Solar System Fun

Solar System Fun

From our small world we have gazed upon the cosmic ocean for thousands of years. Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars. They called these objects planets, meaning wanderers. The words "solar system" refer to the Sun and all of the objects that travel around it. Our solar system is made up of a star – the Sun – eight planets, 162 moons, dwarf planets and a bunch of comets, asteroids and other space rocks.

Our solar system is part of a galaxy known as the Milky Way and the Sun is the center of the solar system. Astronomers believe the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. The Sun contains 99.8% of all of the mass in our solar system. This mass has a tremendous gravitational pull on planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. The stargazers also observed comets with sparkling tails, and meteors or shooting stars apparently falling from the sky. Asteroids and comets orbit our Sun in a flattened circle called an ellipse.

A planet is a large space body which reflects the light of a star around which it revolves. The eight planets that make up our solar system are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. They are named after Roman deities - Jupiter, king of the gods; Mars, the god of war; Mercury, messenger of the gods; Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, and Saturn, father of Jupiter and god of agriculture.

Not all planets are the same. Some of them aren't even solid. The planets in our solar system are classified as inner planets and outer planets. The inner planets, the closest to the Sun, are solid spheres of rock like Earth, they include Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. For their first 600 million years, these inner planets were constantly bombarded by asteroids and meteorites. That is why you will find craters of varying sizes on the inner planets and their satellites. Think of the craters on the Moon and Mars. Man stepped onto the Moon in 1969 to study...