The outer planets

Jupiter

• Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.
• Jupiter is far from Earth. the planet is more than five times as far from earth as the sun.
• It takes Jupiter about 12 earth years to orbit around the sun once.
• The upper layer of the atmosphere are clouds of ammonia. the ammonia swirls around in big storms.
• The great red spot is jupiter's most noticeable storm. It is more than three times as wide as earth. the great red spot has been on jupiter for at least 300 years.
• The great red spot has been on jupiter for at least 300 years.
• Fun fact: Jupiter has four moons named Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

Saturn

• Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system.
• Saturn is the least dense planet in our solar system. Saturn is less dense than water.
• The planet is made mostly of hydrogen and helium. These elements are gases in the outer layers and liquids in the deeper layers.
• Saturn's upper atmosphere has clouds of different colors. these clouds rotate rapidly around the planet.
• 62 moons have been identified around Saturn. only seven of Saturn’s moons are round.
• Fun fact: saturn’s largest moon titan is about one and a half times the size of earth’s moon.

Uranus

• Uranus is so far away that there has been little exploration of the planet.
• The planet was first discovered with a telescope by the astronomer William Herschel in 1781.
• Its distance from the Sun is 2.8 billion kilometers.
• A photon from the sun takes about 2 hours and 40 minutes to reach uranus.
• Uranus orbits the sun once about every 84 earth years.
• The clouds of methane give it a blue-green color.
• Fun fact: there are 27 moons that have been discovered around uranus.

Neptune

• Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun.
• Like Uranus it is has clouds of methane that give it it's blue hue.
• One orbit around the Sun takes Neptune 165 Earth years.
• Neptune's appearance changes because of itsturbulent atmosphere. Winds are stronger than on any other planet in the solar system.
• Neptune has rings of ice and dust.
• Fun fact: neptune has 13 moons.

Dwarf planets

• dwarf planets are like planets except for they have not cleared their orbits of smaller objects. They do not have enough gravity to do this.
• There are five dwarf planets in the solar system, Ceres, Pluto, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris.
• Ceres is located inside the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. the other dwarf planets are located in the outer solar system in, or near to, the Kuiper belt.
• Fun fact: all of the dwarf planets except ceres have moons.

Kuiper belt

• The kuiper belt is where comets and asteroids are in our solar system that begins near the orbit of Neptune and continues beyond Pluto.
• In the kuiper belt are frozen volatiles that are made up of methane, nitrogen, ammonia, and water.
• In the kuiper belt are three officially recognized dwarf planets, pluto, haumea and makemake.
• The kuiper belt's largest object is the dwarf planet, Pluto.
• Fun fact: the Kuiper belt is is 20 times as wide and 20-200 times more massive than the asteroid belt

Comets

• Comets are small, icy objects that have very elliptical orbits around the Sun.
• Their orbits bring them from the outer solar system to the inner solar system, close to the Sun.
• Comet tails form as the comet flies close to the Sun and the outer layers of ice melt and form a glowing coma.
• The coma is bright because it reflects light from the Sun. Comets appear for only a short time when they are near the Sun.
• Short-period comets have periods of 200 years or less. short-period comets come from the kuiper belt.
• long-period comets have periods of thousands or even millions of years. these come from the oort cloud.
• Fun fact: Early in earth’s history, comets might have brought water to earth during collisions.