming you right now left the Sun about 8 minutes ago. You are always seeing the Sun’s past.
Earth by the numbers
Diameter
12,742 km
Distance from the Sun
1 AU
Sunlight travel time
8.3 minutes
Surface gravity
9.8 m/s²
Temperature
15 °C average
A day lasts
24 hours
A year lasts
365.25 days
Known moons
1
Its moon
Numbers only get you so far. The distances are the part nobody's brain handles — in the interactive view, switch to 1:1 scale and watch Earth shrink to an honest speck on an enormous empty orbit.
Keep going
✓ Facts verified July 2026
Every figure on this page is a real, rounded value checked against primary sources. Found something out of date? See how we keep it accurate.