Venus is the second nearest planet to the Sun. Venus has got a pattern. The patterns are made out of clouds that goes around the planet in four days. Venus looks like a star at night. The planet is a little bit smaller than the earth and it has got nearly no air. It just has a little, little tiny bit of air. Its normal temperature is 454°C (850°F). That is far too hot for water to stay as liquid. We can not see the surface of Venus because it is hidden by the thick clouds that are probably made by thousands of volcanoes. Some may still be active. The Venus Transit of 08/06/04 lasted for six hours. The last transit of Venus before that was in 1882. Next transit: 06th June 2012 and after that transit you will have to wait for more than one century. After the 2012 transit: 11th December 2117 and 08th December 2125. Venus transits are very rare. There were only seven Venus transits since people used telescopes to look at the sky: 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and 2004. Transits of Venus can only occur in June or December.
Venus is a hot and fiery planet, we can see that from this picture.
Facts:
Symbol:
Colour: Burning Red/Orange Diameter: 12,104 KM (7,522 Miles) 0.95 Earth’s Mass: 4,87x10^24 kilograms (0.81-0.82 x Earth’s) Density: 5,243 kg/m^3 Minimum distance from the Sun: 108 million km (67 million miles) Maximum distance from the Sun: 109 million km (68 million miles) Minimum distance from Earth: 40 million km (25 million miles) Roman and Greek Names: Venus and Aphrodite
Surface:
Time taken to spin once: 243 Days Temperature: 454°C (850°F) Always Time taken to go around the Sun once: 0.62 years (225 days) Moon(s): 0 named, 0 coded & all together none.
Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun. Mercury has a cratered surface, which was baked by the Sun. The temperature at this planet can be 800°F that is about 430°C at day time and can be -275°F which is about -170°C at night time.
(Taken by the Mariner 10 on March 29, 1974,NASA, Courtesy of NASA)
Mercury is actually grey even if some people say it’s red or brown. Any red or brown or other coloured photos of Mercury isn't the original colour!
Mercury has got no moon(s) at all. It has a lot of craters like our Moon. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, so it orbits the Sun quickly. It takes Mercury only about 90 days to orbit the sun. Because Mercury is a little planet and is the nearest to the Sun it has almost no air (atmosphere) at all. There are about 13-14 transits from Mercury in 100 years. Transits of Mercury can only happen in May or November. There was a Mercury transit in May 2003 and in November 2006. The transit of Mercury in 16th November 1999 was a very unusual transit and also a dangerous one. This is because Mercury crossed the Sun very close to the Sun’s surface. If it did touch the Sun’s surface then Mercury wouldn’t be round any more or worse it could have been gone. Mercury is the second smallest planet in our Solar-System.
Facts:
Symbol:
Colour: Grey
Diameter: 4,878 KM (3,032 miles) 0.38 x Earth’s
Mass: 0.33x10^24 kilograms (0.06 x Earth's)
Density: 5,427 kg/m^3 (Cubic meter)
Minimum distance from the Sun: 46.0 million km (28.6 million miles)
Maximum distance from the Sun: 69.8 million km (43.4 million miles)
Minimum distance from the Earth: 77.3 million km (48.0 million miles)
Roman and Greek Names: Mercury and Hermes
Surface:
Time taken to spin once: 59 Days
Temperature: 430°C (day), -170°C (night)
Time to go around the Sun once: 0.24 years (88 days)
The Sun is the star of our Solar-System. It is the same thing other Solar-Systems have a Sun. Without the Sun we won’t have light, we would just have darkness in our hearts. The Sun is like the Heart of our Solar-System. It gives us heat if the Sun wasn’t here we would be dead in one second because of coldness. Even the energy from coal and oil came from the Sun. The Sun is Earth’s nearest star. If you go further or outside of our Solar-System the Sun would just look like other stars. The temperature on Sun is about 27 million °F which is 14 999 998 2°C. The Sun will have energy to still live for at least another 5 billion years. The surface of the Sun is called a photosphere. Sunspots are dark parts on the Sun that cools it down. Many Sunspots are bigger than the Earth, but they are only there for a week or two. You should never look straight to the Sun because it can make you blind. Scientists and Astronomers are using special methods to study the Sun safely.
The picture on the left is a picture of the real Sun: (Taken from NASA* National Aeronautics and Space Administration).
In the right picture you can see that the size of the sunspots are bigger than the Earth.
Facts:
Diameter: 1.4 million km (870,000 miles)
Mass (Noun): 330,000 x Earth’s
Density (How tight, the tighter the heavier, adjective): 1.41 (water=1)
Temperature at the core: 15 million °C (22.5 million °F)
Age: 4.5 billion years
Distance from Earth: 149.6 million km (93 million miles)
Here are some of the questions that I got asked by some people. I call them 'solar questions', simply because they contain the word 'solar' and I don't know how else I should put it. Here they are: The left image was an eclipse of 1998.
The right image was an eclipse in 2006.
The moon actually should turn red when it is a total Eclipse. These pictures show a total Eclipse, but it's not 'original'. Therefore, the moon's black.
A Solar Eclipse means: The Moon will pass the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow.
What is a Solar Eclipse?/When does a Solar Eclipse happen? A solar eclipse happens when the Moon is covering the Sun, so that we can’t see it. Some people think it’s the end of life, but there is nothing to worry about, because it’s not the end of life. There is nothing to worry about because it only happens for a few minutes, at that time we can see the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called corona, around the edge of the Moon. Here I've got pictures of different solar eclipse:
How did our Solar-System form?
The sun was maybe formed with other new stars. It all started with a big Explosion (called the BIG BANG)! In a swirling cloud of gas, ice and dust. The central heats and it ended as a Sun. The rest of the gas, ice and dust became the planets. The Solar-System was born, with all the planets going the same way around the Sun, which is left. The heavier materials stayed close to the center and formed Rocky Planets and the Asteroid Belt. Outside the Asteroid Belt, the materials were ice and dust. Some of this ice and dust made large Planets, such as, Uranus and Neptune. The rest made Pluto. Our Sun is NOW called Sol (Latin I guess, or any other language that I don't speak).
When did our Solar-System form? Our Solar-System was formed about some four billion years ago. Our Sun and the nine planets were formed together in space. Smaller objects like asteroids and comets were also formed with our Solar-System, with only the Sun holding it.
How many moons does our Solar-System have? I think equally there are about 80 moons orbiting planets in our Solar-System. That also means Cruithne, which some people say that this could become our second moon. Cruithne is very small, a bit smaller that Pluto. There are more than 130 moons but their names are not real names. Scientists give them codes, because they have not found out any moon names that was found in the last year of the 20th century (2000) and onwards. Code, for example (always like this): S/year it was found in planet initials (Jupiter: J) number (one: first, two: second and so on.). Maybe some has been found out but most not.
What are the largest Moons called in this Solar-System?
There are six large Moons in our Solar-System. They are called the largest Moons because, they are similar to the sizes of some planets. Even Ganymede (a moon of Jupiter) is bigger than Mercury. Four of the largest Moons belong to Jupiter. One of them belongs to us and the other one to Saturn. Ganymede, Europa, Io & Iocaste belong to Jupiter. Titan belongs to Saturn and Lunar to us.
Where is Our Solar-System? Our Solar-System is placed in a Galaxy called “Milky Way”. Our Milky Way has two parts: the arms and the central hub. The central hub is the middle, the sort of controlling thing. The Heart. The arms are called the: Cygnus arm, Carina arm, Perseus arm, Orion arm and there is also an arm that is unnamed. People haven’t found the name of that arm yet. We are placed in the arm that is called the Orion arm.
Here are some questions and answers about 'planets':
Are there any two planets that are the same? There are no two planets that are the same. Every single planet is different because of its size and distance from the Sun. The bigger the planet is, the greater is the pull of its gravity will be on any gas that surrounds it. That gas makes up its atmosphere. Without an atmosphere a planet is a dry and rocky world, without any cloud, rain or oceans.
Is Pluto always the furthest planet from the Sun? The answer is no. Sometimes Neptune is the furthest from the Sun and sometimes Pluto is. This is because their orbits overlap. Neptune was the furthest from the Sun from 7th February 1979 to February 11th 1999 but now Pluto is. Pluto will be the Ninth Planet till the 23rd century (2201 - 2300). The orbital line of Pluto is the white one:
As you can see the white orbital line crosses the blue one.
This means that the orbit of Pluto overlaps Neptune's orbit.
What are the four giant planets called? The Giant Planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They are called the Giant Planets because they are very big, nearly as big as the Sun. The biggest Giant Planet is Jupiter. Only the four Giant Planets have rings around them. Jupiter has the thinnest ring of all. Saturn has got the thickest ring of all. All of the Giant Planets are outside the Asteroid Belt. All of the giant planets contain mostly (the air) hydrogen and helium. All the Giant Planets has more than five Moons (Satellites). Last, but not least, all the Giant Planets have Rings. Most people think Neptune has no Ring(s). But it really has. Nobody can see it really. I’ll tell you more about Neptune’s Ring(s), when we come to Neptune. Which is after, Uranus. The Giant Planets are much different from the Rocky Planets. The Rocky Planets are only before the Asteroid Belt. The Giant Planets are made out of much lighter materials.
Is there life on other Planets? (one of the most frequently asked questions) Let's say there may be life on other Planets. The Planet is not allowed to be too near to the Sun, or too far from the Sun. If it’s too near it will burn or be too hot if not burn. If it’s too far from the Sun it will be freezing or too cold. We can’t live without water. So again if it is too hot the water will turn into water vapour. If it’s too cold the water will be frozen. If there is no water we wouldn’t even live for five years (or maybe a few days).
Our Solar-System consist of nine planets and the sun. These nine planets are called (nearest to sun to far side): Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (eventhough now it's too small to be called a 'planet', therefore it's a 'dwarf planet'). Planets that are orbiting a star other than the sun are extrasolar planets. So far Astronomers and Scientists together have found 134 extrasolar planets. An exoplanet is another word for extrasolar.
You can see the structure of the solar-system clearly on the labelled diagram above, but you can't see the asteroid belt. It lies between Mars & Jupiter. Asteroids on Jupiter's orbit are Trojan Asteroids).
In Qs & As parts of this blog, I'm going to answer some questions that people ask me. These are some of the questions about 'space'. Just like this:
What is space? Space is everything outside earth, the planet on that we live on. In space, there are many different objects, such as planets, comets, black holes and stars. Our sun is a medium-sized star in a galaxy of other billion stars. Outside our galaxy there are billions of other galaxies.
Does every single star have Planets spinning around them? I don’t know why, but the answer is no. A star that has no planets orbiting them is not called a Sun. There is nobody that can watch then when they rise for a new day, but we can. We can see the stars around our Solar-System but that doesn’t mean that the stars around us has no planets. It is just that we can’t see the planet even if they have one. The point is: NOT ALL stars have planets.
Hey guys! I've made a few blogs here before. But unfortunately, now I can't access my account.. So I'm starting a new one here.
Because I have no other idea what I want to write about, I'll just write things about our solar-system.. I like studying space (astronomy).. I started liking it since grade 6. When we were supposed to make a presentation on anything we wanted (just polite).. And I then ended up writing 20 pages about our solar-system..
This is why the address of this blog is: http://ssqueen.blogspot.com/ 'ss' means 'solar-system'.. and 'queen' is because I'm a girl.. XD
I may not post as often and as much as I did on my previous blogs, because I'm scared I might get hacked again.
Venus is a hot and fiery planet, we can see that from this picture.
