Solar system 

Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. It's similar to a star, but it never got massive enough to start burning. It is covered in swirling cloud stripes. It has big storms like the Great Red Spot, which has been going for hundreds of years. Jupiter is a gas giant and doesn't have a solid surface, but it may have a solid inner core about the size of Earth. Jupiter also has rings, but they're too faint to see very well.Jupiter has 80 confirmed moons.Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun. That means Mars and Saturn are Jupiter’s neighboring planets.Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. Jupiter is a gas giant. It is made mostly of hydrogen and helium.Jupiter has a very thick atmosphere.Jupiter has rings, but they’re very hard to see.

The Solar System

The&nbsp;Solar System&nbsp;is the&nbsp;gravitationally bound system of the&nbsp;Sun&nbsp;and the objects that orbit it. It&nbsp;formed<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System"> </a>4.6 billion years ago&nbsp;from the&nbsp;gravitation collapse&nbsp;of a giant interstellar&nbsp;molecular<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_cloud"> </a>cloud.

Saturn is one of the planets that orbit, or travel around, the Sun in the solar system. It is the second largest&nbsp;<a href="https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/planets/353638">planet</a>&nbsp;in the&nbsp;<a href="https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/solar-system/353789">solar system</a>, after Jupiter. It is known for its beautiful rings. Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun. It travels around the Sun at an average distance of about 890 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers).Saturn is huge. Its diameter, or distance through its center, is about 74,900 miles (120,600 kilometers). That is nine times larger than Earth’s diameter. However, Saturn is very light for its size. It would float if placed in water.Saturn is a kind of planet called a gas giant. It is made up mostly of gases, mainly hydrogen and helium. What looks like a solid surface in photographs is actually a layer of clouds. Under Saturn’s huge layers of gases is a smaller area of hot liquid metal. At its center the planet probably has a hot, rocky core.

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun at a distance of 57 million kilometers / 35 million miles. Out of all the terrestrial planets, Mercury is the smallest. It is also the smallest planet in the Solar System. Despite being so small, Mercury is the second-densest planet in the Solar System after Earth. This means it is very compact. Mercury does not have any satellites or ring systems. The surface of Mercury is similar to the Moon. It is the most heavily cratered planet and this means that it hasn’t been geologically active for many years. Mercury has a radius of 2.439 km / 1.516 mi and a diameter of 4.879 km / 3.032 mi. Though it is the closest planet to the Sun, temperatures on Mercury are both hot and cold.

Named after the&nbsp;Roman God of war, Mars is the&nbsp;fourth planet&nbsp;from the sun in our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/science/space/ten-facts-about-space/">solar system</a>.Mars is also known as the ‘Red Planet’ because, well, it’s red! This signature colour comes from the large amount of a chemical called&nbsp;iron oxide&nbsp;(or ‘rust’ as you might know it) in its rocks and soil.&nbsp;Mars is the second smallest planet in the solar system after&nbsp;Mercury. With a diameter (distance through the middle) of&nbsp;6,791 kilometres, it’s roughly&nbsp;half the size of Earth.&nbsp;It can get pretty cold on Mars –– much&nbsp;colder than our own planet, since it’s further away from the sun. At the equator, temperatures can reach&nbsp;20°C, but at its poles they can plummet to as low as&nbsp;-140°C.&nbsp;&nbsp;You could&nbsp;jump around three times higher on Mars&nbsp;than you can on Earth.&nbsp;Boing! This is because the planet’s&nbsp;gravity&nbsp;– the force that keeps us on the ground – is much weaker.

Neptune is one of the eight planets that orbit, or travel around, the Sun in the solar system. It is a huge, distant&nbsp;<a href="https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/planets/353638">planet</a>&nbsp;that is deep blue in color. It is a stormy world. The planet has the fastest winds ever discovered in the&nbsp;<a href="https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/solar-system/353789">solar system</a>.Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun. It is about 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers) away.Neptune is nearly as big as its inner neighbor, the planet&nbsp;<a href="https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Uranus/353890">Uranus</a>. Neptune’s diameter, or distance through its center, is about 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers). That is about four times as big as Earth’s diameter.Neptune is a kind of planet called a gas giant. It is made up mostly of gases, mainly hydrogen and helium. A small amount of the gas methane makes Neptune appear blue. The planet has no solid surface. Scientists think that Neptune has hot, thick liquids deep inside it.A system of narrow rings surrounds Neptune. The rings are not as large as the rings of the planet Saturn. They are made up of dust.

Uranus is made of water, methane, and ammonia fluids above a small rocky center. Its atmosphere is made of hydrogen and helium like Jupiter and Saturn, but it also has methane. The methane makes Uranus blue.Uranus also has faint rings. The inner rings are narrow and dark. The outer rings are brightly colored and easier to see. Like Venus, Uranus rotates in the opposite direction as most other planets. And unlike any other planet, Uranus rotates on its side.Uranus is surrounded by a set of 13 rings.Uranus is an ice giant (instead of a gas giant). It is mostly made of flowing icy materials above a solid core. Uranus has a thick atmosphere made of methane, hydrogen, and helium.Uranus is the only planet that spins on its side.Uranus spins the opposite direction as Earth and most other planets.

Contents

1. The Sun 2. Mercury 3. Venus 4. The Earth 5. Mars 6. Jupiter 7. Saturn 8. Uranus 9. Neptune

The mass of our sun makes up 99.86% of the total mass of the entire solar system. Our sun is made up of ¾ hydrogen and the rest is mostly helium. Every sun has a birth, lifespan and a death. Our sun will continue to shine for around 130 million more years and then it will stop burning its hydrogen and begin to burn helium. When that happens it will expand and grow and eventually engulf Mercury, Venus, and Earth. Once our sun begins to expand it will eventually become a red giant star. Once our sun enters the red giant stage it will eventually collapse until it nears the size of our Earth and at that time it will be a white dwarf star. Gravity is what gives celestial bodies their circular shape and with such powerful gravity, our sun is the closest thing in nature to being a perfect sphere. Looking at the sun you wouldn’t think that it’s moving but it’s actually traveling through space at 220 km per second. It takes our sun 225-250 million years to complete an orbit around the Milky Way galaxy.

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, and the sixth-largest planet in the Solar System. Venus and Mercury are the only planets in the Solar System that do not have a moon. Venus is the second brightest object in the sky after the Moon, and the Sun. It is the only planet named after a female deity and the brightest planet in the Solar System. Venus is 62 degrees hotter than Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. Venus is at a distance of 108 million km / 68 million mi away from the Sun Venus and Uranus rotate in the opposite direction than the other planets. They both move from East to West, clockwise.

The shape of the Earth is actually closer to a squashed sphere. It’s fatter in the middle near the equator where gravity pushes to create a bulge. Even though you might think you are standing still, the Earth is turning. The speed at the equator is around 1,000 mph. The Earth is also moving through the solar system at around 67,000 mph/107,826 kph. Earth is constantly recycling its material through tectonic movement which drags surface rocks back down below the surface to become magma and then is spewed back out from volcanoes. Earthquakes are the result of tectonic plate movement on the planet. The largest earthquake recorded in the U.S. was in 2016 in Alaska, registered at 9.2 on the Richter Scale; with the largest global earthquake recorded in 1960 in Chile, registering 9.5 on the Richter Scale. The hottest recorded temperature location on the Earth is in El Azizia, Libya with temperatures hitting 136 degrees F/57.8 degrees C in 1922. The coldest temperature location is in Antarctica with temperatures reaching -100 degrees F/-73 degrees