Solar System

Solar system consists of the sun,the moon, the planets and many other heavenly bodies.The solar system can be thought as the sun's family. There are eight planets in the solar system. They are Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune The Solar System is also home to a number of regions populated by smaller objects. The astreroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter, is similar to the terrestrial planets as it is composed mainly of rock and metal.The formation and evolution of the Solar System is estimated to have begun 4.568 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud .Most of the collapsing mass collected in the centre, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other small Solar System bodies formed.The Earth's orbit around the Sun is nearly a perfect circle, but when mapped it is found that the Earth moves around the Sun in a very slightly oval shaped, or elliptical orbit. The other planets in the Solar System also circle the Sun in slightly elliptical orbits.

Sun
The Sun is a star and the largest object in our solar system. It makes up 99.86% of the matter in the solar system. Even the giant planet Jupiter is tiny compared to the sun. The planets in our solar system move around the sun in orbits. Our sun can be seen in the sky in the day time. It is seen as a large yellow ball. The sun is basically a very, very large ball of plasma bubbling with non-stop explosions. In the center of the Sun, in its core, great heat and pressure combine hydrogen gas into helium gas which produces large amounts of energy. This is called nuclear fusion.Scientists think that the Sun started from a very large cloud of dust and small bits of ice 4.6 billion years ago. At the center of that huge cloud, some of the material started to build up into a ball. Once this ball got big enough, reactions inside it caused that ball to shine. At that point, the Sun blew away all the rest of the cloud from itself, and the planets formed from the rest of this cloud.At its core, or very center, hydrogen atoms collide together at great temperature and pressure so that they fuse to form atoms of helium. This process is called nuclear fusion. This fusion changes a very small part of the hydrogen atoms into a large amount of energy. This energy then travels from the core to the surface of the Sun, called the photosphere, where it shines into space.

Mercury
The first to visit the planet was Mariner 10, which mapped only about 45% of the planets surface from 1974 to 1975. The second is the MESSENGER spacecraft, which mapped another 30% during its trip to Mercury on January 14, 2008. MESSENGER made one more pass by Mercury in 2009, and is now orbiting the planet to complete the mapping. Mercury is one of four inner planets in the Solar System, and has a rocky body like the Earth. It is the smallest planet in the Solar System, with a radius of 2,439.7 km. Mercury is even smaller, though it has a greater mass, than the largest moons in our Solar System. Mercury is made of about 70% metallic and 30% silicate material.

The English name for the planet is from the Romans, who named it after the Roman god Mercury, which they thought to be the same as the Greek god Hermes.

Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun.It is a terrestrial planet because it has a solid, rocky surface. The other terrestrial planets are Mercury, Earth and Mars. Astronomers have known Venus for thousands of years. The ancient Romans named it after their goddess Venus. Venus is the brightest thing in the night sky except for the Moon. It is sometimes called the morning star or the evening star as it is brightest just before the sun comes up in the morning, and just after the sun goes down in the evening. Venus comes closer to the earth than any other planet does.Venus' surface is about 80% smooth, rocky plains. Two higher areas called continents make up the north and south of the planet. The north is called Ishtar Terra and the south is called Aphrodite Terra.Venus' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas with clouds of sulphuric acid. Because the atmosphere is so thick or dense the pressure is very high. The pressure is 92 times the pressure on Earth, enough to crush many things.

Earth
The Earth is the third planet from the Sun. It is one of the four terrestrial planets in our Solar System. This means most of its mass is solid. Science shows that the Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago.About 71% of Earth's surface is covered in salt water oceans. Earth is the only place in the Solar System where liquid water is known to exist at present.The other 29% is made of rocky land in the shape of continents and islands. Earth interacts with other objects in the Solar System, particularly the Sun and the Moon. The Earth orbits or goes around the Sun once every 365.25 days. One spin is called a day and one orbit around the Sun is called a year. This is why there are 365 days in a year. Earth has only one natural sattelite, known as the Moon.

Mars
Mars is named after the mythological Roman god of war because it is a red planet, which signifies the colour of blood. Mars has two very small moons, called Phobos and Deimos. The planet Mars is made of rock. The ground there is red because of iron oxide (rust) in the rocks and dust. The planet has a small carbon dioxide atmosphere. The temperatures on Mars are colder than on Earth, because it is farther away from the Sun. There is some ice at the north and south poles of Mars, and also frozen carbon dioxide. Mars does not have any water on the surface now, except at the poles, but most scientists think it used to have water.Mars has been known since old times. The Greeks named this planet Ares, after their god of war. The Romans named the planet Mars. The Roman God of War was called Mars.Mars has a very thin atmosphere with barely any oxygen (it is mostly carbon dioxide). Because there is an atmosphere, however thin it is, the sky does change colors when the sun rises and sets. The dust in the Martian atmosphere make the Martian sunsets have a rather blue color.

Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System. It is the fifth planet from the Sun. Jupiter is classed as a gas giant, because it is so large, and is made up mostly of gas. The other gas giants are Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Jupiter has at least 63 moons. 55 of these moons are very small and less than 5 km wide. The four main moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. These moons are the largest. These four are called the Galilean moons, because they were discovered by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System. Jupiter has a magnetic field similar to Earth's but 10 times stronger. It is also has what is known as a magnetosphere. The strength of the field is enough to be a serious danger to any spacecraft travelling past or to Jupiter.

Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is the second largest planet in the Solar System after Jupiter. Like Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, it is a "gas giant". Saturn has 62 known moons orbiting the planet; 53 are officially named. The largest moon is Titan, which is larger in volume than the planet Mercury. Titan is the second largest moon in the Solar System.Also around Saturn there is a very large system of rings, made of ice with smaller amounts of rocks and dust. Scientists believe that the rings are the material left after a moon broke apart. A new idea says that it was a very large moon, most of which crashed into the planet. This left a large amount of ice to form the rings, and also some of the moons, like Enceladus, which are thought to be made of ice.

Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is a gas giant. It is the third largest planet in the solar system. Uranus is named after the greek god Uranus,who was a god of sky.The planet is made of ice, gases and liquid metal. Its atmosphere contains hydrogen, helium and methane. The distance between Uranus and Neptune is 1.6 billion km. Uranus was discovered in 1781.Uranus has 11 rings which are hard to see from earth. This planet can be seen with the naked eye under perfect conditions. Some evidence suggests that this planet was catalogued as a star (34 Tauri) before its confirmed discovery.Uranus has 27 known moons. The names for these moons are chosen from characters from the works of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.The five biggest moons are Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon. Uranus is covered in blue clouds. The clouds, made of methane, are difficult to see as they are low in the atmosphere.

Neptune
Neptune is the eighth and last planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is a gas giant. It is the fourth largest planet and third heaviest. Neptune has four rings which are hard to see from the Earth. It is 17 times heavier than Earth and is a little bit heavier than Uranus. It was named after the Roman God of the Sea. Neptune's atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium. It also contains small amounts of methane which makes the planet appear blue. Neptune's blue color is much brighter compared to Uranus', which has a similar amount of methane, so there might be another reason why Neptune is blue. The first possible sighting of Neptune is thought to be by Galileo as his drawings showed Neptune near Jupiter. But Galileo was not credited for the discovery since he thought Neptune was a "fixed star" instead of a planet. Because of Neptune's slow movement across the sky, Galileo's small telescope was not strong enough to detect Neptune as a planet.

Asteroids
An asteroid is a small object in the Solar System that travels around the sun. It is like a planet, but smaller. The name "asteroid" means "like a star" in the ancient Greek language. Asteroids may look like small stars in the sky, but they really do move around the Sun, while stars only seem to move because the Earth spins. Like planets, asteroids do not make their own light. Because of this, some people think "asteroids" is not a good name, and think that the name "planetoid" ("like a planet") would be a better name.Most asteroids are made of rock, but some are made of ice or metal. Most asteroids in our Solar System are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. In the 1600s, Gisuppe Piazzi found the first asteroid. It was named Ceres, and is the biggest object in the asteroid belt. Other asteroids, like Juno, Pallas, and Vesta were found later. Today, astronomers know of hundreds of thousands of asteroids, which range from less than a mile to 600 miles across.

Comets
A comet is a ball of mostly ice that moves around in outer space. They are often described as "dirty snowballs". They are very different from asteroids. In the solar system, the orbits of comets go further than Pluto. Most are very far away from the Sun, but some come near enough to Earth for us to see at night. They have long "tails", because the Sun melts the ice. A comet's tail does not trail behind it, but points directly away from the Sun, because it is blown by the solar wind.The hard centre of the comet is the nucleus. It is one of the blackest things in the solar system. When light shone on the nucleus of Halley's Comet, the comet reflected only 4% of the light back to us.In old times, people used to be scared of comets. They did not know what they were, or where they came from. Some thought that they were fireballs sent from demons or gods to destroy the earth. One of these examples is shown in the Bayeux Tapestry, when Halley's Comet returned. Comets were also known to end wars and thought to bring famine. Although today we know a lot about comets, there will always be people who will be afraid when a comet returns.