The Planets.....

By Sanober Zaki on Monday, December 2, 2013 at 11:55am

A solar system refers to a star and all the objects that travel in orbit around it. Our solar system
consists of the sun - our star - eight planets and their natural satellites (such as our moon); dwarf
planets; asteroids and comets. Our solar system is located in an outward spiral of the Milky Way
galaxy.
The Planets
Terrestrial:

Mercury
Venus
Mars

Gaseous:

Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune

Other:

Pluto

Mercury
Named for the messengerto the Roman gods, Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and as a
result,revolves around our star in the least amount of time.
Characteristics:

Mercury has a solid rocky surface and like the Moon, has many craters.
Mercury has a very weak atmosphere.
Mercury goes through extremes in temperatures. Daytime temperature can reach up to 450 C,
which is enough to melt lead. On the other hand, the planet's nighttime side can be quite cold,
temperatures as low as -180 C have been recorded by Mariner 10.
Mercury has no moon.
It was first photographed from space by the American space probe Mariner 10 in 1974.

Venus

Venus, named for the Roman goddess of love, is known asEarth's "sister" planet because they are
very near in size, mass anddensity. However, the similarities end there. Venus is the planet
thatapproaches closest to Earth and can be the brightest object in the sky, next tothe Sun and Moon.
 Characteristics:

Venus has a solid rocky surface that is now known to becovered with craters and volcanic
mountains.

Venus has clouds of sulfuric acid that cover the planet.Because of this, we cannot see its surface.

Venus has a very dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide gas(CO2) that has the property of letting in
sunlight but does not permit theresulting heat to escape. This, together with the planet's relative
proximityto the Sun has caused temperatures on Venus to reach up to 455 C. This iscommonly
known as the greenhouse effect. The atmospheric pressure at thesurface of Venus is 90 times that
of Earth A visitor to the planet would beinstantly crushed without special protection.

Venus has no moon.

Mars: The Red Planet

Mars, named for the RomanGod of war was once thought to possess a highly organized civilisation.
Much ofthis came about when the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli thought heobserved
canali on the Martian surface. In English, canali means "channels"but was improperly translated to
meaning "canals", which implied theymight have been dug by intelligent life. In America, Percival
Lowell set up anobservatory to study Mars. Lowell's observations and his book, Mars and itsCanals,
written in 1906, fuelled the misconception that "intelligentlife" existed on Mars. It is now known that
the canali or canals do notexist, but were an effect of how the brain and eye work together. The
Marinerspaceprobes and Viking landers found no evidence of life on Mars.
Characteristics:

Mars has a solid rocky surface rich in iron.This is what gives it a reddish colour. Among its surface
features are craters, extinct volcanoes, canyons and river-like features where water may once have
flowed.
Mars, like Earth goes through seasons that last about 6 months,(it's axis of rotation is tilted by 24o to
the plane of its orbit)
Mars has polar "ice" caps, like Earth, that expand and contract with the seasons, however, they are
composed of frozen carbon dioxide and water ice.
Mars has a thin atmosphere mostly composed of carbon dioxide gas (CO2), the atmospheric
pressure at the surface is 150 times less than Earth's.
Winds on Mars can exceed 300 km/hr. Because of this, Mars has planet-wide dust storms that can
shroud the planet for weeks at a time.
Mars has two small moons; Phobos (from the Greek, meaning fear) and Deimos (from the Greek,
meaning terror).

Jupiter
 Jupiter, named for the King of the Roman Gods, is the fifthplanet from the Sun and is by far the
largest planet in the Solar System. Thefirst telescopic observations of Jupiter were made by Galileo
Galilei in theyear 1610. With his small refracting telescope, Galileo discovered four ofJupiters'
moons: Io, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede -commonly known as the Galileansatellites.

Characteristics:

Jupiter has no solid surface. It is a gaseous planetcomposed mostly of hydrogen (85%) and helium
(15%) gas.

The visible surface of Jupiter is composed of cloudscharacterized by dark coloured belts (of
ammonium hydrosulfide) and lightercoloured zones (of ammonia ice crystals).

Jupiter generates more energy than it receives from the Sun.If Jupiter had been much more
massive, temperatures could have been high enoughfor the planet to become a star.

Jupiter has the largest storm in the Solar System called theGreat Red Spot. This atmospheric
feature has been in existence ever since thefirst telescopes were trained on the planet over 300
years ago. The Great RedSpot is in rotation and is so big that Earth would fit inside about four tofive
times.

Jupiter has a ring discovered by a Voyager 1 photograph ofthe planet when it was backlit by the
Sun.

Jupiter has 16 known moons. The four largest are Io, Europa,Ganymede, and Callisto.

Saturn
Saturn, named for theRoman God of the Harvest, was the farthest known planet from the Sun until
thediscovery of Uranus in 1781. The second largest planet in the Solar System hasan intricate ring
system.
Characteristics:

Saturn has no solid surface. It is a gaseous planet mostly composed of hydrogen and helium gas.
Saturn's atmosphere has clouds that are banded (similar to Jupiter's but not as colourful).
Saturn generates more heat than it receives from the Sun.
Saturn has an extensive ring system. The rings have a thickness that varies from tens of metres to
about 1 km. The rings are made up of thousands of tiny ringlets mostly composed of water ice and
rock particles that range in size from grains of dust to objects kilometres across.
Saturn is less dense than water. As a result, it would float if we could find a big enough ocean.
Saturn has 18 known moons. Titan is one of the most interesting because it is the only moon to have
an atmosphere.
 Saturn's rotation period of 10 hrs. 40 min and the fact that it is a gaseous planet produces flattening
at the poles and at the equator, even more so than any of the other gaseous planets.

Uranus
Uranus was discovered bySir William Herschel in 1781. The seventh planet from the Sun is named
afterthe Greek God, Ruler of the World. Uranus is so far from the Sun that it isalmost 4 times the
Sun-Jupiter distance. As a result, it takes about 84"Earth years" to complete one orbit around the
Sun.
Characteristics:

Uranus has no solid surface. It is a gaseous planet composed of hydrogen and helium gas.
Current thought on the interior of Uranus holds that it may be made up of water, methane and
ammonia. Uranus may have a solid rocky core.
Uranus is the only giant planet to lack a "significant" internal heat source. It's rings are composed of
ice and rock particles that are darker than Saturn's and almost as black as charcoal.
Uranus' axis of rotation is tilted almost parallel (97) to the plane of its orbit.
It has 15 known moons (10 of them discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986), one of which is the most
perplexing in the whole Solar System. Miranda has a surface that shows evidence of having been
shattered and then reassembled more once.

Neptune
Neptune is named for theRoman God of the Sea. It is the first planet to be discovered by
mathematicalprediction. It was known at the time that something was causing a perturbationin the
orbit of Uranus, quite possibly another planet. Independent calculationsmade by Urbain Leverrier
and John Cough Adams led to its discovery in 1846 byJ.G. Galle at the Berlin Observatory.
Characteristics:

Neptune has no solid surface. It is a gaseous planet, primarily composed of hydrogen and helium
gas, with traces of methane. Its colour is a blueish green. Neptune's interior may be similar to that of
Uranus.
Neptune possesses an internal heat source.
Neptune has a dynamic atmosphere. Cloud features and a giant storm system similar to Jupiter's
Great Red Spot were discovered by Voyager 2. Neptune's large storm system is called the Great
Dark Spot and is located in the planet's southern hemisphere.
Neptune has rings that are different from those found at Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. They don't
circle the planet completely, but are partial rings called "ring arcs".
Neptune has 8 known satellites, six of them were discovered by Voyager 2.

Pluto
Pluto, the smallest planetin the Solar System, is named for the Roman God of the Underworld.
Pluto's 1930discovery by Clyde Tombaugh was based on perturbations in the orbits of Uranusand
Neptune. The search for Pluto started about twenty years earlier byPercival Lowell (known for his
 Martian "canals"), who at the timecalled the missing planet "Planet X". Mr. Lowell died before
Plutowas discovered.
Characteristics:

Pluto is unlike any of the other planets because it is believed to be mostly composed of frozen ices
of water, methane and ammonia.
Pluto has a very negligible atmosphere of methane.
Charon, its only known satellite, is unusually large compared to its host planet. It is about 1/2 the
size of Pluto.
Charon was discovered from Earth in 1978 and like Pluto is believed to be composed of frozen ices.
The theories linking Pluto's origin to a possible large impacting object on Uranus or to being pulled
from the moons of Neptune by a passing object have largely been discredited. The dynamics of
each possibility appear to violate the laws of physics in some respect.