Solar System

• consists of an average star we call the sun
• 8 planets not counting Pluto
• Inner Solar System; Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, and Satellites and space junk
• Outer Solar System; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Comets
• Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars. They called these objects "planets," meaning wanderers, and named them after Roman deities

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• Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are called the terrestrial planets because they have solid rocky surfaces
• Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are called gas giants
• Pluto has a solid but icier surface than the terrestrial planets
• Nearly every planet, and some of the moons, have an atmosphere
• From 1610 to 1977, Saturn was thought to be the only planet with rings. We now know that Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune also have ring systems, although Saturn's is by far the largest

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• The sun has a magnetic field, the heliosphere, which envelops our entire solar system
• 100,000,000 is the estimated number of galaxies in our universe
• It would take about 100,000 years to cross the Milky Way at the speed of light
• 5% of the universe is made of normal matter, including Earth, all planets, and all stars
• In 1995 the first planet was discovered beyond our Solar System

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• The sun counts for almost all the mass in our Solar System, 99.8%, leaving .2% for all the planets and everything else
• The sun's core temperature is about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit
• Our Sun is 4.6 billion years. It will shed its outer layers and become a white dwarf in a few billion years
• Pluto is about two-thirds the diameter of Earth's moon
• The first five recognized dwarf planets are Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake

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• The temperature of Pluto is minus 387 degrees Fahrenheit
• Comets are chunks of frozen gases, ice and rock that form an atmosphere and twin tails as their orbits bring them close to the sun
• There have been +3000 comets discovered. There could be billion more orbiting the sun
• If the sun were as tall as typical front door, Earth would be the size of a nickel and the moon would be the size of a green pea
• Nearly a twin in size to Neptune, Uranus has more methane in its mainly hydrogen and helium atmosphere than Jupiter or Saturn. Methane gives Uranus its blue tint

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• Uranus has 13 rings
• Uranus has the largest tilt of any planet in our Solar System and spins on its side
• Average temperature of Uranus is -350 degrees Fahrenheit
• Length of a day; 17 Earth hours/ Length of a year; 84 Earth years
• Uranus is an ice giant

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• Meteor; A streak of light (a "shooting star") that suddenly appears in the sky when a particle from a comet or asteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere
• Meteorites; A fragment of a comet or an asteroid that survives its passage through the Earth's atmosphere and lands on the Earth's surface
• 48.5 tons of meteoritic material falls on the Earth each day
• 3 types; iron, stony, or stony-iron compositions
• 4.55 billion years ago was the formation of most meteorites

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• A bizarre six-sided jet stream, known as "the hexagon", encircles Saturn's North Pole
• Saturn's 7 rings span up to 175,000 miles, about three quarters (3/4) of the distance between the Earth and its moons
• length of a day: 10.7 Earth hours/length of a year: 29 Earth years
• 53 known moons with 9 moons awaiting conformation
• Distance of about 886 million miles (from the sun)

Even More Facts

• Mercury looks a lot like Earth's moon, scarred by collisions with meteorites
• There are no know rings around Mercury
• Mercury is 1/3 the size of Earth
• Daytime on Mercury is six times hotter than the hottest place on Earth
• Nighttime can be more than twice as cold as the coldest place on Earth

And the Last Facts

• 175.97 Earth days= 1 day on Mercury
• 88 Earth days= 1 year on Mercury
• Type: Terrestrial
• Mercury has no known moons
• Distance of about 26 million miles (from the sun)

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