Are you curious to learn some weird and wonderful facts about the solar system?
If so, excellent! You are in exactly the right place my friend…
It’s time to chat about the solar system facts.
Let’s dive right in…
Facts About The Solar System
1 – A solar system is made up of a star, planets, and other objects that orbit the star.
2 – The sun is the biggest star in our solar system and it is 332,900 the weight of Earth. Over 1,300,000 Earths could fit into the Sun.
3 – Pluto was once considered a planet but it was reclassified as a dwarf planet because it doesn’t meet all 3 criteria for being classified as a planet.
4 – Jupiter has 79 moons orbiting around it and Saturn has 82 moons.
5 – Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system.
More Facts About The Solar System
6 – There are 8 planets in our solar system, including Earth. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are all planets in the solar system all named after Greek gods or goddesses.
All of the planets orbit around the sun, but some orbit it at a different speed than others.
7 – There’s an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that contains millions of asteroids.
8 – A solar eclipse happens when the moon moves in front of the sun blocking its light from reaching earth.
9 – Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh on February 18th 1930 but has since been downgraded to a dwarf planet due to its size and distance from other objects in space.
10 – The earth revolves on its axis, which causes day and night.
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11 – Saturn has rings made up of ice particles and rocks in an outer layer around the planet.
12 – Venus rotates very slowly on its axis, so one side always faces away from the sun while the other side faces towards it.
13 – Earth’s orbit around the sun takes 365 days to complete one cycle.
14 – Mars was named after the Roman god of war because its red color resembles blood spilled on earth during battles. Jupiter is also known as “the king” and Saturn as “the ringed beauty.”
15 – The Sun is a star at the center of our Solar System but it’s not just any old star – it has an immense gravity that keeps everything in its orbit going round and round.
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16 – Our solar system contains many objects like asteroids, comets and meteoroids but they’re too small for us to see with our own eyes from earth so we need telescopes to study them closely.
17 – Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is an enormous storm that has been raging for centuries on end.
18 – Saturn’s rings were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610 when he was looking through his telescope.
19 – Neptune has a radius 3 times larger than Earth’s but its mass is 17 times smaller.
20 – Venus rotates so slowly that one day on Venus takes 243 earth days to complete.
More Facts About The Solar System
21 – Mercury has a very thin atmosphere because its temperature can get as high as 700°C during the day and -173°C at night.
22 – The solar system is about 130-150 billion kilometers across, or 8 light hours wide.
To calculate light hours or how fast light can travel in one hour, one must multiply the distance light can travel in one minute by 60. This means light can travel 1,080,000,000 kilometres or 669,600,000 miles in one hour.
23 – Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, that are both tiny compared to Earth’s moon.
24 – Jupiter is a gas giant with 67 known satellites orbiting around it including four large ones called Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
25 – Saturn has 62 confirmed moons including Titan which was discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1655.
