The Planets

Mercury is the smallest terrestrial planet and the closest to the Sun. During its day, Mercury is, 800° F. Mercury’s night temperature is - 284° F.

Mercury Mercury travels very fast around the sun, Making one orbit in 88 days.

Mercury has evidence of many impact events. The atmosphere is too thin to burn up meteors before they strike the planet.

Venus Venus is about the same size as Earth, and at first glance appears much like Earth…

…but Venus is very different from Earth in many ways: Venus’ atmosphere is 96% Carbon dioxide with clouds of sulphuric acid that start 50 km above the surface. The atmosphere is 90 times more dense than Earth’s. The ground temperature is over 800°F. Venus rotates in the opposite direction as Earth. Venus takes 243 days to rotate on it’s axis.

This is a computer generated image from data collected by the Magellan space craft in The crater is 30 miles in diameter. Venus has many volcanoes like the one in the distance. Venus has over 1600 major volcanoes and thousands of minor ones.

This is a view of Venus’ surface taken before a Soviet lander succumbed to Venus’s hostile surface conditions.

Venus is often only seen in transit across the Sun in the morning.

Mars

Mars is 1/3 the size of Earth but is similar in many ways. It’s day is almost the same length as a day on Earth, but it takes twice as long to revolve around the sun.

Mars has seasons similar to those on Earth since Mars is tilted almost to the same degree as Earth.

Mars also has… …polar ice caps …Olympus Mons …Ancient River beds

Mars may also have had life-forms at one time. Scientists believe this rock sample from Mars shows fossils of ancient bacteria.

Much of our information from Mars is coming from Rovers launched to Mars in 2004.

Between Mars and Jupiter is an asteroid belt. Mathematically in a place that another planet should be in.

The Jovian planets (the Gas Giants) The Gas Giants are very different from the terrestrial planets…

Jupiter

Jupiter, like the rest of the Jovian planets, is gaseous all the way to its core.

Jupiter has four large moons and over 60 smaller moons. Pictured is Io, which has actively erupting volcanoes due to the stresses of the immense gravitational pull of Jupiter.

Saturn

Saturn, like all the Jovian planets, has rings made of ice and other particles.

Saturn has at least 50 moons… …Titan is one of the few moons in our Solar System with an atmosphere and evidence of large bodies of liquid.

The tilt of Uranus’ axis is 98°, probably from a collision. Uranus

Uranus has at least 15 known moons.

Neptune is the first planet located through a mathematical equation.

Neptune has storms that swirl around the planet like the other gas giants…

…And rings.

Neptune’s moon, Triton, is unusual in that it has an atmosphere and actively erupting volcanoes.

PLUTO AND BEYOND…

Pluto This image was taken from the Hubble when Pluto was 2.6 billion miles from Earth.

The next slide shows the planetoid Sedna, discovered beyond Pluto, in comparison with some other objects in our solar system. Until recently, Quaour was the only object thought to be beyond Pluto