The planets of the solar system

Mercury Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun. It is not, however, very close, since it is 36 million miles, or 58 million kilometres away from the Sun!from the Sun Like all the other planets Mercury orbits round the Sun, but its orbit of the Sun lasts for only 88 days. The Earths orbit lasts for 365 days and Plutos orbit takes 249 YEARS!The Earths orbit When Mercury orbits the Sun, it travels 36 million miles, or 58 million kilometres in the 88 days of the orbit. It moves at a speed of 48 kilometres a second, or 107,372 miles an hour!

VENUS Venus is the brightest planet in the Solar System and can be seen even in daylight if you know where to look. When Venus is west of the Sun, she rises before the Sun in the morning and is known as the Morning Star. When she is east of the Sun, she shines in the evening just after sunset and is known as the Evening Star. Venus is the planet which is closest to the Earth and is a little smaller than the Earth. The circumference of the Earth (the distance right round the middle of the Earth at the equator) is 12,760 kilometres, or 7926 miles. The circumference of Venus is 12,103 kilometres, or 7520 miles.Solar SystemVenus

Earth The Earth is unlike every other planet in the Solar System in a number of different ways. It is the only planet that has an atmosphere containing 21 percent oxygen. It is the only planet that has liquid It is the only planet in the solar system that has life. The Earth is the only inner planet ( Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) to have one large satellite, the Moon. Mars has two very tiny moons. Mercury and Venus have none. MercuryVenusEarthMarsMoon The Earth is fragile. Its surface is split into plates (tectonic plates) which float on a rocky mantle – the layer between the surface of the earth, its crust, and its hot liquid core. The inside of the Earth is active andearthquakes, volcanoes and mountain building takes place along the boundaries of the tectonic plates. earthquakesvolcanoes

The Red Planet, as Mars is often called, is the fourth planet from the sun (Earth is the third). In a lot of ways, Mars looks a lot like our home, though instead of blue oceans and green land, Mars is home to an ever present red tint. This is due to a mineral called iron oxide that is very common on the planets surface. However, when you look past the surface differences, these two planets are similar in a lot of ways. Here are just a few: Polar Ice Caps – Mars has both North and South polar ice caps, much like Earth. Also like Earth, both ice caps are made mostly of frozen water. With so much water frozen in the ice caps of Mars, some scientists think that life could have once existed there. Length of a Year – Mars is not much farther from the Sun than Earth. As a result, a typical year on Mars is 1 year and 320 days. Length of a Day – While a year on Mars might be almost twice as long as a year on Earth, the length of a day there is almost identical. A Martian day is 24 hours and 39 minutes long, less than an hour longer than a day on Earth. Mars has seasons like Earth too.

Moon The Moon was probably made 4.5 billion years ago when a large object hit the Earth and blasted out rocks that came together to orbit round the Earth. They eventually melted together, cooled down and became the Moon. For another 500 million years pieces of rock kept striking aginst the surface of the Moon. From the Earth we can only see one side of the Moon; the other side is always turned away from us. The Moon has no atmosphere and so we can still see the damage caused billions of years ago If you look at the Moon when it is nearly full you can see the dark areas which are known as the seas. (They are all given Latin names, such as Mare Serenitatis – the Sea of Serenity, or Mare Frigoris – the Sea of Cold).These are not really seas but are huge expanses of smooth dark lava

Jupiter Saturn Jupiter is the giant of the Solar System, with a mass more than 300 times the mass of the Earth and is called after the ancient Roman sky-god, Jupiter, known to the Greeks as Zeus.Solar System Saturn is the second largest planet in the Solar System, after the giant Jupiter.largest planet in the Solar System Its mass is 95 times that of the Earth and it has a diameter of 75,098 miles, or 142,750 kilometresof the Earth

Neptune cannot be seen without a large telescope and was first seen in 1846 from the observatory in Berlin. The Berlin observatory, following Le Verriers calculations giving the possible position of this object, searched for Neptune and found the planet. They named it Neptune after the Roman God of the Sea.Roman God of the Sea