Planets

Planets

Mercury

1st planet from the Sun. Name after the Greek (Hermes) and Roman (Mercury) messenger of the gods.

Mercury is a small terrestrial planet that is 36 million miles or 58 million kilometers from the sun.

Mercury is .36 AU's from the Sun.

A year on mercury is 88 Earth days long and a day is 59 earth days long.

The temperature on Mercury is 750 F for the high and -250 F for the low. This extreme differences between is due to the extremely tenuous atmosphere that exist on Mercury.

The Atmosphere is mainly consists of trace amounts of Hydrogen, Helium and Sodium.

Mercury's diameter is 4,878 kilometers

Mercury has no moons.

Venus

2nd planet from the Sun. Name after the Greek and Roman goddess of love and beauty.

Venus is a large terrestrial planet plant that is 67 million miles or 108 million kilometers from the Sun.

Venus is .72 AU's from the Sun.

A year on Venus is 225 Earth days long and a day is 243 Earth Days long! Venus's day is longer than its year!

The temperature on Venus is 900 F both day and night. This extreme temperature is caused by a runaway greenhouse effect on from Venus's thick carbon dioxide atmosphere.

The atmosphere is 90 times denser than the Earth's and consist of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and hydrogen sulfuric acid vapor with traces of water vapor.

Venus's diameter is 12,104 Kilometers

Venus has no moons.

Earth

3rd planet from the Sun. Earth comes from the Latin word meaning terra firma.

Earth is the largest of all terrestrial planets in our solar system. Earth is 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers from the Sun.

Earth is 1 AU from the Sun.

A year on Earth is 365.25 days and a day on Earth is 24 hours long (Solar Day) and 23 hours and 56 minutes and 4 seconds (Sidereal Day)

The temperature on Earth ranges from 140 F to -126.8 F.

The atmosphere is 78 % nitrogen, 21 % oxygen, .97% Argon and 0.003% carbon dioxide.

The Earth is covered with 70% water.

Earth's diameter is 12,756 kilometers.

Earth has one moon called moon.

Mars

4th planet from the Sun. Mars is named after Greek and Roman god of war.

Mars is the third largest terrestrial planet. Mar is 141,500,000 miles or 227,000,000 kilometers from the Sun.

Mars is 1.52 AU's from the Sun.

A year on Mars is 687 Earth days long. A day on Mars is 24 hours and 37 minutes.

The temperature varies from 63 F to -200. Mars has major dust storms which affect the planet for months at a time.

The atmosphere of Mars is carbon dioxide, nitrogen, argon and oxygen.

Mar's diameter is 6,790 kilometers or 4,219 miles.

Mars has two moons Phobos (fear) and Deimos (terror)

Ceres (Dwarf Planet)

Ceres is named after the ancient Roman goddess deity of growing plants and of motherly love.

Ceres was discovered using a telescope by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801.

Ceres is a terrestrial and is the smallest dwarf planet known in the solar system.

Ceres is 2.544 Au to 2.98 AU from the Sun.

A year is 4.59 Earth years long and a day is 9 hours long.

Ceres surface temperature is -63F.

Ceres has no atmosphere.

Ceres diameter is 950 kilometers.

Ceres has no moons.

Jupiter

5th planet from the Sun. Jupiter was named after Greek (Zeus) and Roman king of the gods.

Jupiter is the largest planet know in the solar system. Jupiter is also a gas giant with no known solid surface.

Jupiter is 778,330,000 kilometers or 486,000,000 miles from the Sun.

Jupiter is 5.20 AU's from the Sun.

A year on Jupiter is 11.86 Earth Years long and a is 9.8 hours long.

The temperature varies on Jupiter up to 50,000 F with cloud top temperatures around -200 F

The atmosphere is made up of 90% hydrogen and 10 % helium. Jupiter atmosphere is very turbulent and contains a "Great Red Spot which three times the size of Earth and is over 400 years old.

Jupiter's diameter is 142,984 kilometers and it would take 1,000 Earth's to fill this volume.

Jupiter has 63 moons and three rings. Jupiter's major moons are Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede.

Saturn

6th planet from the Sun. Saturn (Roman) was named after the Greek god (Cronus) who was the father of Zeus.

Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system. Saturn is a gas giant like Jupiter in that it has no known solid surface.

Saturn is 1,429,400,000 kilometers or 886,000,000 miles from the Sun.

Saturn is 9.54 AU's from the Sun.

A year on Saturn is 29.46 Earth years long and a day is 10.2 hours long.

The temperatures on Saturn varies from -200 F cloud top to 1,000,000,000 F as recorded by the voyagers spacecraft.

The atmosphere of Saturn is made up of 75% hydrogen and 25 % helium with traces of water, methane and ammonia. Like Jupiter, Saturn also sports a red spot but not as large.

Saturn's diameter is 120,536 kilometers.

Saturn has 61 moons and thousands of rings. Saturn's largest moon is Titan.

Saturn is the last of the visible ancient planets.

Uranus

7th planet from the Sun. Uranus is named after the ancient Greek deity of the heavens, the earliest supreme god.

Uranus was the first planet to be discovered using a telescope by William Herschel in 1781.

Uranus is a gas giant and is the third largest planet known in the solar system.

Uranus is 2,870,990,000 kilometers or 1,772,216,049 miles from the Sun.

Uranus is 19.2 AU's from the Sun.

A year is 84 Earth years long and a day is 17 hours and 14 minutes. Uranus rotates on its side.

The atmosphere is made up of 83 % hydrogen,15% helium and 2% methane. The temperature ranges from -190 F cloud top to 1,000 of degrees F in the interior.

Uranus's diameter is 51,118 kilometers.

Uranus has 27 moons of which Titania is the largest. Uranus also has 11 known rings.

Neptune

8th planet from the Sun. Neptune (Roman) is named after the Greek (Poseidon) god of the sea.

Neptune was discovered by Galle and d'Arrest in 1846 on September 23.

Neptune is a gas giant. Neptune is the fourth largest planet known in the solar system.

Neptune is 4,504,000,000 kilometers or 2,780,246,913 miles from the Sun.

Neptune is 30.06 AU's from the Sun.

A year on Neptune is 165 Earth years long and a day is 16 hours long.

The atmosphere is made up of Hydrogen, helium and methane. The temperature is -360 F at cloud top. Neptune also has the fastest winds in the solar system 1, 500 miles per hour.

Neptune's diameter is 49,532 kilometers.

Neptune has 13 moons which Triton is the largest and Neptune has 4 rings.

Pluto (Dwarf Planet)

Pluto named after the god of the underworld in Greek and Roman mythology.

Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in January 1930.

Pluto is a terrestrial Ice dwarf planet which is made up of rock and ice.

Pluto is 5,995,589,800 kilometers or 3,700,981,358 miles from the Sun.

Pluto is 39.53 AU's from the Sun.

A year on Pluto is 247.7 Earth years long and 6.4 Earth days day.

The atmosphere is made up of Methane and the temperature is around -400F.

Pluto's diameter is 2,320 kilometers or 1,440 miles making Pluto the smallest of all planets.

Pluto has three moons, largest one is called Charon which is half the size of Pluto. The other two smaller moons are called Nix and Hydra.

Eris (Dwarf Planet)

Eris is named after the ancient Greek deity of strife and discord.

Eris was discovered using a telescope by M.E. Brown, C.A. Trujillo and D.L. Rabinowitz on October 21, 2003.

Eris is a terrestrial Ice planet and is the largest dwarf planet known in the solar system.

Eris is 37.77 AU to 97.56 AU from the Sun.

A year is 577 Earth years long and a day is 8 hours long.

The atmosphere is made up of methane when present. The surface temperature is -405F.

Eris diameter is 2400 kilometers.

Eris has 1 moon called Dysnomia.

Planet Photos Courtesy of NASA JPL/Keck Observatory "Eris"