#1Mercury is closest to the Sun in the order of the planets, therefore its days and years are obviously shorter than Earth. Though this is true, a year on Mercury is shorter than a day in Earth days and years. A year on Mercury is 88 days, but a day is 176 Earth days. It takes longer for Mercury to spin on its own axis rather than to travel around the Sun. |
#2All of the planet in the solar system rotate around the Sun. Since the Sun is so massive it attracts all of the planets with its gravity. They travel around the Sun in an elliptical shape. When a planet completes one rotation around the Sun it is considered one year. |
#3You may go outside in the winter and think its freezing, but this Ice Giant gets even colder. Uranus is the coldest planet in the Solar System. The surface temperature of Uranus has reached freezing temperatures of -224 degrees Celsius! |
#4Venus is very special compared to the other planets. This is because the rotation of Venus is opposite that of the other planets. Besides Venus and Uranus, all planets rotate counter-clockwise. Rotating in the opposite direction is called "retrograde rotation" because it was most likely caused by a collision with an asteroid. This would change the direction of the rotation. |
#5Many think that Saturn to be the only planet with rings around it. This is incorrect because Jupiter also has a ring! Although not easily seen, there is a ring around Jupiter mostly made of dust particles from asteroid collisions. It is between 2,000 and 12,500 km thick. |
#6The Ringed Planet, Saturn is known for its huge rings that wrap around the planet, but it also has many other cool facts. Saturn is extremely windy. It has the strongest winds of any planet, measuring at 1,100 MPH at most! You would get blown away pretty quickly! |
#7The Red Planet, Mars. We have many mountains on Earth, but those aren't the only mountains in our Solar System. Mars actually has the tallest of them all! The mountain is named Olympus Mons, and it 21 km high. It isn't just any mountain, its a volcano! |
#8How did the planets get their names? All of the planets except for Earth were named after Greek or Roman gods. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Mercury were named after Roman gods. While Uranus was named after a Greek god. Earth was just named after the German/English word for ground, unlucky! |
#9My favorite Earth fact has to do with the tides on Earth. as we know, Earth has 1 moon, the gravitational pull between these two massive objects causes the tides present on Earth. |
#10Neptune, god of the sea. Also a planet. This blue planet has a massive ongoing storm. This storm is similar to the "Great Red Spot" on Jupiter, but it is known as the "Great Dark Spot". The size of the storm is roughly that of Earth, with a matching smaller storm the size of our moon! |