Mercury
Mercury is the closest planet to the
Sun; wow it must get hot there! It’s
also the smallest of the planets in
the solar system. It’s barren with a
surface full of craters, that looks a
bit like our moon!
Are you ready for this? The daytime
temperature on Mercury can reach
up to 400⁰C. No way, we definitely
wouldn’t be able to survive there!
But come night time, things change
a little. The temperature nose-dives
down to -180⁰C.
There is no atmosphere all the way
up there, so that means no wind, or
even weather. How weird. There is
also no water on the surface of
Mercury, but no one knows if there
could be water underneath! Maybe
one day we’ll find out.
Besides having no atmosphere
there’s also no air!
Venus
Venus was named after the Roman goddess
of love and beauty, it was also known by the
Greeks as Aphrodite.
Venus has over 1,600 volcanoes, the most
of any planet within the solar system.
It takes Venus 243 Earth days to make one
complete rotation.
Compared to Earth’s 365 days, it takes
Venus only 224.7 Earth days to make one
rotation around the sun.
The surface of Venus is so hot that it would
melt lead and scientists call it a “runaway
greenhouse effect.”
If you could stand on the surface of Venus,
the air pressure would be so extreme, that it
would be like being under Earth’s ocean half
a mile down.
The only planets that we can visibly see
cross in front of the sun called “transits” are
Mercury and Venus.
Venus has wind storms that can get up to
450 mph/724 kph, which is faster than the
largest Earth tornado.
The Earth
The shape of the Earth is actually closer to a
squashed sphere. It’s fatter in the middle
near the equator where gravity pushes to
create a bulge.
Even though you might think you are
standing still, the Earth is turning. The
speed at the equator is around 1,000
mph.
The Earth is also moving through the
solar system at around 67,000
mph/107,826 kph.
Earth is constantly recycling its material
through tectonic movement which drags
surface rocks back down below the
surface to become magma and then is
spewed back out from volcanoes.
The hottest recorded temperature location
on the Earth is in El Azizia, Libya with
temperatures hitting 136 degrees F/57.8
degrees C in 1922.
The coldest temperature location is in
Antarctica with temperatures reaching -
100 degrees F/-73 degrees
Mars
There have been 40 missions to Mars,
but only 18 of the missions were
successful.
The dust storms on Mars are so large
that they are considered to be the
biggest in the solar system.
Meteorites that have been ejected from
Mars have been found all over the Earth.
Of all of the planets in the solar system,
only Earth has confirmed life and Mars is
believed to possibly be hospital for life.
Earth and Mars are the only to planets in
the solar system with polar ice caps.
Mars does have seasons but they are
twice as long as the seasons on Earth
due to Mars’ axis tilt.
If you were standing on Mars and looked
at the sun it would appear half the size
as compared to looking at the sun from
Earth.
Jupiter
If Jupiter had been 80 times more massive it
would have become our second sun in the
solar system.
Jupiter holds the title of being the solar
system’s fourth brightest object.
Jupiter’s clouds are made up of mostly
ammonia crystals, sulfur and mixtures of both
of these.
As asteroids and comets have impacted Jupiter
they kick up dust particles that have created a
very faint ring around Jupiter.
The discovery of Jupiter’s 4 moons by Galileo
was the first proof that the Earth was not the
center of the universe and evidence that
planets orbited the sun.
We can only see five planets with the naked
eye and Jupiter is one of them.
Saturn
Most planets are somewhat spherical in
shape, but Saturn is flatter; in fact it’s
the flattest of any planet in the solar
system.
When you look at Saturn is has a color
that’s pale yellow. This is because its
upper atmosphere contains a high
quantity of ammonia crystals.
Saturn has storms that are oval in shape
and similar to those on Jupiter.
Saturn is the one planet that has the
most extensive system of rings in the
entire solar system.
A year is the amount of time a planet
takes to complete its orbit around the
sun. It takes Saturn 29.4 Earth years to
complete the orbit.
Saturn is made up of mostly hydrogen
and is the least dense of all of the
planets in the solar system.
Uranus
Uranus has the coldest temperatures of
all of the planets, hitting as low as -224
degrees C.
The color of Uranus is blue due to the
fact that it has an atmosphere made up
of water, ammonia, and methane.
Uranus may be one of the “gas giants”
but it is also the lightest in mass.
The year that Uranus was discovered
they also discovered a new element and
named it Uranium after the planet.
The moons of Uranus are named after
characters created by William
Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.
All of the moons around Uranus have
dark surfaces and are frozen.
Uranus has a total of 27 moons.
Uranus is so bright that at times it can be
seen by the human eye, without the help
of a telescope.
Neptune
Neptune’s rings are so faint that prior to the
Voyager 2 spacecraft mission, the rings weren’t
thought to be complete. Neptune has the
faintest rings of all of the gas giants.
Even though Neptune is a gas giant it has the
second largest gravity of all of the solar system
planets.
Neptune has a Great Dark Spot that is the size
of our Earth and a Small Dark Spot that is
almost the size of our moon.
Our ancient ancestors didn’t know that
Neptune existed because it can’t be seen with
the naked eye or the telescopes that they
developed.
The coldest known object in our solar system is
Neptune’s moon Triton that has temperatures
on the surface that can dip down to -235
degrees C.
