The solar system By: Rachel Davis

Our Solar System Our solar system consists of 8 planets and 1 sun. Four of those planets are inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and the last four are outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune).

The Inner Planets Mercury: This is the smallest, fastest, an closest to the sun of all the eight planets. It takes a total of 116 days to complete its full orbit around the sun. Venus: This is the second closest planet to the sun and takes a total of 224.7 days to complete its full orbit around the sun. Venus was named after the goddess of love and beauty. Earth: Earth also known as the “blue planet” is the fifth largest planets of the eight and is the third closest to the sun. Earth is the only known planet to have existing life. Mars: Mars is the second smallest planet in our solar system and is often referred to as the “red planet”. Mars was named after the Roman god of war.

The Outer Planets Jupiter: This is the LARGEST planet in the solar system and is the fifth closest planet to the sun. Jupiter along with the other outer planets are known as gas giants. Saturn: Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system and the sixth closest to the sun. Saturn was named after the roman god of agriculture and its astronomical symbol represents the god’s sickle. Uranus: Uranus is the seventh closest planet to the sun and was named after the greek god Ouranos rather than a roman god. Neptune: Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the sun, Neptune was of course named after the roman god of the sea and is 17 times the mass of earth.

Earth’s Surface Earth’s surface also known as the lithospere is rocky, hard, and rigid. Earth’s surface includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, which constitute the hard and rigid outer layer of the Earth.  A simple way to look at the surface is to think of earth as an egg and the surface as an egg shell 

Mars’ Surface Mars surface consists of minerals containing silicon  and oxygen , metals, and other elements that typically make up rock. The surface of Mars is primarily composed of tholeiitic basalt although parts are more silica-rich than typical basalt 

Curiosity Curiosity is a car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crateron Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. The rover's goals include: investigation of the Martian climate and geology plus the ongoing investigation of water on Mars.

How Earth and Mars Are Alike Both Earth and Mars are terrestrial planets, made up of rock and metal. We know quite a bit about the internal structure of Earth, but can only guess at the structure of Mars. Scientists think that both planets have an inner core of metal surrounded by a mantle of rock. A thin crust covers the mantle. Since Mars is a smaller world, it’s believed that it cooled faster, so it’s crust is thicker. Mars lacks a magnetic field, so it probably doesn’t have a rotating liquid metal core like we have here on Earth.

How They Are Different Unlike Earth, Mars has no plate tectonics. Perhaps it was because of this rapid cooling, but the crust on Mars is one thick shell surrounding the entire planet. While plate tectonics are constantly resurfacing planet Earth, we can see that the surface of Mars is ancient, hammered by thousands of meteorite impacts. The lack of plate tectonics also allowed hotspots in the mantle to remain in the same position for billions of years. Mars is small. At only 6,792 km across, it’s about half the diameter of Earth, and has only 10% of the Earth’s mass. This means that it has a much lower surface gravity than Earth. If you could stand on the surface of Mars, you would only experience about 1/3rd the gravity you have on Earth. You would be able to jump 3 times higher than you could on Earth.

Conclusion In conclusion I can say that I learned A LOT! I enjoyed creating and presenting this slide for all of you and I hope you enjoyed. 