1. BY Emily Stabht

2. Mecury takes 59 days to make a rotation around the sun Mecury is the closest planet to the sun. It might be a core of what was a much larger planet.

3.  Venus is the brightest planet in our sky.  Sometimes it can be seen with naked eye (if you know were to look.)  Yellow clouds of sulfuric acid refect the suns light.

4.  Earth has more exposed water than land.  Three quarters of the Earth is covered in water.  It is the only planet with life on it.

5.  Mars is the home of the “Olympus Mons” the largest volcano found in the solar system.  It stands about 27 kilometers high with a crater 81 kilometers wide.

6.  Jupiter is the fifth planet in order from the Sun and is about 483 million miles, or 777 million kilometres from the sun. Figure 1 shows the planets in order but the distances are not to scale. The Earth is much closer to the Sun than it is to Jupiter. 

7.  The bright globe of Saturn is surrounded by rings which may be composed of ice. Three of these rings are visible from the Earth using a telescope. Photographs sent back from the US Voyager spacecraft in the 1980s were able to identify further narrower rings “ringlets” in between the three main rings. The main rings are labelled A, B and C, with A the outermost ring. Recently more rings have been found.SaturnUS Voyager spacecraft

8.  Uranus was first seen by William Herschel in 1781 during a survey of the sky using a telescope. In 1782 George III appointed Herschel as Astronomer RoyalWilliam Herschel in 1781

9.  Neptune was found in 1846.  In 2011 it final made its first lap around the sun.  Neptune is a great ball of hydrogen and helium.