The Solar System
TABLE OF CONTENTS click one to go to that page, or just go on. What is the Solar System? The Sun Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune (Pluto) Asteroids Meteors and Meteorites Comets Telescopes Probes Men and Women in Space Dictionary
What is the Solar System System? What is the Solar System? Well, let me tell you. It is an orbit of our planets. The Solar System is a large, but small portion of space. It expands for millions of miles throughout space. In our Solar System all of our planets orbit around the sun. When you hear about space, you think about the stars, moon, and the Milky Way. Do you know what the Milky Way is? Well, actually it is what our Solar System lives in. Click to go to the: Table of Contents
The Sun The sun is a giant ball of fire. It is one of the largest stars. The sun is what conducts the orbit of our Solar System. Did you know that our sun is not the only one in space? There are actually over 100 million in space! And most of them are WAY bigger than our sun. Think of the sun as a sprinkle that you put on your cupcakes. (Yummy!)Then, in your head, put a giant beach ball next to it. That s how big some other suns are compared to our sun. That is really big! I looked at a chart of all the suns together and as soon as we got to one of the biggest suns, our sun was so small that you couldn t even see it! It basically didn t exist! It was cool!
Mercury mercury is the closest planet to the sun, and the second smallest planet in the solar system. 59 days on mercury is 108 days on earth. Mercury is often visible with binoculars or if you look hard enough, and long enough, you can see it with your naked eye.
VENUS Venus is one of the hottest planets, besides the sun. Even though Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and gets more of the sun s heat, Venus is still hotter. The reason for that, is that it is covered by thick clouds that traps the heat. Venus s rotation is very slow. How slow? 243 days on Earth is as long as one day on Venus
Earth Earth is the planet we live in. It is the only planet that has liquid water. More than 70% of the Earth is made of water. The Earth s nickname is blue planet because from space it appears blue. It takes Earth about 365 days to orbit the sun. Earth is the third planet to the sun. The Earth is about 93 million miles from the sun.
Mars Mars is the planet that is most like Earth. One day on Mars is slightly longer than a day on Earth. A year on Mars is almost as long as 2 years on Earth. Scientists discovered remains of life in rocks they found on Mars. They said that there were probably creatures that lived there 3 billion years ago.
Jupiter Jupiter is the largest planet. It is a thousand times bigger than earth. It has 16 moons. Jupiter is not solid. It is mostly made of gases, so you could not stand on it. It has a big red spot on it that is a storm that has been raging for 300 years.
Saturn Saturn is the second largest planet in the Solar System. It has 18 moons. Saturn is the only planet that can be seen from Earth with a telecope. The rings are not solid though. They are made of millions of tiny rocks, dust, and ice that orbit Saturn.
Uranus Did you know that Uranus was the first planet discovered with a telescope? It was first discovered in 1781. Uranus is also four times bigger than the Earth, has 15 moons and ll rings. Uranus rotates on its side, like a rolling ball.
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun. It is also the fourth largest. Neptune also has rings, but you cannot see them from earth. Not even with a telescope. Neptune is 30,760 miles long. If Neptune were hollow, it could carry almost 60 earths. A day on Neptune is 16 hours long.
(Pluto) Pluto is known as the dwarf planet because it is so much smaller than all of the other planets. Some people think Pluto should not be known as a planet. Pluto was discovered in 1930. It is the second largest known dwarf planet, and the tenth largest planet orbiting the Sun. Pluto is the 9th planet from the Sun, and also the last. Pluto is 1413 miles across. That s pretty small for a planet.
Astroids are small bodies of rock. That are believed to be left over pieces from the beginning of the Solar System. They are rocky objects with round or irregular shapes. They can be up to several hundred miles across, but most are much smaller. Astroids
Meteors and Meteorites Meteoroids are small pieces of rock from planets and Asteroids. Sometimes a Meteoroid rubs against Earths atmosphere. This rubbing is called friction. It makes a streak of light called a Meteor. Meteors are falling stars sometimes seen at night. Usually, friction burns the meteoroids. But sometimes meteoroids reach the Earth. These are called Meteorites. This is a picture of a meteor shower!
Comets More than 100 billion comets orbit slowly around the outside edges of the Solar System. A few comets also might orbit outside of Neptune. A comet has a head about about 80,000 miles wide. The middle part of the head is made of ice,frozen gases,and tiny pieces of rocks.
Telescopes A telescope is used to magnify distant objects in the sky. There are 2 basic types of telescopes, refracting and reflecting. Refracting telescopes use lenses to focus the light, and reflecting telescopes use mirrors. You would use a refracting telescope to see the planets and the moons. Have you ever seen a satellite pass by in the sky? A couple of our friends saw one! They said it was really cool!
Probes are basically robotic cameras in space. A space probe is launched with enough energy to escape the gravity field around the Earth and move around the planets. Computers control what they do by sending out radio signals. A space probe provides nearly all the pictures we have used. Some probes can even carry people in with it! Wouldn t that be the coolest thing ever? I think so. PROBES
Men and Women in Space Men and Women in space are called Astronauts. They are people who travel to space and visit different planets. There are some planets that are so far away that by the time they got there they would be dead. So they can only go to some planets.
Dictionary Celestial Objects: Any of the natural objects that can be seen in our sky, including stars, planets, moons, asteroids, galaxies, and comets. Distance: An amount of space between two or more things. Gravitational Force: The force of attraction between all masses in the universe, especially the attraction of the earth's mass for bodies near its surface. Mass: A large amount of material. Satellite: A device designed to be launched into orbit around the earth, another planet, the sun, or somewhere else in space. Scale: A scale is something you use to measure weight. Stars: Stars are like balls of fire in space. They are so big that you can see them from Earth. Gravity: The force that causes things to fall, or attract, to the earth.
The End Written By: Emma and Abbie