Pluto Facts and Information

• WAS the 9th Planet from the Sun

• Classified as a Dwarf Planet in 2006

• One (1) Day on Pluto takes 153 hours

• Orbits the sun every 248 Earth years

• Distance from Sun is approx. 3.67 billion miles

• 1,473 miles in diameter

• Approx. 5 known moons

• If your weight on Earth is 100 lbs, you will weigh 6.7 lbs on Pluto.

With a diameter 1,473 miles, Pluto is about 1/6 the width of Earth. If Earth was the size of a nickel, Pluto would be about as big as a popcorn kernel.

The known moons of Pluto are:

• Charon: Discovered in 1978, this small moon is almost half the size of Pluto. It is so big Pluto and Charon are sometimes referred to as a double planet system.

• Nix and Hydra: These small moons were found in 2005 by a Hubble Space Telescope team studying the Pluto system.

• Kerberos: Discovered in 2011, this tiny moon is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra.

• Styx: Discovered in 2012, this little moon was found by a team of scientists searching for potential hazards to the New Horizons spacecraft Pluto flyby in July 2015.

PLUTO --We Miss You

Uranus Facts and Information

• 7th Planet from the Sun

• Orbits the sun every 84 Earth years

• 31,770 miles in diameter

• Approx. 27 moons

• Core Temp: -243℉  to -370℉(Ice Giant)

• Average Distance from our sun is approximately 1.78 billion miles

• Has Very Faint Rings

• Atmosphere is 83% Hydrogen (H), 15% Helium (He), and 2% Methane (CH₄)

• If your weight on Earth is 100 lbs, you will weigh 88.9 lbs on Uranus

Earth has a diameter of 7,917.5 miles, whereas Uranus has a diameter of about 31,770 miles. This means that Uranus is almost 5 times the size of Earth. In other words, you could fit 63 planets the size of Earth inside Uranus. Finally, the mass of Uranus 95 times the mass of the Earth.

Saturn Facts and Information

• 6th Planet from the Sun

• Orbits the sun every 29 Earth years

• 74,900 miles in diameter

• Approx. 62 moons (9 waiting for names)

• Core Temp: +1,200℉

• Average Distance from our sun is approximately 888 million miles

• 75% Hydrogen (H) and 25% Helium (He); 0.7 times density of water (GAS GIANT)

• Rings are less than one (1) km thick - mostly ice and rock

• If your weight on Earth is 100 lbs, you will weigh 106.4 lbs on Saturn

Earth has a diameter of 7,917.5 miles, whereas Saturn has a diameter of about 74,900 miles. This means that Saturn is almost 10 times the size of Earth.

In other words, you could fit 764 planets the size of Earth inside Saturn. Finally, the mass of Saturn is 95 times the mass of the Earth.

MOONS OF SATURN

While the larger moons are spherical, others are shaped like a sweet potato (Prometheus), a regular potato (Pandora), a meatball (Janus), and even a sponge (Hyperion). Some have a gnarled, irregular shape and texture like a dirty ice-ball (Epimetheus). One object observed in the rings (and unofficially called Peggy) may be a moon forming or disintegrating, or it might not truly be a moon at all.

Four spacecraft have visited the Saturn system, but Cassini alone actually orbited the ringed planet. Doing so bought Cassini time—more than a decade—to linger and watch Saturn’s exotic zoo of 60-plus moons like no spacecraft before. Cassini looked, listened, sniffed and even tasted Saturn’s moons, and what it learned about them is nothing less than extraordinary.

Here are some websites to help you with your love and passion of Space and Astronomy. Enjoy!

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/overview/

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/overview/

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/

https://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/special/planets.htm

Jupiter Facts and Information

• 5th Planet from the Sun

• Orbits the sun every 11.8 Earth years

• Largest Planet in our Solar System

• 89,365 miles in diameter

• Approx. 79 moons

• Cloud Temp: -234℉

• Above Jupiter Temp: 1,334℉

• Average Distance from our sun is approximately 483 million miles

• 90% Hydrogen (H) and 10% Helium (He) with Rocky Core (GAS GIANT)

• If your weight on Earth is 100 lbs, you will weigh 252.8 lbs on Jupiter

Earth has a diameter of 7,917.5 miles, whereas Jupiter has a diameter of about 89,365 miles. This means that Jupiter is almost 11 times the size of Earth, and just under 318 times as massive. 1,000 Earths can fit into 1 Jupiter.

However, Earth’s density is significantly higher, since Earth is a terrestrial planet Jupiter is a Gas Giant.

Jupiter is composed primarily of gaseous and liquid matter which is divided between a gaseous outer atmosphere and a denser interior.

Jupiter has 53 named moons. Others are awaiting official names. Combined, scientists now think Jupiter has 79 moons.

There are many interesting moons orbiting the planet, but the ones of most scientific interest are the first four moons discovered beyond Earth—the Galilean satellites.

The Galilean Moons

The planet Jupiter's four largest moons are called the Galilean satellites after Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who first observed them in 1610. The German astronomer Simon Marius claimed to have seen the moons around the same time, but he did not publish his observations and so Galileo is given the credit for their discovery. These large moons, named Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, are each distinctive worlds

Crash Course: Jupiter

Mars Facts and Information

• 4th Planet from the Sun

• Orbits the sun every 686 Earth days

• Has seans and polar ice caps

• 4,200 miles in diameter

• 2 moons but more like Asteroids caught in Mars' gravitational pull

• Surface Temp: -225℉ to 70℉

• Average Distance from our sun is approximately 141 million miles

• Thin atmosphere (1% of Earth), mostly Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

• If your weight on Earth is 100 lbs, you will weigh 37.7 lbs on Mars

Mars, the fourth planet from the sun, is the second smallest planet in the solar system; only Mercury is smaller. Mars is about half (53 percent) the size of Earth, but because Mars is a desert planet, it has the same amount of dry land as Earth.

Earth has a diameter of 7,917.5 miles, whereas Venus has a diameter of about 4,200 miles. This means that Venus is roughly 0.9499 the size of Earth.

Mars is home to both the highest mountain and the deepest, longest valley in the solar system. Olympus Mons is roughly 17 miles (27 kilometers) high, about three times as tall as Mount Everest. It is also one of the largest volcanoes in the solar system. It is about 370 miles (600 kilometers) in diameter, wide enough to cover the entire state of New Mexico.

The Valles Marineris system of valleys — named after the Mariner 9 probe that discovered it in 1971 — can go as deep as 6 miles (10 kilometers) and runs east-west for roughly 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers), about one-fifth of the distance around Mars and close to the width of Australia or the distance from Philadelphia to San Diego.

Crash Course: Mars

The Planets in Our Solar System: MERCURY

Mercury Facts and Information

• Closest Planet to the Sun

• Orbits once every 88 days

• Smallest planet in the Solar System

• 3,031 miles in diameter

• Surface Temp: 197℉ to +801℉

• Average Distance from our sun is approximately 16.4 million miles

• If your weight on Earth is 100 lbs, you will weigh 37.8 lbs on Mercury

The diameter of Mercury is 4,879 km (3,031 miles), which is approximately 38% the diameter of Earth. In other words, if you put three (3) Mercurys side by side, they would be a little larger than the Earth from end to end. While this makes Mercury smaller than the largest natural satellites in our system – such as Ganymede and Titan – it is more massive and far more dense than they are.

rash Course: Mercury

The Planets in Our Solar System: EARTH

Earth Facts and Information

• 3rd Closest Planet to the Sun

• Orbits the sun every 365 days

• Known as the Blue Planet and the Goldilocks Planet

• 7,917.5 miles in diameter

• Average Distance from our sun is approximately 93 million miles

• Oceans at least 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep cover nearly 70 percent of Earth's surface.

• The minimum weather temperature on Earth is -126 degrees Fahrenheit (-87.8 degrees Celsius) and the maximum weather temperature on Earth is 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 degrees Celsius).

• Earth has ONE (1) Moon

Earth and Moon Facts

• The diameter of the Moon is 2,158 miles. Now, let’s compare this to the Earth. The diameter of the Earth is 7,917.5 miles. This means that the Moon is approximately 27% the size of the Earth.

• The Moon was created 4.6 Billion Years ago - which is the same as Earth

• Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969 (Saturn V Rocket)

• It is the fifth largest moon in the Solar System.

• The average distance from the Moon to the Earth is 238,857 miles.

• The Moon orbits the Earth every 27.3 days.

• If your weight on Earth is 100 lbs, you will weigh 17 lbs on the moon

Crash Course: The Earth