1. Exploring Space Mercury Earth Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune
not to scale
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2. Mercury – Mariner 10 Mercury has been known since ancient times.
The only probe to visit Mercury was Mariner 10.
The probe flew by the planet three times in
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3. Mercury – Mariner 10
This picture of mercury was made by combining many different images taken by Mariner 10.
This image shows the craters at Mercury's south pole.
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4. Mercury – MESSENGER
The MESSENGER probe was launched on 3rd August It will fly by Mercury three times before going into orbit around Mercury in March.
Artist’s impression of MESSENGER in orbit.
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5. Venus – space probes Venus has been known since ancient times.
Mariner 2 was the first spacecraft to fly past Venus in 1962.
Pioneer Venus investigated the planet from 1978 to 1992.
In 1967, Venera 2 was the first probe to send back data to Earth from beneath the clouds.
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6. The surface of Venus
The Magellan probe made radar images of the surface between 1990 and 1994.
This image was made using radar information from Magellan. It shows two volcanoes: Sif Mons and Gula Mons.
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7. Earth The Earth has one natural satellite – The Moon
This photograph of the Earth was taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft as it was orbiting the Moon.
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8. Exploring Mars Mars has been known since ancient times.
Many different space probes have flow past or orbited Mars and sent data back to Earth. The first was Mariner 4 in 1964.
The first successful landers was Mars 3 in 1971.
The Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars in 2004.
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9. Jupiter’s moons
Jupiter has over 60 moons. Some of them are quite small, but 4 are nearly as big as Mars.
Io pronounced (eye-oh)
Io is covered in volcanoes. This photograph was taken by Galileo space probe.
We can see a volcano erupting. The plume is over 140 km high.
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10. Exploring Jupiter and its moons
Jupiter has been known since ancient times, and its four largest moons were discovered in 1610.
Pioneer was the first space probe to fly past Jupiter in 1973.
Galileo reached Jupiter in It released a probe that descended into the atmosphere of Jupiter.
Galileo continued orbiting Jupiter until 2003, returning information and images of Jupiter and its moons.
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11. Saturn’s moons
In 2005, the Huygens probe descended onto the atmosphere of Titan.
An artist’s impression of the probe descending towards Titan, drawn before the probe arrived.
The real surface of titan.
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12. Exploring Saturn
Saturn is the most distant planet that has been know about since ancient times.
Pioneer 10 was the first probe to fly past Saturn in 1979.
Cassini entered orbit around Saturn in 2004.
Artist’s impression of Cassini passing the rings.
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13. Uranus Uranus was discovered in 1781 by astronomer William Herschel.
Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have flown past it, in 1986.
It’s blue colour comes from a layer of methane at the top o the atmosphere.
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14. Neptune
Astronomers worked out that here must be another planet beyond Uranus, whose gravity was affecting the orbit of Uranus. They worked out where to look for I, and found it in 1846.
Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have flown past it in 1986.
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15. Pluto
Pluto is the furthest planet form the Sun. It is much smaller that the other planets.
This is the best picture we have of Pluto with its moon.
It has one moon, which is almost the same size as it.
No space craft have ever flown past Pluto. It has only been observed from Earth, or by the Hubble space telescope. It was not discovered until 1930.
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