Space Research – About solar system

The solar system:

The meaning of the word solar is ‘of the sun’. The solar system is centered on the Sun, the shining big ball in the sky. It is a family where it contains the nine planets orbiting around the sun namely the, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. But Scientists are still going through the fact that whether Pluto can be considered a planet or not. The solar system consists of the sun, the planets, moons of these planets and smaller objects such as asteroids, comets and bits of space rock. An invisible force called the gravity from the sun pulls the planets and makes them orbit around the sun rather than going into deeper space.

Mercury’s structure:

The distance between the Sun and the Mercury is about 36 million miles and the diameter is said to be 3.024 miles. The mercury is said to be the nearest planet to the sun and it is the fastest to orbit the sun. It orbits the sun in about 88 days. It looks very much like our moon. In fact, it’s about the same size and it’s covered in craters. The biggest crater is the Caloris Basin and it is said to be 800 miles across. Huge plains, rolling hills, deep gorges, chasms and cliffs compose the planet called Mercury.

Weather of Mercury:

Actually speaking, there is no separate weather for Mercury since it has no air and so is the atmosphere. This means that there are no clouds to shield and protect the surface of the planet from the baking hot Sun during the day and so in the night. Like in Earth, there is no wind or rain in Mercury, either.

Sometimes, a star also is not a star:

Sometimes, a star also cannot be called as a Star. Can you guess when it can’t be called so? It’s simple. When it’s a planet. A star cannot be called as a star when it is a planet. Venus is also called as the ‘evening star’ since it’s so bright and its one of the bright points in the earth that we see first in the dark. Planets don’t make their own light but its only reflects the light from the sun.

The biggest planet in the solar system:

Do you know which is the biggest planet in the solar system? It’s Jupiter. An amazing fact is that, it’s so big that all the planets can be fit into it. It’s interesting to see that, if it had been still bigger, it would be the centre point of the solar system and because it’s so big in the middle, it would have turned into another Sun which can reflect the light on its own.

What is the planet of Jupiter made up of?

The planet of Jupiter is the biggest planet of the solar system known so far and hence it is also called the gas giant. About 90% of this biggest planet is made up of hydrogen and helium. There is a small and rocky core at the centre of the planet, which is about the size of the earth.

Jupiter’s moons:

A scientist called as Galileo discovered the four biggest moons namely the Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io in 1610. Since then astronomers have discovered 13 smaller moons as well, making a total of 17.