Planets in our solar system

Earth, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. These are all planets that orbit our sun. These are all planets that have so much left to be discovered, its unimaginable. According to multiple sources, spacecrafts have landed and sent important information back from the moon, mars, Jupiter, Venus, and also Saturns moon. The best part about this is that man has actually stepped foot onto the moon. We all knew that though, but did you know that something called impactite, which is something that is shown to preserve signs of life here on earth, was also discovered on Mars and could could contain signs of ancient life? If life ever actually existed on the planet, that is. NASA announced on June 7, 2018, that “The Curiosity rover had recently discovered organic molecules in sedimentary rocks dating back to almost three billion years.”(NASA). The direction our world is heading towards is unbelievable. New technology is getting invented every day and who knows what big projects NASA has going on at the moment. Our world today is only at the beginning.

Neptune

Mars and the moon are interesting and all, but what have you heard about Neptune? Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the sun in our solar system. Including all of the solar system here, it is the fourth largest planet by diameter, and the third most massive planet, and the most dense giant planet. Neptune is 17 times the mass of earth, slightly more massive than its near twin Uranus. I know that sounds like a lot of gibberish so lets move onto the more interesting parts and facts about Neptune. Neptune is often compared to other planets. Mostly one called Uranus. Neptune is cold and dark, and also very windy. Its the last of the all the planets making up the solar system. It’s more than 30 times as far from the sun as earth is. Neptune is very similar to Uranus in these ways. Its made up of a thick layer of water, ammonia, and methane over an earth sized center. Its atmosphere is made of hydrogen, helium, and methane. The methane gives Neptune the same blue as Uranus. Neptune has six rings but you have to look very hard to see them, since they are so far away from earth.

Mercury

Enough about Neptune, lets start talking about Mercury. Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the solar system. It is named after the Roman deity Mercury, who is the messenger of the gods. Its orbital period around the sun of 87.97 days is the shortest of all planets in the whole entire solar system. Does Mercury look like Neptune? No, the planet Mercury looks very similar to the moon. Neptune on the other hand, is blue. Like the moon, Mercurys surface is covered with craters created by space rock impacts. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, also the eighth largest one. What does Mercury look like inside? Mercury has a thick iron core and a thinner outer crust of rocky material. I know all of these facts do seem very hard to understand. Lets move onto the rather more interesting things.

Breaking it down

Since the last few paragraphs were mainly facts and confusing information, lets dumb this all down. In our world, there is a solar system, I’ve been talking about the Solar System quite a lot. So lets try explaining that part first. In our solar system, there are nine planets that are circling around the sun. The sun is located in the middle, while each planet travels around it in a circular path, which we call orbits. These planets all turn in the same direction. The solar system is made up of two parts, there is an inner solar system and an outer one. Lets start with the inner. The inner solar system consist of Mercury, Venus, Earth and also Mars. These four planets are closest to the sun. The outer solar system contains Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and also Pluto. This is the cool part, the inner and outer solar systems are separated. How?Something called an Asteroid Belt. Asteroids are chunks of rock and metal that orbit around the sun. Scientists think that they are loose material that never formed into planets. The Asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter. The solar system also contains moons, comets, gas, dust, and some other minor small planets.

What makes a planet a planet

Did you know that you can spot six of the solar systems planets with the naked eye from earth? And, you can see all eight if you have binoculars or a telescope. Astronomers discovered hundreds of worlds past our solar system, and keep finding more each and each day, especially with new technology. The world it growing so many different ways each day. Maybe there are aliens, who knows? So what makes a planet a planet? Wouldn’t you think its an easy question? The definition is actually quite complicated. Some scientists came together in 2006 and asked each other, what wasn’t a planet. They came up with this. A planet must orbit the sun, be large enough so that its own gravity molds it into a spherical shape, and it must have an orbit free of other small objects. Unfortunately for Pluto, at one time the ninth planet failed to meet the expectations of a planet. It got labeled as a dwarf planet. Whats a dwarf planet? It is actually similar to the solar systems eight planets, but these are just smaller. Like planets though they are large, roundish objects that orbit the sun, but that are not moons. The first three dwarf planets actually classified as dwarf planets, in 2006 were Pluto, Eris, and Ceres.

Wrap Up

Neptune and Mercury are quite interesting planets. We have learned a lot about these two planets, lets learn some cool fun things this time. Lets start with Mercury. Mercury has very extreme temperatures because its so close to the sun and because it has almost no atmosphere. Mercury can in fact be seen from earth. Mercury is actually just a bit bigger then our moon. Neptune isn’t boring, there are cool facts about that planet as well. Neptune is the coldest planet in the solar system. Despite its huge size, the gravity on Neptune is similar to that on earth, isn’t that surprising! Also its quite funny to write about Neptune and Mercury together because they are not similar whats so ever. Neptune is the coldest planet, Mercury is the hottest!