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THE PLANETS
O U R
N E I G H B O R S
I N
T H E
S O L A R
S Y S T E M
“SOMEWHERE, SOMETHING INCREDIBLE IS WAITING TO BE KNOWN.”
S I Z E S
T O
Mercury is the smallest of the eight planets in our Solar System.
It is also the closest to the sun. Mercury got its name from
the fast-moving messenger Greek God, due to its fast pace
around the Sun. The surface of Mercury looks like Earth’s moon.
It is covered with holes formed from the impact of asteroids
and other objects over time. Mercury has no atmosphere
and is inhospitable to any potential life due to its extreme
temperatures and chemical makeup.
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CARL SAGAN
It is the hope with this poster that you will become both more informed and
enthralled with the bodies in our solar system that we call home. Information and
education is the key to progress and without it, we may never see the other side
of our own corner of the galaxy. As Carl Sagan so eloquently mused decades
ago on his television show, Cosmos: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting
to be known.”
The universe is a vast space, and our solar system is but a tiny speck of dust within
it. But even so, it holds a stunning array of planets that are diverse and intriguing.
These planets are our celestial neighbors. We learn their names from early in
grade school, we study their chemical makeups and moons, and some of us
even bemoan their lack of habitablity. Many of us may not be so familiar with
just how diverse they really are and how they compare to one another in thrilling
and immense ways. With the graphs below, you will find that Jupiter is the king
among planets, that Mars might be considered our most popular planet (but not
in the way you might expect) and that our own solar system holds curiosities and
awe-inspiring facts you may have never seen before.
MERCURY
VENUS
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7
Earth days. It has no natural satellite. It is named after the
Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the
brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent
magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows. Venus is a
terrestrial planet and is sometimes called Earth’s “sister planet”
because of their similar size, mass, proximity to the Sun and
bulk composition, though little else about its surface would be
inviting to life on Earth. It has the densest atmosphere of the
four terrestrial planets,
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S C A L E
EARTH
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, the densest planet in the
Solar System, the largest of the Solar System’s four terrestrial
planets, and the only astronomical object known to harbor life.
The earliest evidene of life on Earth can be traced back to at
least 3.5 billion years ago. It is estimated that 99% of all species
that have ever existed on Earth are now extinct, despite the
planet still being inhabited by 8.7 million species currently.
~143,000 km
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SPECIES
MERCURY
VENUS
MARS
EARTH
C H E M I C A L
JUPITER
SATURN
URANUS
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MARS
NEPTUNE
Mars, a planet about 1/6th the size of our Earth, is more than
142 million miles from the Sun. Mars is known as the Red Planet,
due to the red color of its surface from the iron in its soil. Mars
has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos. Mars is a terrestrial
planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features
reminiscent of Earth such as volcanoes, valleys, deserts, and
polar ice caps of Earth.
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M A K E U P
JUPITER
VENUS
MERCURY
56%
35%
8%
1%
96% C O 2
3.5% N I T R O G E N
0.5% O T H E R
OXYGEN
SODIUM
HELIUM
HYDROGEN
JUPITER
EARTH
MARS
95% C O 2
2.7% N I T R O G E N
1.6% A R G O N
0.7% O T H E R
SATURN
78% N I T R O G E N
21% O X Y G E N
1% O T H E R
URANUS
Jupiter, a planet named for the king of the Gods, is the largest in
our Solar System. It is a “gas giant “with a mass one-thousandth
that of the Sun, but two and a half times that of all the other
planets in the Solar System combined! On average, this planet
is the third-brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and
Venus. Jupiter has been reached by robotic spacecraft sent
from Earth, most notably during the early Pioneer and Voyager
flyby missions and later by the Galileo orbiter.
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SATURN
NEPTUNE
Adorned with thousands of beautiful ringlets, Saturn is unique
among the planets. All four gas giant planets have rings -made of chunks of ice and rock -- but none are as spectacular
or as complicated as Saturn’s. Like the other gas giants, Saturn
is mostly a massive ball of hydrogen and helium.
90% HYDROGEN
10% HELIUM
94% H Y D R O G E N
6% H E L I U M
C O M P A R E
T H E
85% H Y D R O G E N
13% H E L I U M
2% A R G O N
85% H Y D R O G E N
13% H E L I U M
6% A R G O N
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URANUS
Uranus is the only giant planet whose equator is nearly at right
angles to its orbit, which many astronomers agree could be
due to a collision with an Earth-sized object that caused the
tilt. This planet is nearly a twin in size to its neigher, Neptune.
LENGTH OF DAY (hours)
MERCURY
4,222.6
2,802
VENUS
MARS
EARTH
24.7
24
G R A V I T Y ( m / s 2)
D E N S I T Y ( k g / v m 3)
23.1
JUPITER
11
NEPTUNE
9.8
EARTH
EARTH
5,514
MERCURY
5,427
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MARS
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MISSION
MOONS
13
RINGS
5,243
VENUS
SATURN
1
3,933
URANUS
17.2
VENUS
8.9
NEPTUNE
NEPTUNE
16.1
URANUS
8.7
JUPITER
1,326
JUPITER
10.7
MARS
3.7
URANUS
1,271
SATURN
9.9
MERCURY
3.7
SATURN
1,638
687
NEPTUNE
Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, Neptune is the
last of the hydrogen and helium gas giants in our solar system.
More than 30 times as far from the sun as Earth, the planet
takes almost 165 Earth years to orbit our sun. In 2011 Neptune
completed its first orbit since its discovery in 1846.
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