Describing The Planets
Science: Big Bang
The Sun
- One of more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy.
- The Sun is by far the largest object in the solar system. It contains more than 99.8% of the total mass of the Solar System.
- Diameter: 1,390,000 km.
Mass: 1.989e30 kg
Temperature: 5800 K (surface) 15,600,000 K (core)
Mercury
- Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and the eighth largest.
- Orbit: 57,910,000 km from the sun
- Diameter: 4,880 km
- Mass: 3.30e23 kg
- Mercury has a small magnetic field whose strength is about 1% of Earth's.
- Mercury has no known satellites.
Venus
- Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the sixth largest.
- Orbit: 108,200,000 km from Sun
- Diameter: 12,103.6 km
- Mass: 4.869e24 kg
- Venus is sometimes regarded as Earth's sister planet. In some ways they are very similar.
- There are strong (350 kph) winds at the cloud tops but winds at the surface are very slow, no more than a few kilometers per hour.
- Venus has no magnetic field, perhaps because of its slow rotation.
Earth
- Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest.
- Orbit: 149,600,000 km from Sun
- Diameter: 12,756.3 km
- Mass: 5.972e24 kg
- Where people and animals live
Mars
- Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the seventh largest planet
- Orbit: 227,940,000 km from Sun
- Diameter: 6,794 km
- Mass: 6.4219e23 kg
- Surface area is about the same as the land surface area of Earth
Jupiter
- Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and by far the largest
- Orbit: 778,330,000 km from Sun
- Diameter: 142,984 km
- Mass: 1.900e27 kg
- Jupiter probably has a core of rocky material amounting to something like 10 to 15 Earth-masses.
- dark rings encompass jupiter
Saturn
- Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest
- Orbit: 1,429,400,000 km from Sun
- Diameter: 120,536 km (equatorial)
- Mass: 5.68e26 kg
- The ring particles seem to be composed primarily of water ice
Uranus
- Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third largest (by diameter).
- Uranus is larger in diameter but smaller in mass than Neptune
- Orbit: 2,870,990,000 km from Sun
- Diameter: 51,118 km (equatorial)
- Mass: 8.683e25 kg
Neptune
- The planet is dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds.
- It is the last of the hydrogen and helium gas giants in our solar system.
- It is more than 30 times as far from the sun as earth. The planet takes almost 165 earth years to orbit our sun.
- Neptune has 6 rings.
- 16 Earth hours is one Neptune day.
- Has 14 moons
- 4.5 billion km from the sun