Solar System

By Myojeong Cho
Ha-Eun Kim
And Claudia Young
 What is Solar System?
Our Solar System is a part of the Milky Way galaxy which is
just one of more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe.
Space begins where Earth’s atmosphere ends. Our Solar
System is just one of the many star systems in space. What
they all have in common is that there is a star in the centre.
The Solar System is gigantic. More objects are still found
further and further away. This makes it hard to confirm
exactly how big our Solar System is.
The solar system is made up of 9 planets which orbit around
the central star, the sun. The planets are Mercury. Venus,
Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
 Sun
The sun is the largest object in the Solar System by far.
98% of matter which is within the Solar System is found
in the sun.
The sun is a common, average sized star(not planet)
made of a group of gases mainly helium(28%) and
hydrogen(71%) and a small amount of iron, carbon,
calcium and other elements.
The sun produces its great heat, light and energy
through nuclear fusion. In this process, hydrogen is
burned to form helium. Stars don’t burn the same way
fire does.
Scientists named the sun “sol”. This is why our system
of planets is called the solar system.
 Mercury
The main state of Mercury is Mercury has a mass of 3/50 of
solid. Mercury is the closest Earth. It has no weather as it
planet to the sun. Because of has no atmosphere. It has no
that Mercury has no moon. Its atmosphere because it is too
average temperature is small and has too little gravity
normally 167*c. It has a
diameter of 4.9 thousand km. to hold onto an atmosphere.
Any gas produced in mercury
Since it orbits the sun so
slowly its days are longer than quickly escapes into space.
its year. In other words, two
days in mercury is longer than
2 mercury year. It takes 88
days to fully orbit the sun.
 Venus
Venus, unlike the other planets, rotates the opposite way Earth
does causing the sun to rise from the west and set in the east.
Venus is 107 million kilometres from the sun with an average
temperature of 449*c. Its atmosphere is made up of carbon
dioxide and nitrogen.
Venus is called “Earth’s twin” for it is identical in many ways.
Scientists found out that Venus is practically made up of the same
substances as Earth. There was a possibility of Venus having life
but the simple fact that Venus is closer to the sun caused a
reaction over the millenniums. The water evaporated and the
atmosphere turned thicker causing a greenhouse effect. It made
Venus so hot that living things cannot possibly exist on Venus.
 Earth
Earth is the biggest of all the terrestrial planets. Terrestrial
planets are the dense and solid planets found in the inner solar
system. Earth is known to be the only planet in the solar system
suitable to support life. It is also called the oasis of life.
It takes earth 365.3 days to fully orbit the sun, and one rotation
takes 23hours and 56minutes. Earth has the mass of
6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms. The Earth’s
distance from the sun is 150 million kilometres. Earth has the
average temperature of 7.5*c. The Earth’s atmosphere is made up
of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon.
Earth has one moon named Luna. Luna has a big part of Earth
such as tides and the reflection of itself at night in our sky.
 Mars
Mars is the 4th planet from the sun. For Mars to completely
orbit the sun, it takes 686.98 days. Mars’s orbit is taken place
just inside the asteroid belt. One rotation of Mars is equal to 24
hours and 37 minutes.
Mars has a mass which is 10% of Earth and a volume of 15% of
Earth. Mrs has two moons : Demios and Phobos.
Scientists are very excited about Mars, for Mars looks more
like Earth than any other planets. The proof that backs this up
is the remains of former rivers, lakes streams and even an
ocean. Evidence of water is found around Mars.
When Mars atmosphere got sucked into space, the water
followed and evaporated. Water is found on Mars either frozen
in the Polar caps or deep underground. Its maximum
temperature is 36c while its lowest temperature is -123c
 Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within
the Solar System. Jupiter is made of gas with a mass slightly less than
1/1000 the Sun, but is 2 and a half times the mass of all the other
planets in our Solar System combined.
Jupiter has no solid surface as its made of gas. A large liquid ocean
of hydrogen and water lies under its atmosphere. Nothing lies in
between them. When the atmosphere gets thicker it will become a
part of the ocean.
Jupiter is famous for its great red spot found in the south of its
equator. It is where a giant storm has been raging for the last 350
years so. This storm’s outraging hurricane winds blow across an area
larger than the Earth.
 Saturn
Saturn, the 2nd largest planet in the Solar System, is the 6th
planet form the Sun. The main state of Saturn is gas,
composed of a core of iron, nickel, silicon and oxygen
compound with a deep layer of hydrogen and helium
surrounding it.
Saturn is a favourite object for many observers with its
beautiful rings. The rings may have originated from moons
that got too close to Jupiter and were crumbled by its gravity.
The materials now orbit Saturn as a thin disc made out of
billions of small pieces of ice and rock.
Clouds near the equator blow at up to 1600kilometres per
hour, driven by heat rising from inside the planet.
 Uranus
Uranus is a solid planet, 3rd largest planet in our Solar System.
It is a rather featureless planet, visible in small telescopes as a
tiny blue disc. The outer layers are mostly hydrogen but it also
has some methane gas that causes its blue colour.
Uranus is very odd as it spins on its side, so that first one pole
then the other has continual sunlight for half of each orbit,
unlike all the other planets in our Solar System.
the sideways spin is probably due to a collision with a very
large object in the early period of the Solar System’s formation.
With its rocky core and an coean believed to be beneath its
clouds, Uranus is almost identical to the planet Neptune.
 Neptune
Neptune is very like Uranus. It has distinctive clouds, strong
winds near the equator. The wind blows the opposite direction
to the planet’s spin at up to 2000 km per hour creating large
dark spots similar to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.
Unlike Uranus’s atmosphere, however, Neptune’s atmosphere is
notable for its active and visible weather patterns. Because of it
is so far away from the sun, its outer atmosphere is one of the
coldest places in the Solar System with an average temperature
of -200*c, yet at its centre temperatures are approximately
5000*c
Neptune has a faint and fragmented ring system only seen
during the 1960s.
 Pluto
Pluto is smaller than 7 of the moons in the Solar System.
Because it is so small many don’t considering it a planet at
all. It is now a dwarf planet.
Pluto may have once been a moon orbiting Neptune, which
‘escaped’ to orbit the sun instead. Another theory is that Pluto
is simply the largest of the Kuiper Belt objects. These objects,
generally 200km or less in diameter, orbit the sun in the same
region as Pluto.
Pluto is so far away, that no satellites and space craft have
ever been sent there and because of it, we do not have good
pictures and know very little about it.