The Solar System PDF
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This document provides an overview of the Solar System, touching upon topics such as planets, comets, the Sun, and the Moon. It highlights key features, distances, and interesting facts.
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The Solar System The Asteroid Belt contains predominantly rocky objects between Mars and Jupiter. The Kuiper Belt consists of mainly icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. The Oort Cloud is a distant, spherical region of icy comet nuclei, farthest from the Sun, and is the...
The Solar System The Asteroid Belt contains predominantly rocky objects between Mars and Jupiter. The Kuiper Belt consists of mainly icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. The Oort Cloud is a distant, spherical region of icy comet nuclei, farthest from the Sun, and is the source of most long-period comets. Comets are made of dust, rock and ice and do not orbit the Sun. There are many moons in our solar system. The largest Moon is Ganymede, which belongs to Jupiter. The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old. Venus and Mercury have shorter years than Earth because they orbit closer to the Sun. They are also the roundest planets in our solar system. They almost make a perfect sphere. Mars is the largest volcano in our solar system. All planets except Earth are named after Greek, Roman Gods, and Goddesses. (Mars - God of War, Venus - Goddess of Love, Saturn - God of Agriculture and Wealth, Mercury - God of Travelers, Uranus - God of the sky, Neptune-God of the Sea, Jupiter - King of Roman Gods) No photo exists of our solar system, the Milky Way. The Sun makes up about 98.8% of the mass of the Solar System. Astronomy The two types of telescopes are Refractor and Reflector. Mission Apollo 11 was the first mission to land on the Moon. A Neutron star and a Black Hole can result from a Super Nova! A supernova is the colossal explosion of a star. Scientists have identified several types of supernovas. One type called a “core-collapse” supernova, occurs in the last stage of the life of massive stars that are at least eight times larger than our Sun. Another type of supernova is called a thermal runaway supernova. Humans have not landed a probe on Jupiter or Saturn. The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest central galaxy to the Milky Way. It is about 2.5 million lightyears away. Earth and the Moon The Earth spins from West to East and is 150 million km from the Sun. The Earth’s atmosphere comprises approximately 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen. It takes about 8 minutes for the Sun’s light to reach Earth. The Sun is 150,000,000km away, and the speed of light travels 300,000km per second! Aside from the Sun, Proxima Centauri is the closest star to Earth. The Moon has no atmosphere. It orbits the Earth every 27 days and reflects sunlight so it is visible. There are eight main phases in the Moon’s cycle. A Blue Moon occurs when there are two full moons in one month - it happens every 2.7 years, hence the expression “Once in a Blue Moon.”
