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The Planets: Learn Some Facts About Each Planet in Our Solar System

This document provides facts about each planet in our solar system. It describes the key features of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and has many craters from bombardment. Venus is the hottest planet with dense carbon dioxide atmosphere. Earth is teeming with life. Mars has the solar system's largest canyon and dust storms cover the planet. Jupiter is a gas giant that rotates quickly. Saturn has iconic rings and many moons. Uranus rotates on its side. Neptune appears blue due to methane in its atmosphere. Pluto is now classified as a dwarf planet.

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Fallon Trenter
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232 views11 pages

The Planets: Learn Some Facts About Each Planet in Our Solar System

This document provides facts about each planet in our solar system. It describes the key features of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and has many craters from bombardment. Venus is the hottest planet with dense carbon dioxide atmosphere. Earth is teeming with life. Mars has the solar system's largest canyon and dust storms cover the planet. Jupiter is a gas giant that rotates quickly. Saturn has iconic rings and many moons. Uranus rotates on its side. Neptune appears blue due to methane in its atmosphere. Pluto is now classified as a dwarf planet.

Uploaded by

Fallon Trenter
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Planets

Learn some facts about each planet in


our solar system!
Mercury [The closest planet to the sun]
Mercury is a battered and baked planet just larger than Earth's moon. Evidence of heavy bombardment from
the chaos of the formation of the solar system is left in the hundreds of craters and resulting lava flows on this
small, barren planet. The largest crater is Beethoven at 643 km in diameter and is the largest in the solar
system.
Venus
Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system. The brightest of all planets, Venus, is also known as
the Morning Star and the Evening Star. This planet is about the same size as Earth but is covered with
impenetrable clouds of carbon dioxide and sulfur compounds. Radar mapping of the planet shows
lots of craters and that 90% of the landforms are volcanic. Venus spins slowly retrograde (backwards
west to east) in 243 days and takes about 225 days to orbit the sun. This makes the daytime about
115 days which can raise surface temperatures up to 464°C.
Earth
Earth, our home planet is teeming with life and wonderous things. We
have studied Earth more than any other planet yet there is still more to
be discovered!
Mars
Mars has the largest canyon in the solar system. It would reach from Los Angeles to Chicago if
it was on Earth!
Mars has a very thin atmosphere, mostly carbon dioxide, but dust storms can cover the whole
planet for months at a time. About every two years the Earth and Mars come close together.
The planet has two moons, Deimos and Phobos.
Jupiter
Jupiter takes about 12 years to orbit the sun and rotates in about 10
hours. This short Jupiter "day" is amazing since the planet is roughly 11
Earth diameters wide.
Saturn [Almost everybody’s favorite planet!]
Saturn and some of its moons can be seen in the composite image at left. Four more moons were
found in late 2000 and 9 more were discovered recently for a total of 31. Scientists are tracking more
objects that may be additional moons.
The Voyager missions found winds, magnetic field, auroras and lightning on the planet similar to
Jupiter. Also, the planet has light colored cloud bands (zones) and darker bands (belts) like the larger
gas giant.
Uranus
The icy planet Uranus is a smaller version of Jupiter and not the small rocky
bodies like Earth. It have faint rings and a number of moons. Uranus takes
some 84 years to orbit the sun. It rotates on its side and so half the time one
pole is toward the sun and then the other making each of the four seasons
last about 20 years. The faint bluish color of the planet is because the
methane gas in the atmosphere absorbs red light and reflects blue light.
Neptune
Blue Neptune is one of the solar system's gas giants. Unlike Earth, gas
giants are mostly hydrogen, helium, and methane gases. The methane
gas on Neptune gives the planet its blue color because the gas absorbs
red light and reflects the blue back into space. Although not seen in the
picture the planet has a set of very faint rings.
Pluto
Pluto is not a planet, it is a “dwarf” planet. Pluto is a small rocky object that lies at the very edge
of the solar system. The planet is so far out it takes light from the sun about 5 and one half hours
to reach Pluto in contrast to the 8 minutes it takes to reach Earth. Its orbit of about 248 years
sometimes takes it inside Neptune’s orbit. Pluto is so cold that nitrogen and oxygen, which we
breathe so easily on Earth, become frozen solid. The planet is only about two-thirds the size of
our moon and up until recently was the biggest known object in the Kuiper Belt.
Hope you enjoyed the Planets
Thanks for learning about the planets. Hopefully this helps a little.
This was made by someone in your school! Her name is Fallon.

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