1. The Solar System

2. The problem with this nice picture is that it seems to suggest:- - The spacing between the planets is roughly the same !! - Jupiter’s diameter is only three times bigger than Mars’s !!! - All the planets lie between the Earth/Moon and the Sun !!!! Our Solar System

3. Mercury Mercury photographed by ‘flypast’spacecraft. Why the ‘bald bit’ ? Craters suggest no weathering or erosion, which means no atmosphere, which means low gravity, which means a small planet

4. Mercury – the closest to the Sun 1) Photo- graphed from this direction 3) Photo- graphed from this direction 2) Photo-graphed from this direction This area not photo- graphed

5. Comparing the size of Mercury with the Earth

6. Venus – hottest planetary surface We can only ever see the tops of the thick bright clouds

7. Comparing the size of the Earth with Venus

8. Earth – ‘liquid water with life’ planet

9. The Moon, where astronauts visited Note:- moon = name for a small body in orbit around a planet Note:- Moon = the name for the moon which is in orbit around Earth Moon craters suggest no erosion  no atmosphere  low gravity  small mass

10. Comparing the size of the Moon with the Earth

12. Mars – the red dusty planet

14. Phobos Deimos The fact that they are irregularly shaped is because they are small (If they were big, the gravitational force associated with their mass would have forced them into an approximately spherical shape). Mars’s two Moons

15. Jupiter – the biggest of the planets

16. Like the Earth, Jupiter has a magnetosphere

17. Earth could easily fit into Jupiter’s Red Spot Comparing the size of Earth with Jupiter

18. Saturn and the amazing Rings Photographed by Voyager 2 during its 1981 flypast

19. Close-up of the Ring System

22. Comparing the size of Saturn with the Earth and the Moon

23. Uranus – the ‘bland surface’ planet

24. Comparing the size of Uranus with the Earth

25. Uranus’s moons

26. Neptune – the blue windy(!!) planet

27. Comparing the size of the Earth with Neptune

28. Pluto – the dwarf planet The best earth-based image of Pluto and its moon Charon

29. A Composite image of Pluto taken by Hubble Space Telescope

30. Comparing the size of Pluto with the Earth