2. Jupiter is the fifth planet away from the sun!
Jupiter is one of the planets that have a
moon.
Did you know…
Jupiter is surrounded by thousands of
Kilometres of hydrogen and helium gas!
3. The sun appears about halve the size on mars
as it does from Earth
The largest volcano in the solar system is on
Mars. It is called Olympus Mons.
Rocks from Mars have landed on Earth from
meteo rite impacts blasting debris through space.
4. Venus is the second planet away from the
sun.
Venus and mercury are the only too planets
that don’t have a sun orbiting them.
If you were able to stand on the surface of Venus,
it would feel like being 1 kilometre under the sea
on Earth, a depth deep enough to sink a
submarine. A person or a creature would
immediately be crushed by Venus' amazingly
strong pressure.
5. Mercury, named after the Roman messenger to the
gods, is the closest planet to the Sun and the
smallest traditional planet in the Solar System. It
orbits the Sun in 88 days, meaning that for every
year on Earth, four years have passed on Mercury.
However, because it takes 59 days for Mercury
spin once on its axis (one Mercurial day), it takes
176 days for the Sun to completely rise and set
over the planet's horizon, compared with the 24
hours it takes for the same thing to happen on
Earth. It is because of Mercury's speed across the
face of the Sun that it is known as the "Messenger"
planet. It's Greek equivalent is Hermes.
6. Earth has a breathable atmosphere. Oxygen is the gas that is
required for the life of most creatures. This is present in Earth's
atmosphere and also in water. Oxygen is constantly put into the
atmosphere by plants and trees. Earth's atmosphere also contains
a small amount of carbon dioxide. This is a poisonous gas which
makes up most of the atmosphere of planets like Venus and Mars
and makes them unable to support human life. However, its
smaller presence on Earth is useful as it helps to moderate the
planet's temperature and is absorbed by plants during
photosynthesis to produce oxygen. Earth's atmosphere is kept on
the planet by its pull of gravity. Mars and Mercury are too small to
keep atmosphere. As a result, Mercury has no atmosphere, and
Mars' atmosphere is very thin, containing gases which have not
managed to escape into space yet. Earth's atmosphere is thick
enough to prevent poisonous rays of radiation from getting
through it (this is what has happened on Mars).
7. Saturn is quite often regarded as one of the most
beautiful and outstanding objects in the Solar
System. It is a gigantic planet with huge rings
surrounding it, and a moon which resembles an
early Earth! Saturn is named after the Roman god
of agriculture and vegetation. However, there is no
actual land on Saturn for the planet to possess any
agriculture or vegetation. The entire planet, like
Jupiter, is made up of gas! It may have a liquid
core, caused by immense pressure weighing
heavily at the centre and squeezing molecules
together into a liquid state, rather than a 'gassy'
state, but most of the planet is one gigantic sky!
8. The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite, and
is the second brightest object in the sky after
the Sun. It is larger than the dwarf planet Pluto,
and the fourteenth largest object in the Solar
System. Unlike Earth, the Moon's surface is
very old, and the craters which are seen all
over its surface have been there for billions of
years.
9. The sun is a star.
The sun is so large that it can hold all nine
planets in the solar system in orbit.
The sun only spins on its axis every 25 day’s!
The core in the sun is about 15 million ◦c !
10. A star is a large ball of searing scorching gas,
an example would be the sun.
Stars two us are just little balls of light,
although they are not actually that small
A star is also a miniature version of the sun.