2. -Stretches approximately
100,000 light years in
diameter.
-Spiral Formation Galaxy.
-Super-massive black hole
in center of galaxy known as
Sagittarius A*.
-Our solar system is
located approximately
26,000 light years from
Sgt A*.
-In the time it takes you to finish this sentence, you will have been
carried along by the sun and the earth through 750 miles of actual raw
space.

3. -Period of revolution around
galaxy: 220 million years.
-Equatorial rotation period: 25
days.
-Our Sun (also known as Sol) has
sunspot regions on it’s visible
layer during a 11 year cycle which
helps us determine the Sun’s solar
cycle and rotation period.
-The hottest layer of the
Sun, known as the
corona, typically reaches
temperatures in the range of 1
million Kelvin. That’s 1,799,540° F!
Recommendations: SPF 1 million.

4. -Closest to the Sun.
-Period of revolution: 88 days.
-Large iron core.
-Temperature: 700 Kelvin by
day/ 100 Kelvin by night.
-Before 2008, scientists had
observed only 40% of the
Mercury has been thought to have planets surface.
collided with a massive asteroid big
enough to leave a hilly terrain on the
opposite side of the impact. Unknown terrain

5. -Known as the “Morning Star”.
-Period of revolution: 225 days.
-Temperature: 750 Kelvin.
-Venus is covered with gently
rolling hills, two continents, and
numerous volcanoes.
-Venus is hotter than Mercury
because it is covered with huge
sulfur clouds that cause an out of
control greenhouse effect on it’s -Scientists suggest that Venus was hit by
surface. an asteroid roughly the size of the planet
which caused Venus to slowly rotate
-On Venus it rains sulfuric acid!! clockwise rather than counter-clockwise
like the rest of our solar system.

6. -Period of revolution: 365
days.
-Only known planet to
inhabit life.
-Tilted 24° from it’s axis.
-Water covers 71% of earth’s
surface.
-Sidereal period of revolution: 27 days.
-First landing on moon: July 20th 1969.
-Our moon is in synchronous rotation which
causes us to see only one side of the moon.

7. -Period of rotation: 687 days.
- 95% of atmosphere is composed
of carbon-dioxide.
-Has the largest known volcano
called Olympus Mons. 3x the size
of Mt. Everest.
-Surface features indicate that
water once flowed on Mars.
Valles Marineris:
Enormous canyon
that stretches the
length of the U.S.
Phobos and Deimos:
Planetesimals
captured by the
gravitational pull of
Mars.

8. Mars
Jupiter
-Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter are -Asteroids are composed primarily
believed to be millions of such bodies, called of metal and rock. The largest
asteroids which form a giant ring called the asteroid, Ceres, has a diameter of
asteroid belt. about 900km.

9. -Io: Snows sulfuric acid on
surface.
-Europa: Icy surface which
suggests water inside the
moon. Great Red
Spot!!
-Ganymede: The largest -Period of rotation: 12 years.
moon in the solar system.
-Jupiter’s clouds are in
perpetual motion and are
confined to narrow bands of
-Callisto: Appears to be rising and falling gases.
homogeneous (no iron
core). -Rotates once every 10 hours
(the fastest of the planets).

10. -Period of revolution:
30 years.
-Saturn’s spectacular
rings are composed of
fragments of ice and
F Ring: Gap between rock from moons and
rings created by the asteroids that have
Shepherd moons. come too close to
Saturn's Roche limit.
-Scientists discovered a storm -Saturn has two
on Saturn in 1994. Located near moons known as the
it’s equator, it stretches 12,700 Shepherd moons
km across, making its diameter which create a gap in
roughly the same as that of the Saturn’s ring system.
Earth.

11. -Period of revolution: 84
years.
-Magnetic field is 50 times
stronger than that of the
Earth.
-Uranus remarkably is tilted
59° from its axis of rotation
causing it to rotate almost
-Uranus also has its own ring completely sideways.
system similar to Saturn. They
were discovered by accident in -The moons of Uranus also
1977 when the planet passed in rotate sideways on the
front of a star. The star’s light was planets axis, making it quite
momentarily blocked by each a unique sight.
ring, thereby revealing their
existence to astronomers.

12. -Period of revolution: 165
years.
-The winds on Neptune
blow as fast as 2000 km/h
among the fastest in the
solar system.
-The Great Dark
Spot, whose diameter at
the time was about the
same size as the Earth’s
diameter, is near the
-Neptune has eight known
center of this picture. It
moons. Seven have irregular
has since vanished. Note
shapes and highly elliptical
the white, wispy methane
orbits, which suggest that
clouds.
Neptune captured them.

13. -Period of revolution: 249 years.
-On August 24, 2006, Scientists decided
that Pluto is no longer a planet because it
doesn’t clean up debris outside it’s
atmosphere.
Three properties to define a
planet:
1. Needs to be spherical.
2. Needs to revolve around a sun.
3. Needs to be able to clean up
debris outside it’s atmosphere.

14. Most comets that eventually return to the -This belt of comets extends out some 500
inner solar system and develop the long AU from the sun. Astronomers estimate
tails that we usually associate with are that the belt contains at least 200 million
believed to come from a region out comets.
beyond the orbit of Pluto called the
Kuiper belt.