Information About Planets.
Here is where you can learn about each individual known planet. If you want to learn about a spicific planet, scroll down to the planet's name.
There are nine planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus (pronouned YUR-uh-NIS), and, if you count it, Pluto. There is information about every one of these on this page. Scroll sown to learn a little bit about each one!
There are nine planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus (pronouned YUR-uh-NIS), and, if you count it, Pluto. There is information about every one of these on this page. Scroll sown to learn a little bit about each one!
Mercury.
Mercury is the planet that is closest to the sun. It is also the smallest in the solar system (besides dwarf planet, Pluto). Mercury has no natural satellites and no atmosphere like Earth does, which, by the way, is the reason why we are able to live on Earth.
Mercury's orbit is ellipsed (oval-shaped). Because of how close this planet is to the sun, it orbits around the sun faster than any other planet! Mercury travels about 48 kilometers (30 miles) per second. The temperature on this planet is really extreme! It can reach up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime and touch nearly -280 degrees Fahrenheit in the nighttime! The reason why it gets so cold at night is because it has no atmoshere to retain the heat it has during the daytime! Mercury also has a magnetic field. Some people think that it is a miniature one that of Earth's, although scientists are still unsure about that.
Like Earth and most of the other planets, Mercury has layers, also. Below shows what Mercury's layers would look like if you cut open this planet:
Mercury's orbit is ellipsed (oval-shaped). Because of how close this planet is to the sun, it orbits around the sun faster than any other planet! Mercury travels about 48 kilometers (30 miles) per second. The temperature on this planet is really extreme! It can reach up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime and touch nearly -280 degrees Fahrenheit in the nighttime! The reason why it gets so cold at night is because it has no atmoshere to retain the heat it has during the daytime! Mercury also has a magnetic field. Some people think that it is a miniature one that of Earth's, although scientists are still unsure about that.
Like Earth and most of the other planets, Mercury has layers, also. Below shows what Mercury's layers would look like if you cut open this planet:
The picture kind of makes you do a judgement. Seeing where the core is, it looks like Mercury has only three layers; the crust, mantle, and core. It does not look like Mercury has an inner core and an outer core like Earth does.
Venus.
Maybe you have heard some people say something about Venus being Earth's twin, cousin, sister, etc. If you have, then you probably know what this means. This means that Earth and Venus are actually alike. This is true in some ways. Venus DOES have an atmosphere like Earth, only it is very hot and thick. Some people would say it has a "greenhouse effect". Well in some cases, it does. It is mainly made up of carbon dioxide (All right, to be technical, it is 96%). To look more at what is in the atmosphere of Venus, (and more technical numbers for those of you who like that) visit www.windows2universe.org/venus/atmosphere.html. It will tell you all the information you need to know.
FUN FACT: Venus was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty.
FUN FACT: Venus rotates so slowly that one day on this planet is longer than a year! It takes 224 days for Venus to rotate around the Sun.
Venus has different layers, also.
FUN FACT: Venus was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty.
FUN FACT: Venus rotates so slowly that one day on this planet is longer than a year! It takes 224 days for Venus to rotate around the Sun.
Venus has different layers, also.
The layers of Venus is sort of like Earth's, only Venus has three layers: the crust, the mantle, and the core. This means that there is no inner core or outer core.
Earth.
Earth is our home planet. The reason why we are able to live on this planet is partly because we have an atmosphere. It is also partly because Earth is just the right distance away from the sun so that we do not have too extreme temperatures. Like Mercury, it would be too hot to live there. And Pluto would be too cold to live on.
Earth has gravity, which is the force that pulls everything toward the center of the Earth. That is why we are able to stand on Earth today. Earth has volcanoes and oceans, just like other planets do.
Earth has layers. Most of the other planets do, too. If you saw everything on the home page, you would have seen that Earth has four layers: the crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core. Most of the other planets do not have two seperate cores. The first layer is the crust. That is the part you and I can see; the part that we step on. As you go deeper, there is the mantle. It is just below the crust and is warmer. Underneath there is the outer core. The outer core surrounds the inner core. It is even warmer than the mantle. All the way to the center of Earth is the inner core. It is so hot there that there is a little bit of liquid there. The lava cools and gets brought up to the crust. When they are cooled and formed, they are now rocks. Here is a picture of what Earth might look like if you cut it open:
Earth has gravity, which is the force that pulls everything toward the center of the Earth. That is why we are able to stand on Earth today. Earth has volcanoes and oceans, just like other planets do.
Earth has layers. Most of the other planets do, too. If you saw everything on the home page, you would have seen that Earth has four layers: the crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core. Most of the other planets do not have two seperate cores. The first layer is the crust. That is the part you and I can see; the part that we step on. As you go deeper, there is the mantle. It is just below the crust and is warmer. Underneath there is the outer core. The outer core surrounds the inner core. It is even warmer than the mantle. All the way to the center of Earth is the inner core. It is so hot there that there is a little bit of liquid there. The lava cools and gets brought up to the crust. When they are cooled and formed, they are now rocks. Here is a picture of what Earth might look like if you cut it open:
Mars.
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and was named after the Roman god of war. Since Mars has a cold and thin atmosphere, water cannot exist on this planet. Mars has the largest volcanoes in the solar system. For example, they would be big enough to cover the entire state of New Mexico. Mars is much colder than Earth because of how far away Mars is from the sun.
"Mars likely has a solid core comprised of iron, nickel, and sulfur. The mantle of Mars is probably similar to Earth's in that it is composed mostly of peridotite, which is made up primarily of silicon, oxygen, iron, and magnesium. The crust is probably largely made of the volcanic rock basalt, which is also common in the crusts of the Earth and the moon, although some crustal rocks, especially in the northern hemisphere, may be a form of andesite, a volcanic rock that contains more silica than basalt does." - www.space.com Here is a picture of Mars' layers:
"Mars likely has a solid core comprised of iron, nickel, and sulfur. The mantle of Mars is probably similar to Earth's in that it is composed mostly of peridotite, which is made up primarily of silicon, oxygen, iron, and magnesium. The crust is probably largely made of the volcanic rock basalt, which is also common in the crusts of the Earth and the moon, although some crustal rocks, especially in the northern hemisphere, may be a form of andesite, a volcanic rock that contains more silica than basalt does." - www.space.com Here is a picture of Mars' layers:
Jupiter.
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun, but the fourth brightest object in the sky! It has been known for a really long time as what some people called a "wandering star". Jupiter has really high winds because of how fast it moves. It is stormy all the time there. The biggest storm that Jupiter has is called the "Big Red Spot". Here is a close up on the part of Jupiter that has the Big Red Spot:
If you saw the picture of Jupiter on the Home page, you might have noticed that it has stripes. The light colored stripes are called zones and the dark colored ones are called zones.
Jupiter and Saturn share the same kinds of layers. Take a look at this picture:
Jupiter and Saturn share the same kinds of layers. Take a look at this picture:
Jupiter and Saturn look very similar on the inside judging by this picture, don't they? Well, they are also similar in size.
People think that Saturn is the only one that has rings. That is not true. Jupiter in fact DOES have rings, just not as many and they are very faint. In fact, all gas giants have rings around them.
People think that Saturn is the only one that has rings. That is not true. Jupiter in fact DOES have rings, just not as many and they are very faint. In fact, all gas giants have rings around them.
Saturn.
Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and the second largest (Jupiter is the lead). Saturn is a gas giant. Saturn has an atmosphere that is similar to Jupiter's. It has a very stormy atmosphere. It has structures that are similar to Jupiter's Big Red Spot. Above is a picture of Saturn moving. Saturn has 62 known moons and only 53 are named. A days on Saturn is about 10 hours on Earth. Ugh! The temperature on Saturn by the clouds is -274 degrees fareinheit. Most of the information about Jupiter is true about Saturn! The layers are mostly made up of the same things. They both have rings. They both are almost the same size. They both have almost the same stormy atmosphere and lots more! If you want to see a picture of Saturn's layers, look in Jupiter's section. Even though the Hubble Space Telescope can now take very good pictures of planets in space, the best information comes from space probes. (This goes along the lines with the rest of the planets.) Some of the probes that were used to take pictures of Saturn were: The Pioneer 11, Mariner 11 and 12, And Voyager I and II.
Like almost every other known planet, Saturn has layers, too. Here is a picture of Saturn's layers:
Like almost every other known planet, Saturn has layers, too. Here is a picture of Saturn's layers:
There is a picture of Saturn's layers in Jupiter's section, too, but that shows the similarities between the inside of Jupiter and Saturn.
Neptune.
Neptune is the seventh planet from the sun. Neptune has very extreme cloud cover. It was so extreme that people could not see this planet (along with some other planets) until the telescope was invented. "Neptune's rocky core alone is thought to be roughly equal to Earth's mass." Quoted from www.space.com. Speaking of Neptune's core, here are the layers of Neptune:
Neptune's winds are thought to be the fastest yet in the solar system. They can reach up to 1,500 miles per hour! They were linked with a large storm that Voager 2 tracked in Neptune's southern hemisphere in 1989. This oval-shaped, counterclockwise-spinning "Great Dark Spot" was large enough to contain the entire Earth, and moved westward at nearly 750 miles per hour (1,200 kilometers per hour). This storm seemed to have vanished when the Hubble Space Telescope later searched for it. - quoted from www.space.com. If you read about Jupiter, you learned about the "Big Red Spot". For me, that was kind of a connection to the Great Dark Spot. Take a look at this picture with the Great Dark spot in it:
I really thought the Great Dark Spot was interesting because it was formed the same way the Big Red Spot was formed... by a huge storm! I guess Jupiter has another similar planet!
*If you want to tell us what you think about the similarities between the Great Dark Spot and the Big Red Spot, go to the TELL US tab and add a comment!*
*If you want to tell us what you think about the similarities between the Great Dark Spot and the Big Red Spot, go to the TELL US tab and add a comment!*
Uranus.
Uranus (pronounced UR-uh-NIS) is the eighth planet from the sun.Like the other gas planets, Uranus has bands of clouds that blow around rapidly.
Read more about Uranus l Uranus facts, pictures and information. by nineplanets.org. They are really faint, so can't really see them that well. Like I said in Saturn's section, all of the gas planets have rings. Since Uranus is a gas planet, it has rings, also. But they aren't in a horizontal way. They are vertical. Here is a picture of Uranus' rings:
Read more about Uranus l Uranus facts, pictures and information. by nineplanets.org. They are really faint, so can't really see them that well. Like I said in Saturn's section, all of the gas planets have rings. Since Uranus is a gas planet, it has rings, also. But they aren't in a horizontal way. They are vertical. Here is a picture of Uranus' rings:
See what they look like? Well you can find out LOTS of information when you go to www.nineplanets.uranus.html.
Pluto.
Pluto is the ninth "planet" from the sun. You see, Pluto is not really considered a planet. Technically, it is a dwarf planet. This is because Pluto is so small. Pluto is the coldest planet out of all the others because it is the furthest away. No one has or can travel to Pluto with today's technology because:
1. It is too far away. There would not be enough oxygen to send one astronaut to this planet!
2. If you stayed in space for too long, your bones and muscles would get too weak
It takes 248 Earth years to make one full orbit around the sun. Pluto has layers like the rest of the planets:
1. It is too far away. There would not be enough oxygen to send one astronaut to this planet!
2. If you stayed in space for too long, your bones and muscles would get too weak
It takes 248 Earth years to make one full orbit around the sun. Pluto has layers like the rest of the planets:
Pluto has only two layers probably because it is a dwarf planet. And since dwarf planets are so small, that is probably why.