Short answers, pulled from the story.
Homer first used the word nature to describe the intrinsic qualities of a plant when the god Hermes showed the hero Odysseus the herb known as moly. This ancient Greek concept, physis, originally meant birth or the essential qualities that allow things to develop of their own accord.
Earth formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago from the solar nebula. It emerged as the third planet from the Sun and the largest of the terrestrial worlds.
Water eventually covered 71 percent of the surface in oceans that hold 96.5 percent of the planet's water. Water arrived through condensing vapor and ice delivered by comets.
Agriculture was first adopted around the 9th millennium BCE and has led to the clearance of large tracts of land. This development resulted in significant reductions in forestation and wetlands.
Early traditions of landscape art began in China during the Tang Dynasty between 618 and 907. In the West, wilderness portrayals in art became more prevalent in the 1800s, particularly in the works of the Romantic movement.
Europa, the fourth-largest moon of Jupiter, may possess a sub-surface ocean of liquid water and could potentially host life. Astronomers have conjectured this possibility based on conditions that appear too harsh on other terrestrial planets like Mercury and Venus.