3 Facts About Each Planet

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Earth: 😯

1. Our amazing planet has been around for quite some time. By researching our planet’s rocks, scientists have calculated the Earth to be around 4.5 billion years old!

2. Have you ever wondered why we have different seasons? I’ll tell you –– it’s because the Earth is tilted 23.4 degrees on its ‘axis’, an imaginary line straight through the middle of the planet form the North Pole to the South Pole. This means that different parts of the globe are tilted towards the sun at different times of the year (or at different times during its orbit).

3. Earth is the only planet in our solar system known to support life. This is because it has two very important things that living creatures need to survive –– lots of oxygen and lots of water! Its distance from the sun means it’s not too hot and not too cold for creatures to live on, too.


Mars: 😯

1. Mars and Earth have approximately the same landmass. Even though Mars has only 15% of the Earth’s volume and just over 10% of the Earth’s mass, around two thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered in water. Martian surface gravity is only 37% of the Earth’s (meaning you could leap nearly three times higher on Mars).

2. Mars is home to the tallest mountain in the solar system. Olympus Mons, a shield volcano, is 21km high and 600km in diameter. Despite having formed over billions of years, evidence from volcanic lava flows is so recent many scientists believe it could still be active.

3. Pieces of Mars have fallen to Earth. Scientists have found tiny traces of Martian atmosphere within meteorites violently ejected from Mars, then orbiting the solar system amongst galactic debris for millions of years, before crash landing on Earth. This allowed scientists to begin studying Mars prior to launching space missions.


Venus: 😯

1. At one point it was thought Venus might be a tropical paradise. The dense clouds of sulphuric acid surrounding Venus make it impossible to view its surface from outside its atmosphere. It was only when radio mapping was developed in the 1960s that scientists were able to observe the extreme temperatures and hostile environment.

2. Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system. The average surface temperature is 462 °C, and because Venus does not tilt on its axis, there is no seasonal variation. The dense atmosphere of around 96.5 percent carbon dioxide traps heat and causes a greenhouse effect.

3. Venus is also known as the Morning Star and the Evening Star. Early civilisations thought Venus was two different bodies. These were called Phosphorus and Hesperus by the Greeks, and Lucifer and Vesper by the Romans. When Venus’ orbit around the Sun overtakes Earth’s orbit, it changes from being visible after sunset to being visible before sunrise.Mayan astronomers made detailed observations of Venus as early as 650 AD.


Saturn: 😯

1. Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen. It exists in layers that get denser farther into the planet. Eventually, deep inside, the hydrogen becomes metallic. At the core lies a hot interior.

2. 20 new moons were discovered in 2019 near Saturn so it bring the total to 82 moons for Saturn , 3 more than Jupiter. And that means it's the planet with the most moons!

3. Saturn’s atmosphere is composed primarily of hydrogen (96%) and helium (3%) with traces of other substances like methane, ammonia, acetylene, ethane, propane and phosphine. Winds in the upper atmosphere can reach speeds of 500 metres a second, these combined with heat rising from within the planet’s interior cause yellow and gold bands.


Uranus: 😯

1. Uranus was officially discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781. It is too dim to have been seen by the ancients. At first Herschel thought it was a comet, but several years later it was confirmed as a planet. Herscal tried to have his discovery named “Georgian Sidus” after King George III. The name Uranus was suggested by astronomer Johann Bode. The name comes from the ancient Greek deity Ouranos.

2. Uranus hits the coldest temperatures of any planet. With minimum atmospheric temperature of -224°C Uranus is nearly coldest planet in the solar system. While Neptune doesn’t get as cold as Uranus it is on average colder. The upper atmosphere of Uranus is covered by a methane haze which hides the storms that take place in the cloud decks.

3. Uranus has two sets of very thin dark coloured rings. The ring particles are small, ranging from a dust-sized particles to small boulders. There are eleven inner rings and two outer rings. They probably formed when one or more of Uranus’s moons were broken up in an impact. The first rings were discovered in 1977 with the two outer rings being discovered in Hubble Space Telescope images between 2003 and 2005.


Jupiter: 😯

1. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot: Situated 22° south of Jupiter’s equator, the Great Red Spot is a storm that has been raging for at least 186 years. Upper estimates suggest the storm could have been in existence for over three and a half centuries. The first observation of the Great Red Spot was in the seventeenth century, when telescopes first started to be used. However, it is unknown whether this is the same red spot that we see today, or whether Jupiter has had many such storms that have come and gone.The red spot spins anticlockwise and takes six (Earth) days to rotate completely. Another mystery surrounding the red spot is what makes it red. Scientists have several theories, for instance, the presence of red organic compounds.

2. Jupiter has unique cloud features.The upper atmosphere of Jupiter is divided into cloud belts and zones. They are made primarily of ammonia crystals, sulfur, and mixtures of the two compounds.

3. Jupiter has a thin ring system. Its rings are composed mainly of dust particles ejected from some of Jupiter's smaller worlds during impacts from incoming comets and asteroids. The ring system begins some 92,000 kilometres above Jupiter’s cloud tops and stretches out to more than 225,000 km from the planet. They are between 2,000 to 12,500 kilometres thick.


Neptune: 😯

1. Neptune was not known to the ancients. It is not visible to the naked eye and was first observed in 1846. Its position was determined using mathematical predictions. It was named after the Roman god of the sea.

2. Neptune’s Great Dark Spot: The Great Dark Spot in the southern atmosphere of Neptune was first discovered in 1989 by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. It was an incredibly large rotating storm system with winds of up to 1,500 miles per hour, the strongest winds recorded on any planet. How such powerful winds were discovered on a planet so far from the sun is still considered a mystery to this day. Data from the Voyager 2 spacecraft also showed that the Great Dark Spot varied significantly in size during their brief pass of the planet. When Neptune was viewed by the Hubble Space telescope in 1994 the Great Dark Spot had vanished, although a different dark spot had appeared in Neptune’s northern hemisphere.

3. The atmosphere of Neptune is made of hydrogen and helium, with some methane. The methane absorbs red light, which makes the planet appear a lovely blue. High, thin clouds drift in the upper atmosphere.


Mercury: 😯

1. A year on Mercury is just 88 days long.One solar day (the time from noon to noon on the planet’s surface) on Mercury lasts the equivalent of 176 Earth days while the sidereal day (the time for 1 rotation in relation to a fixed point) last 56 Earth days. Mercury is nearly tidally locked to the Sun and over time this has slowed the rotation of the planet to almost match its orbit around the Sun. Mercury also has the highest orbital eccentricity of all the planets with its distance from the Sun ranging from 46 to 70 million km.

2. Mercury is the smallest planet in the Solar System. One of five planets visible with the naked eye a, Mercury is just 4,879 Kilometres across its equator, compared with 12,742 Kilometres for the Earth.

3. Mercury is the second densest planet. Even though the planet is small, Mercury is very dense. Each cubic centimetre has a density of 5.4 grams, with only the Earth having a higher density. This is largely due to Mercury being composed mainly of heavy metals and rock.


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Level 51
Nov 25, 2020
Neptune isn't the coldest planet? Wow
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Level 51
Nov 25, 2020
You learn something new every day!
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Level 55
Nov 25, 2020
Might want to create headings.
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Level 51
Nov 25, 2020
Don't need to anymore.
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Level 52
Nov 25, 2020
Good, but why out of order?
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Level 51
Nov 25, 2020
Cause I feel like it
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Level 63
Feb 27, 2021
lol