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THE PLANETS

There are eight planets in our solar system including Earth. So far, no life as we know it exists on any planet other than our own.

Mercury

Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, has almost no atmosphere, and its dusty surface of craters resembles the Moon. The planet was named for the Roman god Mercury, a winged messenger, and it travels around the Sun faster than any other planet. Mercury is difficult to see from Earth—in fact, the famous astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, for all his years of research and observation, never once was able to see Mercury.

  • Size: Two-fifths the size of Earth in diameter; second smallest in the solar system
  • Diameter: 3,032.4 miles (4,880 km)
  • Surface: Covered by a dusty layer of minerals (silicates), the surface is made up of plains, cliffs, and craters
  • Atmosphere: A thin mixture of helium (95%) and hydrogen
  • Temperature: Mercury alternately bakes and freezes, depending on what side is lit by the Sun. The sunlit side can reach up to 950° F (510° C) and the dark side can drop as low as –346° F (–210° C)
  • Rotation of its axis: 59 Earth days
  • Rotation around the Sun: 88 Earth days
  • Your weight: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 38 pounds on Mercury.
  • Distance from Earth: 57 million miles, at the closest point in its orbit
  • Mean Distance from Sun: 36 million miles (57.9 million km)
  • Satellites: 0
  • Rings: 0

Venus

Venus is often called Earth's twin because the two planets are close in size, but that's the only similarity. The thick clouds that cover Venus create a greenhouse effect that keeps it sizzling at 864°F. Venus, named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, is also known as the “morning star” and “evening star” since it is visible at these times to the unaided eye. Venus appears as a bright, white disk from Earth.

  • Size: About 650 miles smaller in diameter than Earth
  • Diameter: 7,519 miles (12,100 km)
  • Surface: A rocky, dusty, waterless expanse of mountains, canyons, and plains, with a 200-mile river of hardened lava
  • Atmosphere: Carbon dioxide (95%), nitrogen, sulfuric acid, and traces of other elements
  • Temperature: Ranges from 55°F (13°C) to 396°F (202°C) at the surface
  • Rotation of its axis: 243 Earth days
  • Rotation around the Sun: 225 Earth days
  • Your weight: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 88 pounds on Venus.
  • Distance from Earth: At its closest, Venus is 26 million miles (41,840,000 km) away
  • Mean Distance from Sun: 67.24 million miles (108.2 million km)
  • Satellites: 0
  • Rings: 0

Earth

Earth is not perfectly round; it bulges at the equator and is flatter at the poles. From space the planet looks blue with white swirls, created by water and clouds.

  • Size: Four planets in our solar system are larger and four are smaller than Earth
  • Diameter: 7,926.2 miles (12,756 km)
  • Surface: Earth is made up of water (70%), air, and solid ground. It appears to be the only planet with water
  • Atmosphere: Nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), other gases
  • Rotation of its axis: 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds
  • Rotation around the Sun: 365.2 days
  • Mean Distance from Sun: 92.9 million miles (149.6 million km)
  • Satellites: 1
  • Rings: 0

Mars

Because of its blood-red color (which comes from iron-rich dust), this planet was named for Mars, the Roman god of war. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, situated between Earth and Jupiter. Three-quarters red, Mars also has dark blotches on it and white areas at the poles—these are white polar ice caps.

  • Size: About one-half the size of Earth in diameter
  • Diameter: 4,194 miles (6,794 km)
  • Surface: Canyons, dunes, volcanoes, and polar caps of water ice and carbon dioxide ice
  • Atmosphere: carbon dioxide (95%)
  • Temperature: as low as –305°F (–187°C)
  • Rotation of its axis: 24 Earth hours, 37 minutes, 23 seconds
  • Rotation around the Sun: 687 Earth days
  • Your weight: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 38 pounds on Mars.
  • Distance from Earth: 35 million miles (56 million km) at the closest point in its orbit
  • Mean Distance from Sun:141.71 million miles (227.9 million km)
  • Satellites: 2
  • Rings: 0

Jupiter

A belt of asteroids (fragments of rock and iron) between Mars and Jupiter separate the four inner planets from the five outer planets.

Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, was named for the most important Roman god because of its size. About 1,300 Earths would fit into it. Viewed through a large telescope, Jupiter is stunningly colorful—it is a disk covered with bands of blue, brown, pink, red, orange, and yellow. Its most distinguishing feature is “the Great Red Spot,” an intense windstorm larger in size than Earth, which has continued for centuries without any signs of dying down.

  • Size: 11 times the diameter of Earth
  • Diameter: 88,736 miles (142,800 km)
  • Surface: A hot ball of gas and liquid
  • Atmosphere: Whirling clouds of colored dust, hydrogen, helium, methane, water, and ammonia. The Great Red Spot is an intense windstorm larger than Earth.
  • Temperature: –234°F (–148°C) average
  • Rotation of its axis: 9 hours and 55 minutes
  • Rotation around the Sun: 12 Earth years
  • Your weight: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 265 pounds on Jupiter.
  • Distance from Earth: At its closest, 370 million miles (591 million km)
  • Mean Distance from Sun: 483.88 million miles (778.3 million km)
  • Satellites: 63
  • Rings: 4

Saturn

Saturn, the second-largest planet, has majestic rings surrounding it. Named for the Roman god of farming, Saturn was the farthest planet known by the ancients. Saturn's seven rings are flat and lie inside one another. They are made of billions of ice particles.

  • Size: About 10 times larger than Earth in diameter
  • Diameter: 74,978 miles (120,660 km)
  • Surface: Liquid and gas
  • Atmosphere: Hydrogen and helium
  • Temperature: –288°F (–178°C)
  • Rotation of its axis: 10 hours, 40 min, 24 sec
  • Rotation around the Sun: 291/2 Earth years
  • Your weight: If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 107 pounds on Saturn.
  • Distance from Earth: 744 million miles at the closest point
  • Mean Distance from Sun: 887.14 million miles (1,427 million km)
  • Satellites: 31
  • Rings: 1,000?

Uranus

Uranus is a greenish-blue planet, twice as far from the Sun as its neighbor Saturn. Uranus wasn't discovered until 1781. Its discoveror, William Herschel, named it Georgium Sidus (the Georgian star) after the English king, George III. Later its name was changed to Uranus, after an ancient Greek sky god, since all the other planets had been named after Roman and Greek gods.

  • Size: 4 times larger than Earth in diameter
  • Diameter: 32,193 miles (51,810 km)
  • Surface: Little is known
  • Atmosphere: Hydrogen, helium, and methane
  • Temperature: uniform temperature of –353°F (–214°C)
  • Rotation of its axis: 17 hours
  • Rotation around the Sun: 30,685 days or 84 Earth years
  • Your weight: Not known
  • Distance from Earth: At the closest point, 1,607,000,000 miles
  • Mean Distance from Sun: 1,783.98 million miles (2,870 million km)
  • Satellites: 27
  • Rings: 11

Neptune

Neptune, named for an ancient Roman sea god, is a stormy blue planet about 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth. Neptune was discovered when astronomers realized that something was exerting a gravitational pull on Uranus, and that it was possible that an unknown planet might be responsible. Through mathematical calculations, astronomers determined there was indeed an undiscovered planet out in space—a year before it was actually seen for the first time through a telescope (in 1846).

  • Size: Almost 4 times the size of Earth in diameter
  • Diameter: 30,775 miles (49,528 km)
  • Surface: A liquid layer covered with thick clouds and with constant, raging storms
  • Atmosphere: Hydrogen, helium, methane, and ammonia
  • Temperature: –353°F (–214°C)
  • Rotation of its axis: 16 hours and 7 minutes
  • Rotation around the Sun: 165 Earth years
  • Your weight: Not known
  • Distance from Earth: 2,680,000,000 miles at closest point
  • Mean Distance from Sun: 2,796.46 million miles (4,497 million km)
  • Satellites: 13
  • Rings: 4

Pluto

News Flash (August 24, 2006)—
Pluto Demoted! Read About It Here.

Pluto, named after the Roman and Greek god of the underworld, is the coldest, smallest, and outermost planet in our solar system. Pluto and its moon, Charon, are called “double planets” because Charon is so large it seems less of a moon than another planet. Pluto was predicted to exist in 1905 and discovered in 1930. It is the only planet that has not yet been studied closely by a space probe.

During each revolution around the sun, Pluto passes inside Neptune's orbit for 20 years, making Neptune the outermost planet for that time. Pluto passed inside Neptune's orbit in 1979 and remained there until 1999.

  • Size: Less than one-fifth the size of Earth in diameter
  • Diameter: 1,423 miles? (2,290 km?)
  • Surface: A giant snowball of methane and water mixed with rock
  • Atmosphere: Methane
  • Temperature: between –369° and –387°F (–223° and –233°C)
  • Rotation of its axis: 6 days, 9 hours, 18 minutes
  • Rotation around the Sun: 248 Earth years
  • Your weight: Not known
  • Distance from Earth: At the closest point, 2.67 billion miles
  • Mean Distance from Sun: 3,666 million miles (5,900 million km)
  • Satellites: 1
  • Rings: ?