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The Moon
Earth
The Sun
Mars
Pluto
Stars
Jupiter
Comets
Planets
Saturn
Meteors
Mercury
Uranus
Astronauts
Venus
Neptune
The Moon is our closest
neighbour in space. It seems
bigger and brighter than the
stars, but really its much smaller. It
only seems bigger because it is closer
to us than the stars. There is no
water or air on the moon. Our moon
travels around the earth just as the
earth travels around the sun.
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The Sun is a star. Of all the
stars, the sun is closest to us.
Because it is near, it seems to be
the biggest and brightest star
but it isn’t. Its really only a
medium sized star.
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Stars are huge balls of glowing
gases. Astronomers are not sure
why stars twinkle. They think it’s
because the Earth’s air is moving.
When light from a star passes
through moving air, the stars
appear to twinkle. Very hot stars
are blue to bluish white. Cool
stars are red. The sun is a
medium-hot star. Stars stay in
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the same place in the sky.
•Planets move around the sun.
•Most planets would not be good to live on.
Mercury and Venus are too hot. Mars is too
cold and covered in red dust. Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are also
too cold. But Earth is just right!
•Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.
•Apart from the moon, Venus is the
brightest object in the night sky.
•Mars is known as the red planet.
•Over 1000 earths could fit inside Jupiter.
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•Pluto is the smallest planet.
•Uranus and Neptune are nearly 4 times as
big as the Earth.
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•Mercury is the planet closest to
the sun.
•It is very hot on Mercury, because
it is so close to the sun. It is too hot for
plants or animals to live there.
• Mercury is very hot during the day and
very cold at night.
• On the planet Mercury, a year only has
88 earth days. Mercury is the fastest
planet orbiting the sun.
• It has no water, no air, and no moons.
• Mercury is a small planet with craters
and cliffs..
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•Venus is the hottest planet.
• Venus is hotter than Mercury
because it is covered with thick
yellow clouds. These thick yellow clouds
keep in the heat like a blanket.
• The thick yellow clouds have a poisonous acid in them.
• The air has enough heat and pressure to crack
spaceships.
• Venus has many storms with thunder and lightning.
• Venus spins backwards.
• Venus is the brightest planet that can be seen from
earth.
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• Earth is the only planet with life
on it – people, animals, and plants.
• It is the only planet in the solar
system That has life on it.
• It is in the perfect place. It is not too close
to the sun and not too far away.
• Earth is called the “Water Planet” because it
is the only planet with the water we need to
live.
• Earth has a thin layer of gases around it.
This is the air we breathe.
• It is a very rocky planet covered with
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water.
•Mars is often called the “Red Planet”
because red is its color. It is covered with
rocks and sand.
• Mars has dusty red soil. The red dust in
the air makes the sky look pink. Sometimes Mars has dust
storms that last for months.
• Mars has a huge volcano called Olympus Mons.
• Scientists think Mars used to have water in rivers or
oceans. It still has ice at the poles, but it is a desert
planet now.
• Mars orbits our sun in 687 days. One year on Mars has
687 days. One year on Earth has 365 days.
• Mars spins like a top at the same time it is orbiting
the sun, just like Earth does.
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Jupiter is the biggest planet in the
solar system.
• Jupiter is made mostly of gas.
• It has clouds and storms. There is a
very big storm on Jupiter called the “Red Spot”.
• Jupiter has a thin ring system made of dust.
• Jupiter has 16 moons.
• Jupiter orbits the sun very slowly. It takes
Jupiter 12 Earth years to orbit the sun one time.
• One day on Jupiter is only 10 hours long.
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•Saturn is a big planet, and
people can see it without a
telescope.
• Saturn is made of gas.
• It has pretty rings around it made
of rocks and ice.
• The rings get their pretty colors,
because the sun shines on them from far
away!
• Saturn has more than 20 moons.
• Saturn takes almost 30 Earth
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years to orbit the sun!
•Uranus is tilted on its side. It looks like a
spinning top that fell down. Scientists think
that a big asteroid could have knocked it over.
• The whole planet is covered by a thick blue-green
fog.
• Uranus has rings like Saturn. The rings of Uranus are not
as pretty or easy to see as Saturn’s rings. Its rings are
made of chunks of black rocks.
• Uranus is made up mostly of ice. It is very cold on
Uranus.
• Uranus has 18 moons.
• A year on Uranus is very long. It takes Uranus 84
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Earth years to orbit our sun.
Neptune is a blue color. It is
made mostly of gas.
• Neptune has white clouds that
Look like stripes.
• Neptune has a spot called “The Great Dark
Spot”. It is a huge storm.
• It has the fastest winds on any planet.
The winds can reach 700 miles an hour.
• It takes Neptune 165 years to orbit the
sun one time.
• Neptune has 8 moons.
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Pluto is the very smallest planet. It
is the last one in the solar
system.
• It is very cold on Pluto because it is
so far from the sun. The temperature on Pluto
may be -300 degrees.
• Scientists think that there is no life on Pluto.
• Pluto has one big moon called Charon.
• We have not learned much about Pluto,
because it is so far away.
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A comet has an icy inside
and is covered by black dust.
As a comet gets closer to the
Earth, the ice begins to change
from a solid to a gas. The gas
spreads out in a large cloud called a
Coma. Comets are only able to be
seen in the sky once or twice in 100
years. They stay visible for several
days and even weeks.
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Meteors start out as bits of rock
or metal that travel around the
sun. But sometimes they plunge
into Earth’s atmosphere. The
friction makes them glow red hot
and they are then called meteors.
Meteors flash in the sky every
night. They are sometimes called
shooting stars, but they are not
stars. We see the bright flash
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for only a few seconds.
On July 20th, 1969, Neil
Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz”
Aldrin became the first men to
set foot on the moon. Astronauts
eat special food in space. You have
to be careful when you drink in
space or the liquid will just float
away.
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