To the Greeks she was Gaia (guy-ya), to the Romans Terra Mater - Mother Earth. She was the First Mother. Before her there was nothing. She is the Mother Of All Things, divine and mortal, and all gods and humans descended from Her.

But despite her weighty, maternal role in the birth and growth of the human condition, both in myth and reality, our Mother Earth is - like all mothers - subject to certain frailties. Any serious study of the Cosmos sooner or later brings us face to face with the sobering reality that our home planet is but a very tiny, very fragile oasis in the midst of a vast universe exceedingly hostile to human life.

The health and well being of our small planet directly affects the health and well being - in fact the very survival - of the human species. If we disrespect and abuse our planetary home until it becomes unlivable, we will be in big trouble, because we have nowhere else to go.

Yes, considering the almost infinite number of stars that surround us, there's bound to be another Earth-like planet out there somewhere, but the problem is the distance involved. With present technology, it would take 50,000 years just to reach the next closest star system, and most likely we would have to travel many times farther than that to find a planet that would be suitable to human life.So for now, and for a very long time into the future, Mother Earth is all we have.

We are all space travellers, flying through space at a speed of 67,000 mph aboard spaceship Earth.

It is a large spaceship, 7,900 miles in diameter. It comes fully equipped with all the essentials of life, including an invigorating atmosphere composed of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% carbon dioxide and trace elements.

Earth's atmosphere not only provides us with the sustenance of life, it protects us from the deadly radiation of the sun during the day, and from the killing cold of deep space during the night. Life on Earth wouldn't last long without it.