Friday 30 September 2011

Venus

Venus




Venus is a very similar size to the Earth, and like Earth, is made of a thick silicate mantle around an iron core. It has a substantial atmosphere and evidence of internal geological activity. Venus is probably the planet that is most similar to Earth in many ways, although it is much drier than Earth and its atmosphere is ninety times as dense.

It is the hottest planet in the solar system, with surface temperatures over 400 °C. This is thought to be because of the amount of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.

Venus is named after the Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty.

Venus is 108,000,000 km away from the sun.

Mercury




Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and the smallest planet of the solar system. Mercury has been visited by two unmanned NASA space probes, Mariner 10 and Messenger. The unmanned Messenger proble was launched by NASA in 2004 and will begin to orbit Mercury in 2011 after several flybys.

The picture on the left is a picture of Mercury that was taken by Messenger in 2008, and transmitted back to earth for scientists to study.

Mercury is 57,900,000 km away from the sun.

The Solar System

What is the solar system?





The Solar System is made up of the Sun and the celestial objects that are bound to it by its gravity: the eight planets and five dwarf planets, their 173 known moons, and billions of small bodies, such as asteroids, icy kuiper belt objects, comets, meteoroids, and interplanetary dust.

Although the farthest planet is over four billion kilometers away from the earth, all eight planets can be seen in the night sky, using a telescope or binoculars - as long as you know where to look