Venus

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

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 16^th 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)

Moon(s): 0 named, 0 coded & all together none

The Sun

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)

Surface temperature: 5,500°C (9,932°F)

Sunspot temperature: 4,000°C (7,232°F)