There are multiple reasons. The image is iconic, famous and is one of the few true photographic images of Earth. It has also been a featured image since November 2004. Other images may present more detail of the land masses, but they are generally composite or processed images. For some previous discussions see (1234567).
Q.
Why does the article not have mostly harmless as its short description or otherwise summarize the article's content using it?
A.
This has been discussed several times including (12345). The consensus is that it fails WP:42.
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For me at least, the lead feels like a bunch of statistics and facts being toss into a bowl of salad. There's no overarching theme or a sense of causality that the reader can follow through. A better lead should be much shorter and be more selective. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:37, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:LEAD suggests that it should be no longer than four paragraphs for longer articles and typically three to four. It also has to summarise the contents of the article, so being shorter and more selective is difficult. Mikenorton (talk) 22:20, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The lead feels so long and a sore to read. To an another example, Britannica's article about the Earth has a lead that's longer than ours but it is much more pleasant to read because the information is not as disjointed. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 18:29, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my proposed outline for the new lead, with each bullet point is a paragraph not longer than 125 words as a rule of thumb:
General info, Earth's surface, water and atmosphere
Earth's cycles, inner structure and magnetic field
Earth's orbital, rotational and astronomical properties
Earth's history (with less focus on humans/climate change and more towards other parts of history in general)
Thank you so much for the link. Unfortunately I really need to go to sleep now so see you in ~10 hours. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 18:44, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. 70.8% of the Earth's surface is covered in liquid water and the remaining 29.2% is dry land. Most of the Earth's water is concentrated in a global ocean and ice sheets. Many parts of Earth's land is somewhat humid and covered by vegetation. With a mean radius of 6371.0 km(3958.8 mi), Earth is the largest, densest and most massive terrestrial planet in the Solar System. Earth has one large natural satellite: the Moon.
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Ok I want to change a mistake I saw about it saying that earth is the only planter with water on it because clearly it's not. 24.101.87.161 (talk) 21:45, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The lead section says that it is the only astronomical object in the solar system to have "liquid surface water". Mikenorton (talk) 22:12, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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The Earth Is Not Flat Kwispy8 (talk) 01:12, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 01:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
density of the Earth
If the mass of the Earth is given in kg, then the density should be in kg/m3. Mir.Nalezinski (talk) 17:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will point out that the density of astronomical objects is largely given in g/cm³ and not kg/m³ by astronomers. However, Earth is of course the one astronomical object which is of interest to many fields beyond astronomy, so whether or not an exception can/should be made for units here can be argued either way. ArkHyena (talk) 22:23, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. The source in the stat did use kg/m^3 though. ✨ΩmegaMantis✨blather 00:05, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2024
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I heard that a sidereal day instead of being 23 hours 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds it's 23 hours 56 minutes and 4.09053 seconds (small change i know but will help most people getting information from wikipedia) Ertgiuhnoyo (talk) 18:21, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I suggest adding a wiki hyperlink to the notion "tidal interaction" in the subsection "Earth–Moon system". There is a wiki page about this phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force
Sorry this is my first time doing this kind of request. So, if I did something wrong, I'm sorry and please tell how I can do this better if you can. Have a nice day to you all :) Filuo (talk) 15:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Filuo Done Thanks for proposing the change and happy editing! 🇺🇲JayCubby✡ please edit my user page! Talk 14:49, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]