Literature: Our Solar System

Review of Literature

Introduction - Our Solar System

Our Solar System contains one very large star and eight major planets that orbit it, although it used to be nine, but as you may know, Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, (ordered by position relative to the Sun) are the eight major planets that orbit this large star. This particular star being the Sun.

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, because of this, Mercury’s surface temperature can reach about 800 degrees fahrenheit, and according to NASA, “Because the planet has no atmosphere to retain that heat, nighttime temperatures on the surface can drop to -290 degrees Fahrenheit. NASA also says that Mercury makes

A full, normal orbit around the Sun on Earth is 365 days, and Earth is currently the only planet known to man that has the ability to, and actually does harbor any kind of life.

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, and is about half the size of Earth. One full orbit around the Sun, or one Earth year on Mars is 687 days. Mars is a rocky body, has two moons, no global magnetic field, and is believed to have once experienced huge flood waters about 3.5 billion years ago. Although, now one reason Mars is uninhabitable by humans is because of its non existent source of water.

Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun, is surrounded by more than 50 moons. Jupiter is also the largest planet in the entire Solar System. The iconic ‘Big Red Spot’ on Jupiter is actually a storm that has raged for hundreds of years. This spot, itself, is bigger than Earth. Jupiter is 11 times wider than Earth, and one full orbit around the Sun is just about 12 years on Earth.

Saturn, the sixth planet from the Sun which is also the second largest planet in the Solar System is most iconic for its huge rings. Although the days on Saturn on really short it actually takes 29 Earth years for Saturn to make its full orbit around the

What is a Dwarf Planet? According to ‘Webster’s Dictionary’, a Dwarf Planet is “a celestial body that orbits the sun and has a spherical shape but is not large enough to disturb other objects from its orbit”. We have five Dwarf Planets, Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. Although they technically are not Planets they do have some similarities to normal planets. One similarity between planets and dwarf planets is the fact that they both have enough mass and gravity to be nearly round, this is one of the qualifications needed to be considered a planet, and they both travel through space in a path around the Sun. The only difference between planets and dwarf planets is that dwarf planets have not yet been able to clear the area surrounding its orbit, while a planet