SOLAR SYSTEM
The Solar System includes the Sun, the Earth and all of the other planets, asteroids and comets that go around and around it.
You may think that the Earth is a pretty big place , but the Earth isn’t even the biggest planet in the Solar System. The biggest planet is Jupiter , you could fit 1,321 Earths inside Jupiter. The Sun is even bigger than Jupiter , it would take 1.3 million planets the size of Earth to fill the same volume as the Sun.
Everything in the Solar System revolves around the Sun. The Sun is a star , a massive ball of hot gas that gives off light and heat.
There are eight planets that orbit around the Sun.
The closest planet to the Sun is Mercury, and the farthest away is Neptune.
The biggest planet is Jupiter, and the smallest planet is Mercury.
The Earth is the only planet that we know has creatures living on it.
The Earth rotates as it orbits the Sun. It takes one day to complete a rotation.
It takes 365 days for the Earth to complete one circuit around the Sun. We call this a year.
The Sun is just one of hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy that we live in, which is called the Milky Way. The whole Universe has at least 100 billion galaxies in it.
You are held onto the surface of the Earth by a force called gravity. This is the same force that keeps the Earth and the other planets orbiting around the Sun.
Not everything in the Solar system orbits directly around the Sun. The Moon orbits around the Earth.
The Sun is 93 million miles from the Earth. The light from the Sun only takes 8 minutes to travel to the Earth, but it would take Usain Bolt – the fastest man on Earth – 450 years to run from the Sun to the Earth.
The Earth travels around the Sun in a loop that is shaped a bit like an oval. We call this the Earth’s orbit.
The Earth is always spinning around , sometimes from where you stand on the Earth you can see the Sun and sometimes the part of the Earth where you are is facing away from the Sun so it is dark . It takes 24 hours for the Earth to spin all the way around, and we call this a day.
There are eight planets that orbit around the Sun. In order, going from the closest planet to the Sun, to the one that is farthest away, they are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
All of the planets and the Sun are round, like balls.
There is a lot of difference between the planets. Some planets like Earth are made of rock, and some like Jupiter are made of gas. The hottest planet is Venus where the average temperature is 460°C, and the coldest is Uranus, which is -220°C.
Mars is sometimes the called ‘the red planet’ because the rocks that it is made from are red. It is the closest planet to Earth, and is slightly smaller than Earth.
The biggest planet is Jupiter. Jupiter is made of gas and is so big that you could fit 1,321 planets the size of Earth inside it. There is even a storm on Jupiter that is bigger than Earth – this storm has been blowing for hundreds of years and is called the ‘Great Red Spot’.
Saturn is famous for having rings of small pieces of ice and dust around it. Like Jupiter, it is made of gas and is much bigger than Earth.
The Moon is a ball of rock that orbits around the Earth, in the same way that the Earth orbits around the Sun. It is much smaller than the Earth and takes 28 days to complete one orbit. The Moon is 239,000 miles away and is the only place in the Solar System that man has travelled to apart from Earth.