Venus
The next planet in out series is Venus. There is no one who is credited with the discovery of Venus. Venus is the brightest of the five planets that can be seen in the night sky without the use of a telescope. Venus was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Venus and Earth are almost the same size, have about the same mass, and have a similar composition. They are also neighboring planets. However, Venus has an atmosphere that is about 100 times thicker than Earth’s and has surface temperatures that are extremely hot. Venus rotates backwards compared to Earth and the other planets. Read more
Mercury
Next in the Planet series is Mercury. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. It’s orbit around the sun is very elliptical, like a stretched out circle. Mercury’s distance from the sun ranges from 28.6 million miles (46 million km) to 43.4 million miles (69.8 million km). The surface gravity on Mercury is less than the surface gravity on Earth. The surface gravity on Mercury is only about 38% of the surface gravity on Earth, so if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh only 38 pounds on Mercury. Read more
Saturn
In the planet series n this blog, here is Saturn. Saturn is the second largest planet in our solar system. Saturn is about 75 thousand miles (120,000 km) in diameter and is about ten times the diameter of Earth. Around 764 Earths could fit inside Saturn.
Saturn’s rings most likely formed when comets, asteroids or even moons broke up in orbit around Saturn due to Saturn’s very strong gravity. The pieces of these objects kept colliding with each other and broke into even smaller pieces. These pieces gradually spread around Saturn to form its rings. Read more
Jupiter
In the planet series on this blog, here is Jupiter. Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet in our solar system rotating once in just under 10 hours. That is very fast considering how large Jupiter is. This also means that Jupiter has the shortest day of all the planets in our solar system. Jupiter is a gas planet. Jupiter’s equator rotates a bit faster than its polar regions at a speed of 28,273 miles/hour (about 43,000 k/h). Jupiter’s day varies from 9 hours and 56 minutes around the poles to 9 hours and 50 minutes close to the equator. Read more
Neptune
Neptune‘s atmosphere is made up of hydrogen, helium and methane. The methane in Neptune’s upper atmosphere absorbs the red light from the sun but reflects the blue light from the sun back into space. This is why Neptune appears to be blue. The Romans named the five planets closest to the sun after their most important gods. Later, when telscopes were used, other planets were discovered. Astronomers decided to continue naming the Planets after Roman Gods. Neptune was named after the Roman god of the Sea. Read more
Uranus
Uranus, the third largest planet in the solar system. It has a diameter of 31,765 miles (51,118 kilometers) which is about four times the diameter of Earth. Although Uranus is much larger than Earth, its surface gravity is less than the surface gravity on Earth. This is because Uranus is made up of gases and is not solid like Earth. This makes Uranus very light for its size. The surface gravity on Uranus is about 86% of the surface gravity on Earth, so if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 86 pounds on Uranus. Uranus is more than 19 times farther from the sun than Earth is. Uranus is an average distance of 1,783,939,400 miles or 2,870,972,200 kilometers from the sun. Read more
Galaxies and Planets
It is getting to the point where planets are being found everywhere. Fifty here, fifty there, well maybe I am exaggerating a little, but there are a lot of planets out there. Now that we know for sure that planets exist outside our own solar system, maybe we should stop counting the ones that we find. Why do I say this? Our galaxy is only one of billions, or even more. It contains over 100,000,000,000 stars. If only one star in three has planets around it and lets say the average amount of planets is 4, we are looking at a heck of a lot of planets my friends. Read more
