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The Solar System
Rang 4, 5, 6.
Knockconan N.S
2010
Jupiter
The planet Jupiter is the largest
planet in the solar system.
Jupiter has 16 moons.
It is is 483 million miles away from
the sun.
If you were 12 years old on Earth, on
Jupiter you would be only 1 year
old.
Jupiter was the King of the Roman
Gods and the patron of the Roman
state.
To the ancient Greeks, he was known
as Zeus, ruler of the Greek Gods
and Mount Olympus.
URANUS
The icy planet Uranus is a smaller version of Jupiter.
It has faint rings and a number of moons.
Uranus takes about 84 years to orbit the sun.
It rotates on its side and so half the time one pole is
toward the sun and then the other making each of the
four seasons last about 20 years.
The faint bluish colour of the planet is because the
methane gas in the atmosphere absorbs red light and
reflects blue light.
Uranus was the ancient Greek deity of the Heavens,
the earliest supreme god.
Mercury is a small, rocky planet.
It has been visited by the Mariner 10
spacecraft.
Mariner 10 mapped about half of Mercury's
surface.
Scientists think that there may be *volcanic
activity* on Mercury.
They are still studying information sent to Earth
from the Mariner spacecraft to make sure.
The temperature on Mercury ranges from 90K
to 700 K.
It was once believed that there was no water
on Mercury, but this turned out to be false.
There is evidence of ice at Mercury's north
pole. The ice hasn't melted because it is
protected from the Sun's heat by shadows of
some craters.
Mercury has no moons.
Mercury is the innermost
and smalle
Mercury
In Roman mythology Mercury is the god of commerce, travel and thievery.
Mercury is also known as Hermes, the messenger of the Gods, in Greek
mythology. The planet probably received this name because it moves so quickly
across the sky.
Venus has been known
since perhistoric times.
Venus
It is the brightest object in
the sky except for the sun
and the moon.
The first spacecraft to
visit Venus was mariner 2
in 1962.
Venus is the second
planet from the sun it is
108,200,000 km from the
sun.
It is the sixth largest
planet.
Venus has no moons.
They say that Earth and Venus are like
sisters. Venus can be 900 degrees
Fahrenheit. Venus was named after the
goddess of love and beauty. It is so hot
that a vehicle will not last more than 30
minutes, it will evaporate. Venus is called
the greenhouse. Venus is very small.
Venus is covered with clouds. Venus is 67
million miles from the sun.
By Ciara Woods & Sinead Rafferty
5th Class
Pluto
Pluto is the farthest planet
from the Sun and by far
the smallest. Pluto is
smaller than all nine of
the solar system's
planets. In fact its no
longer really considered
a planet.
It’s orbit on average is
5,913,520,000 from the
sun
Pluto is the only planet that
has not been visited by a
spacecraft.
Pluto has three moons:
It is so far away that no
satellites have been sent
to it so we do not have a
good picture of it.
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun,
is commonly referred to as the
Red Planet due to its reddish
appearance from Earth.
The planet is named after the
Roman God of War, Mars.
It is the seventh largest planet in our
solar system.
The yellow-orange colour of the
Martian surface is due to the
presence of oxidized iron.
The pink-orange colour of the sky is
caused by extremely fine red dust
that is suspended in the thin
atmosphere of Mars.
Mars
Very strong winds and vast dust storms
sometimes blow through the entire
planet for months.
Mars has two tiny moons which orbit
very close to the surface.
Mars is a small, rocky planet which is
cold and lifeless.
The first spacecraft to visit Mars was
Mariner 4 in 1965. Several others
followed including the two Viking
Landers in 1976. After a long break,
Mars Pathfinder landed successfully on
Mars on July 4, 1997.
Mars has permanent ice caps at both
poles made up mostly of solid carbon
dioxide. We know this as "dry ice."
Neptune
Neptune is a gas giant like Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.
It is the smallest one in the solar system.
Although it is traditionally reported that the planet is the eighth from the
Sun, this isn’t always true. Pluto has an elliptical orbit, which means it
occasionally is closer to the Sun than Neptune. This only occurs
during brief periods.
Neptune is comprised primarily of hydrogen and has a very active
atmosphere. Winds can reach over 1,200 miles per hour and storms
are frequent. Neptune has a big blue spot similar to the red spot storm
found on Jupiter.
It also has faint rings similar to those found on Jupiter.
EARTH
Earth is the only planet that has
plants and animals living on it.
The worlds population has grown
tremendously over the past two
thousand years.
In 1999, the world’s population
passed the six billion mark.
The average distance from Earth to
the sun is 93,020,000 miles
(149,669,180km)
The average distance to the moon is
238,857 miles (384,403.1km)
Earth has one moon.
The Moon
Some of the planets have many moons. A moon is a satellite that orbits a
planet. Earth has one moon. The average centre-to-centre distance from
the Earth to the Moon is 384,403 kilometres (238,857 miles), about thirty
times the diameter of the Earth.
The Moon's diameter is 3,474 kilometres (2,159 miles) a little more than a
quarter of that of the Earth. Gravity on the moon is about 17 percent of that
at the Earth's surface.
The Moon is the only celestial body on which human beings have made a
manned landing. The first manned lunar mission was by NASAs Apollo 8 in
1968 and there were further manned lunar landings between 1969 and
1972.
The surface of Earth's Moon is marked by impact craters which form when
asteroids and comets crash with the lunar surface. There are about half a
million craters with diameters greater than 1 km on the Moon.
The Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth with respect to the fixed
stars about once every 27.3 days
Earth's ocean tides are initiated by the tidal force of Moon's gravity.