2. SOLAR SYSTEM Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Earth’s Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune

3. SUN How old is the Sun? The Sun is a middle aged star at 4 ½ billion years old, and scientist think it should continue spinning for another 5 billion years at least. How big is the Sun? The sun has a diameter of 870,000 miles It is 109 times wider than Earth and 330 times heavier What’s the Sun made of? 92% hydrogen, 7% helium and the rest is other low number gasses

4. MERCURY How close is it to the sun? 29,000,000 miles is the closest it gets How hot does it get? 800 degrees Fahrenheit How fast does it orbit the sun? Every 88 days, traveling through space at nearly 31 miles per seconds faster than any other planet What is it’s atmosphere made up of? Nothing it doesn’t have one.

5. VENUS When was the last person on Venus? Never because it has an extremely hot and deadly atmosphere which makes it impossible for any human astronaut to explore it's surface. Just how slow is its rotation? It takes 243 days for Venus to make a rotation, and 224 for it to orbit the sun, so its day is longer than its year Does Venus support any life? It is believed that Venus used to have bodies of water similar to Earth, but dried up over a period of 300 million years after the sun’s infancy stage.

6. EARTH How deep are the oceans? At least 2.5 miles deep that we know of What’s the atmosphere made up of? 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent other ingredients How many people inhabit Earth? 7 billion as of November 2011 What's the highest elevation on Earth? Mt. Everest: 29,035 feet. What's the lowest elevation on Earth? Dead Sea: 1369 feet below sea level

7. EARTH’S MOON How big is the moon? The diameter of the moon is 2,160 miles How does it’s gravity compare to Earths? The surface gravity of the moon is only one-sixth that of the Earth There has never been any cheese found on the moon!

8. MARS How big is Mars? The diameter of Mars is 4,200 miles, a little over half that of Earth How big are volcanoes on Mars? Olympus Mons is 15 miles high which is 3 times the height of Mount Everest Is there water on Mars? Like Earth, the poles of Mars are covered in ice. What’s the gravity on Mars like? A hundred pound man would weigh 38 pounds on Mars.

9. JUPITER How big is Jupiter? Jupiter has a mass 318 times greater than the Earth's and a diameter that is 11 times larger How fast does it rotate? It rotates so quickly that the days are only 10 hours long, but it takes 12 Earth years for Jupiter to complete an orbit around the sun. The great red spot on Jupiter is a storm that has been going on for over 300 years.

10. SATURN How big is Saturn? Saturn's diameter at its equator is 74,600 miles, almost ten times Earth. How fast does it orbit the Sun? It takes about 29.46 Earth years for Saturn to orbit around our sun Saturn has over 30 moons. If there was an ocean big enough to hold Saturn it would float on water, because of it’s low density.

11. URANUS Uranus is the only planet to get its name from Greek mythology instead of Roman. Are it’s days and nights comparable to Earths? Not really because of the strange way it spins some nights last 40 years. How is the axis tilted? almost perpendicular to the plane of the eclipitc, its poles face the sun. It is the coldest planet in the solar system How is its size compared to Earth’s? It is 14 times larger It has 27 known moons.

12. NEPTUNE How is it’s size comparable to Earth’s? It is 4 times Earth’s diameter. It is so far away it took the 12 years for Voyager 2 to reach it. Are there storms on Neptune? Yes, in fact winds can reach 1,240 mph, which is 3 times as fast as Earth’s hurricanes. Why is it blue? Because of the methane gas in it’s atmosphere. Neptune only receives 1/900 of the solar energy that reaches Earth.

13. TERRESTRIAL PLANETS Sun Mercury Venus Earth Moon Mars Terrestrial Planets are planets which are predominantly composed of silicate rocks.

14. JOVIAN PLANETS Sun Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Jovian Planets are planets that are made up of gas and no solid matter, except maybe their core.

15. REFERENCE PAGE  http://library.thinkquest.org/J002231F/Sun/factsaboutthesun.ht m http://library.thinkquest.org/J002231F/Sun/factsaboutthesun.ht m  http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar- system/mercury-article/ http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar- system/mercury-article/  http://www.planetfacts.net http://www.planetfacts.net