The Solar System And The Planets. Shape and Length of The planets & Characteristics Of planets.

 

The sun is located at the center of the solar system. The planets are revolving around the sun. The order of the planets is in the order of their distance from the sun. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, and Pluto is the farthest planet from the sun. All these planets revolve around a common center, which is called the barycenter .The barycenter lies outside the solar system, in between Uranus and Neptune.

The total number of satellites revolving around these eight planets is very small in comparison to other celestial bodies like moons and asteroids .Satellites revolve around five out of eight planets .Only three out of eight planets have a moon .Ceres, Pluto, Triton, and Charon do not have any satellites orbiting them. In addition to this, there are many other small bodies that revolve around these planets, and even they orbit each other. These bodies are called asteroids, minor moons, minor satellites, etc..

In this article we will discuss each planet with their characteristics, satellites ,satellites of satellites, etc. and also we will discuss about dwarf planets which are also included in our solar system but they do not fit into any categories mentioned above ,so they are called as dwarf planet category.

The Sun:

The sun is the center of our solar system and it gives light and heat to all planets. The sun rotates on its own axis every 25 days and it revolves around its axis every 27 days .

The sun is the brightest object in the sky, with a surface temperature of 5800 K. It is a star and is located at the center of our solar system. It is about 4.6 billion years old and will continue to shine for another 5 billion years or so before it dies out. One day on the sun lasts about 25 earth days, and one year lasts about 365 earth days. The Sun has a mass of 2x1030 kg and its density is 1,400 kg/m3 . The sun spins around its axis once every 25 days, giving rise to a solar day which is shorter than an Earth day by about 20 minutes.

Earth.

Earth is the only planet that has life. Earth is the third planet in the solar system. It is a small planet, but its surface area is large. Its size is less than one-tenth of that of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. Earth’s gravity is much stronger than that of any other planet in our solar system. On earth, there are many mountains and valleys.

Earth is the only place where life exists in our solar system. Oceans, mountains, deserts, ice caps, and even snow-capped volcanoes can be found on Earth! The Earth's crust floats on a layer of liquid iron and nickel metal that makes up its core. The temperature at Earth’s core reaches 7,000 Fahrenheit (3,900 degrees Celsius). The atmosphere of Earth traps heat from the sun so that life on our planet can survive even though it’s far from being as hot as other planets in our Solar System. The Earth has an average surface temperature of 59 Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius). In winter temperatures drops to -20 Fahrenheit (-5 degrees Celsius) near the North Pole; while summer temperatures can rise up to 100 °F (37 °C) near the Equator!

 

Mercury

Mercury: Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. Mercury is a rocky planet. Mercury has a very thin atmosphere. Mercury is the smallest planet in solar system. Mercury’s surface temperature can reach 427 Fahrenheit (218 degrees Celsius).

It takes only 88 earth days to orbit around the Sun once, but it takes almost 3 months for one revolution on its axis (58 earth days). Mercury’s density is 5400 kg/m3 and its diameter is 4878 km, which makes it larger than Pluto (diameter 2376 km) but smaller than Mars (diameter 6771 km). It has no moons or rings, which are found only on large planets like Jupiter, Saturn, etc. Mercury has a very thin atmosphere that consists mostly of hydrogen gas with some helium gas in it too, along with dust particles, which give it an orange-yellow color when viewed from space .

 

Mercury, Venus, and Mars are called terrestrial planets because they have rocky surfaces like Earth. Mercury has no moons, whereas Venus has two moons. Mars also has two moons, named Mars and Phoebes . These terrestrial planets have densities ranging from 5.4 (Mercury) to 5.9 (Earth), with an average density of 5.5 g/cm3 (0.20 oz/cu in).

 

 

Venus.

Venus is very close to Earth and it has similar size as earth. Venus also has a rocky surface, but it is covered with clouds of sulfuric acid that are hot enough to melt lead and zinc metal. Venus’s surface temperature can reach 864 Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius).

The planet Venus is the next planet from the sun, which orbits between 48 million km and 108 million km. It is second only to Earth because of its size .It has thick atmosphere . Its surface temperature is about 500 degrees C . The atmosphere contains carbon dioxide, which makes it very hot and also makes it difficult for sunlight to reach its surface . Venus has no natural satellite or moon.

Venus is a very hot planet with a thick atmosphere containing carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid clouds. Venus' surface temperature reaches 900 degrees Fahrenheit, and its atmosphere would be too hot for people to breathe. Venus has been called Earth's sister planet because of similarities between their surface structures, but Venus' thick atmosphere makes it different from Earth. Venus was named after the Greek goddess "Aphrodite". Venus is the same size as Earth, with a diameter of 12104 miles(19,600 km).

 

Mars.

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, which orbits between 150 million km and 200 million km. Its mass is 6% less than earth’s mass but its diameter is 40% less than Earth’s diameter .Its atmosphere contains carbon dioxide and other gases like nitrogen, etc., and its surface temperature is as much as 153 °C in winter and summer respectively . Mars also doesn’t have any natural satellites or moons.

Mars is also a medium-sized planet, but it has a thin atmosphere like Earth's atmosphere. Mars has two satellites, Phobos & Deimos, which are named after Fear & Terror Gods, respectively .It takes Mars 687 days to go around the Sun .Mars has polar ice caps which contain frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) , water ice , iron oxide (rust), Sulphur dioxide , silicates ,and trace amounts of carbon monoxide and methane.

Jupiter.

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun. It is the largest planet in our solar system. It is also the largest of all the planets in our solar system. Jupiter is thought to be about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium by mass, with a small amount of other elements. It has a diameter of 142,984 km at its equator, which is over 11 times that of Earth!

Jupiter's atmosphere is made up mostly of molecular hydrogen, with helium and traces of methane. Underneath this layer lies a thick layer (1000 km) of liquid metallic hydrogen which makes up most of Jupiter's volume. At pressures approaching 20 megabars (2 million times that on Earth), hydrogen becomes able to conduct electricity, and this layer acts as an electrical conductor, generating Jupiter's enormous magnetic field. The pressure in these depths is immense-it takes 1 ton of force to squeeze 1 kilogram on Earth-but at those depths it takes 1 billion tones!

Below this layer lies an ocean composed primarily of liquid molecular hydrogen mixed with helium and traces of other gases. The outermost part (about 10% by volume) consists largely of molecular hydrogen mixed with helium; this region extends from within several kilometers of the surface down to about 50 km below it, where pressures reach 100 megabars (10 million times that on Earth). This region forms what we call Jupiter's atmosphere. The temperature in these layers increases gradually with depth until one reaches the main atmospheric cloud deck.

1). Jupiter’s mass equals 318 times that of Earth.

2)The radius of Jupiter is about 11 times that of the Earth, and its volume equals 1,321 times that of the Earth.

3)The temperature on Jupiter’s surface reaches -130 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, water freezes into ice cubes as big as houses. These ice cubes float in an ocean made up mostly of ammonia and liquid hydrogen sulfide, which are poisonous gases on Earth but liquid at these temperatures. In fact, there would be no life as we know it on this planet because there would be no liquid water to support it! The clouds above the icy layer contain ammonia ice crystals and frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice). This mixture makes up most of the atmosphere with traces of other gases such as methane, water vapor, and hydrogen supplied gas. The inside layers are mostly composed of heavy elements such as rock and iron, surrounded by metallic hydrogen (a liquid metal). On top of all this lies a thin layer made up mostly of molecular hydrogen gas with traces of ammonia gas and water vapor gas (clouds).

Uranus.

Uranus is another large planet which takes 84 years to revolve around the Sun Neptune, another large planet, takes 165 years to revolve around the Sun.

Pluto.

Pluto, which was discovered recently by Clyde Tombaugh, an astronomer from the USA, who was working at Lowell Observatory, Arizona as an assistant astronomer ,is very small and cold(about-400 degrees F)and very far away from us (about 5 billion miles), so that we can not see its surface clearly because there are no telescopes powerful enough to see its surface clearly . Pluto completes one revolution around the sun every 248 Earth years. Pluto was considered a planet until 2006, when scientists decided to demote it to a dwarf planet. 

Saturn.

Saturn was once the most famous of all the dwarf planets, and it was named after the son of Hermes, the god of commerce and money. This name was given to it by a Greek writer, who also reported that it had two moons called Atlas and Phoebe. The moon Atlas was a crescent moon with a diameter of about 12 kilometers (7 miles). The moon Phoebe was an elongated oval body with a diameter of about 3 kilometers (2 miles). The Moon's major characteristics were that it was round in shape, but when viewed side on, its surface resembled an irregular sphere (a solid sphere in other words) or a convex or concave cylinder or cone. Its surface had a metallic shine which made it appear as though it were composed entirely from metal; this metallic shine is due to its composition being made up of iron and nickel. On the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, there is an area called "The Titanean Fields," which is where Titan's molten rock has formed into what looks like an irregular ball-like object, resembling an orange ball when seen side on. These fields are made up entirely of Titan's molten rock, which has been heated by natural processes such as volcanoes or other volcanic eruptions happening on Titan's surface; these plates are now forming around this strange lump-like object extending out from Saturn's moon Titan into space.

 Giant Planets.

Jupiter , Saturn , Uranus , Neptune , Pluto are called gas giant planets because they have gases as their main composition. Jupiter's four biggest satellites (moons) are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Calisto. These four satellites revolve around Jupiter at different rates of speed.