Planet Fun Facts: Mercury

Planet Fun Facts
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.
Image from Space.com
- Mercury was named after the Roman messenger of the gods.

- It is rocky and heavily cratered, and is the planet with the fastest solar revolution
in our Solar System.
- Some of the craters never receive sunlight, which is how parts of Mercury can
get down to -176 degree F
Venus
- Second planet from the Sun.
- Sixth largest planet in the solar system.
- One day on Venus is about 117 Earth days.
- Venus has 0 moons.
Image from space.com
- 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.
- 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!
- Jupiter was named after the Roman king of the gods

- Jupiter has a giant spinning storm - The Great Red Spot - that has been observed for more than
300 years (starting to shrink in recent history)
- The outer 33 moons of Jupiter spin the opposite direction of Jupiter which is unusual and
indicates the moons were asteroids that were sucked into Jupiter’s orbit after the initial system
was formed.
- Juno is the name of the orbiter sent to Jupiter to take pictures and perform scientific
experiments. When Earth and Jupiter are at their closest points, the distance to Jupiter is only
365 million miles.
- Jupiter has 1000x more atmospheric pressure than Earth. Jupiter also has the strongest
magnetic field of any planet so anything passing near it, such as an asteroid, is either destroyed
by gravitational tides or captured into its orbit.
Saturn
- Sixth planet from the Sun.
- Second largest planet in the solar system.
- Travels once around the sun in about 29 and a half Earth years.
- One day on Saturn is just over 10 and a half Earth hours.
- Saturn has 62 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.
- One day on Uranus is about 17 Earth hours.
- Uranus has 27 moons.
Image from space-facts.com
- All of Uranus’s moons are named after Shakespearean characters.

- Uranus was discovered in 1781 by William Herschel.
- Uranus spins on its side (i.e. the axis goes horizontal through the middle).
- Can only be seen through a telescope
- Only planet not named after a Roman god, instead named after the Greek god of the sky.
Neptune
- Eighth and last planet from the Sun.
- Forth largest planet in the solar system.
- One day on Neptune is about 16 Earth hours.
- Neptune has 14 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.

Planet Fun Facts: Mercury

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Planet Fun Facts

Image from Space.com

- Mercury was named after the Roman messenger of the gods.

Image from space.com

Image from space.com

Image from space.com

Image from space.com

- Jupiter was named after the Roman king of the gods

Image from space.com

Image from space-facts.com

- All of Uranus’s moons are named after Shakespearean characters.

Image from space.com

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