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Planet Fun Facts: Mercury
Planet Fun Facts: Mercury
Mercury
- Closest planet to the Sun.
- Smallest planet in the solar system.
- Travels once around the sun in 88 Earth days.
- One day on Mercury is about 59 Earth days.
- Mercury has 0 moons.
- Venus was named after the Roman goddess of love. It is the brightest planet in the sky.
- Covered by clouds that trap heat, Venus stays a scorching 864 degrees F - hot enough to melt
lead
- Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system
- Too close to the sun to have moons
- A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus (i.e. it takes more time for Venus
to spin once on its axis than it does for it to go around the Sun)
- It is believed that Venus had an atmosphere similar to Earth, but with the
runaway greenhouse gas effect, it has become hot and inhospitable. It often rains acid rain
(mostly sulfuric acid).
Earth
- Third planet from the Sun.
- Fifth largest planet in the solar system.
- Travels once around the sun in 365.25 Earth days. (the .25 of a day is the reason we have leap
years!)
- One day on Earth is about 24 hours.
- Earth has 1 moon.
- Earth is the only known planet with life forms and liquid water (although water exists in various
forms on other planets and planetary bodies in our solar system)
- Earth is the densest planet in the Solar System.
Mars
- Fourth planet from the Sun.
- Second smallest planet in the solar system.
- Travels once around the sun in 687 Earth days.
- One day on Mars is about a half hour longer than a day on Earth.
- Mars has 2 moons.
- Mars was named after the Roman god of war. It is called the Red Planet due to its red soil (the
red color is due to high iron content)
- Mars has frozen polar caps, just like the North and South Poles on Earth.
- Mars on average is about 139 million miles from Earth (distance varies
depending on both planets' position in their orbits).
- The planet’s thin atmosphere (mostly made of Carbon Dioxide) is hostile to
human life, but Mars has many interesting geological features similar to those
on Earth, such as volcanoes and canyons.
- Olympus Mons - shield volcano on Mars. Largest mountain in the Solar System
rising 24km above the surrounding plain. Base is more than 500km in diameter
- Phobos will crash into Mars in the next 1 million years due to a change in its
orbital pattern.
- In 2018, Curiosity found evidence of organic material on Mars.
- The Mars 2020 rover will launch in 2020 and will gather rocks to bring back to
Earth at a later time (either a manned or unmanned mission) for more in-depth study. It will also
bring instruments to test for a manned mission to occur in the 2040s.
Jupiter
- Fifth planet from the Sun.
- Largest planet in the solar system.
- Travels once around the sun in 12 Earth years.
- One day on Jupiter is about 10 Earth hours.
- Jupiter has 79 moons!
- Saturn’s thousands of beautiful rings are made of billions of rocks and ice particles.
- Galileo Galilei was the first person to view Saturn through a telescope in 1610
- Least dense planet in the solar system (if you were to fill up a giant bathtub and
put Saturn in it, it would float.
- The bands are not always visible because of Saturn’s tilt. When Galileo viewed
Saturn he first called it Saturn’s ears because the tilt made it look like Saturn
had two giant ears.
- Cassini was the orbiter that went up and took pictures of Saturn in (launched
1997, arrived 2004). In 2017 it began diving in between the rings. RIP Cassini
September 15, 2017.
- Saturn is very windy with winds around the equator reaching up to 1,118 m/h.
On Earth the fastest winds get to about 250 m/h.
Uranus
- Seventh planet from the Sun.
- Third largest planet in the solar system.
- Travels once around the sun in 84 Earth years.
- One day on Uranus is about 17 Earth hours.
- Uranus has 27 moons.
- Neptune was discovered in 1846 by Johanne Galle and was named after the Roman god of the
sea.
- A large, gassy planet, its layer of methane makes it appear blue.
- Can only be seen through a telescope.