THE SOLAR SYSTEM
The Solar System is a network made up of
The centre of the Solar System is the Sun.
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A galaxy is a big group of stars.
The Solar System is part of a galaxy called the Milky Way.
The Solar System orbits around the centre of the Milky Way.
There are eight planets in the Solar System that all orbit the sun.
They are different:
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four planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) are called terrestrial planets. They are made of rock.
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two planets (Jupiter, Saturn) are called gas giants. They are made of gas.
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two planets (Uranus, and Neptune) are called ice giants. They are made of ice.
5 There are also five “dwarf planets” in our solar system.
They are very small.
Pluto is the biggest. Ceres is the smallest.
MERCURY - THE "MINI" PLANET
Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system and it is the closest to the sun.
It is a terrestrial planet.
It is small and rocky.
Mercury doesn't really have an atmosphere.
Venus spins in the opposite direction to all of the other planets in the solar system.
Its rotation is very slow.
It has volcanoes and mountains and it is covered with clouds.
It is the hottest planet. Its temperature can be hotter than 450 degrees C.
Like Mercury, Venus doesn't have any moons.
VENUS - THE SLOW PLANET
Earth is the only planet in our solar system that supports life.
Earth is a rocky, terrestrial planet. It has mountains, valleys, canyons, plains...
Three-quarters of the Earth is covered with water.
The Earth rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes (and a few seconds) and takes roughly 365 days to orbit once around the sun.
EARTH - THE BLUE PLANET
Mars is known as the ‘red planet’.
Its rocks contain iron and they are covered with rust.
The tallest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons, is on Mars and it is 21km tall.
It can be really cold on Mars: temperature drops off up to -150 degrees C.
It makes the Mars unlivable for humans.
MARS -THE RED PLANET
JUPITER - THE "JUMBO" PLANET
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.
It can contain all the other planets.
Jupiter is a gas planet . It is made of hydrogen and helium.
Saturn is the second biggest planet in the solar system but it is also the lightest as it is made almost entirely of gas (also hydrogen and helium). Saturn has rings that circle around it.
The rings are made up of chunks of rock and ice. Within Saturn's athmosphere we can find the strongest winds of all planets.
SATURN - THE WINDY FRISBEE PLANET
URANUS - THE ULTRA-COLD PLANET
Uranus is the coldest planet in the solar system with a minimum temperature
of -224°C.
It belongs to the ice giants together with Neptune.
NEPTUNE - THE NO-WHERE-NEAR-CLOSE PLANET
Neptune is dark, cold, and very windy. It is furthest away from
the sun and it is the last of the planets in our solar system.
It's made of a thick fog of water, ammonia, and methane.
Its atmosphere is made of hydrogen, helium, and methane. The methane gives Neptune the same blue color as Uranus.
Neptune has six rings, but they're very hard to see.