Astronomy
Solar System
Solar System Facts
- The Solar System formed around 4.6 billion years ago.
- There are eight planets in the Solar System. The four inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars while the four outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
- .For thousands of years humans were unaware of the Solar System and believed that Earth was at the center of the Universe
- The Sun contains 99.86 percent of the Solar System's known mass, with Jupiter and Saturn making up making up most of the rest. The small inner planets which include Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars make up a very small percentage of the Solar System?s mass.
- Astronomers such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Issac Newton helped develop a new model that explained the movement of the planets with the Sun at the center of the Solar System.
- Venus is also known as Morning & Evening Star as it reaches its maximum brighness after sunrise & sunset ,hence it is visible from earth.
- Saturn?s rings are made of many pieces of rocks & ice.
- The sun's strong gravitational pull holds Earth and the other planets in place.
- Neptune is the windiest place in the solar system 1300mph (2100kph). Saturn comes in second with winds attaining speeds of 1,050 mph (1,700 kph).
- Olympus Mons (Mars) is the largest volcano known in the Solar System. It is about the size of Arizona!
- The Great Dark Spot was a storm on Neptune. When the Hubble space telescope looked at Neptune in 1994, the spot had disappeared, only to be replaced by another one in the northern hemisphere.
- Jupiter is so big that you could fit all the other planets in the solar system inside it. The red spot of Jupiter is the biggest, most violent storm in the known universe -- that spot is at least three times the size of earth!
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Glint Of Sunlight Confirms Liquid In Titan
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian,...
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When Jupiter Said, "this Solar System Isn?t Big Enough For The Both Of Us."
It?s something like an interplanetary chess game, where Jupiter bumped a giant planet out of our solar system and may have said,"This solar system isn?t big enough for the both of us." Astrophysicists at the University of Toronto have found that a close...
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The Uranus From Saturn?s Orbit.
On April 11, 2014 NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this image of the blue ice-giant planet Uranus [The tiny blue light indicated by the arrow] in the distance beyond Saturn?s rings. When this view was obtained, Uranus was nearly on the opposite...
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Our Neighbors In Space
We have a special feeling toward the other planets that circle our sun. Maybe it?s all the science fiction stories about visiting the moon, Mars and other planets. But we love to think about those planets that make up what we call ?the solar...
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Do You Know - 3
Do You Know? - 3 1 . What is the name of the 2nd biggest planet in our solar system? Ans: Saturn ...
Astronomy