Task

Place these in order of distance from the Sun Read the information, memorise the information, turn the card over and see how much you can remember Who has the best memory?!

 Mercury is the eighth largest planet in the Solar System. The orbital speed of Mercury is 47.8 km/sec A year in Mercury is equal to 87.97 Earth Days A day in Mercury is equal to 58.65 Earth Days Maximum distance from the Sun = 70 million km Minimum distance from Earth = 77 million km

 The diameter of Venus is 12,100 km (7,522 miles) Venus is the sixth largest planet in the Solar System Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun. 9. The orbital speed of Venus is 35 km per second. Maximum distance of Venus from the Sun is 109 million km (68 million miles) Minimum distance of Venus from the Earth is 40 million km (25 million miles) It takes 243 days for Venus to rotate on its axis.

 The Earth is around 4.6 billion years old. The Earths atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), argon (.93%), and carbon dioxide (0.03%). Earth is the fifth largest planet in the Solar System. The Diameter of the Earth is 12,756 km (7,926 miles) The earths orbital speed is 29.8 km per second. Earths distance from the Sun Min. 146 million km (91million miles) Max. 152 million km (94.5 million miles).

 Known as the Red Planet, Mars is characterized by its red, dusty landscape. The orbital speed of Mars is 24.2 km per second. The diameter of the planet Mars is 6,785 km A Mars year is equal to 686.98 Earth Days A day in Mars is equal to 24.6 Earth Hours Mars maximum distance from the Sun = 249 million km (155 million miles)

The Sun is a star that is in the centre of the Solar System The Suns distance from the Earth is 150 million km Earth orbits the Sun 365 days, yes, one year. Solar flares from the Sun are sudden bursts of brightness that happen in places near the sunspots. Sunspots appear on the surface of the Sun and look dark because of the lower temperatures near it. Radiations of the Sun are in two forms, electromagnetic (photons) and particle (electrons, protons, alpha particles, etc.) radiation.

 Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, is 318 times larger than Earth. The orbital speed of Jupiter is 13.1 km/sec A year on Jupiter is equal to 11.9 Earth Years A day on Jupiter is equal to 9.8 Earth Hours Jupiters maximum distance from the Sun = 817 million km Jupiters minimum distance from Earth = 588 million km

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest. A year on Saturn is equal to 29.5 Earth Years A day on Saturn is equal to 10 hours and 14 minutes in Earth days. Saturns maximum distance from the Sun is 1.5 billion km Saturns minimum distance from Earth is 1.2 billion km Saturn has fourteen subdivisions of its rings, the widest is at 25,500 km, the B ring.

Neptune is the fourth largest planet in the Solar System. The orbital speed of Neptune is 5.4 km/second. One Neptune day is equal to 0.75 Earth Days One Neptune year is equal to 164.83 Earth Years Neptunes maximum distance from the Sun 4.5 billion km Neptunes minimum distance from Earth 4.3 billion km

The orbital speed of Uranus is 6.6 km/sec A year on Uranus is equal to 84.01 Earth Years Uranus is the third largest planet in the Solar System. A day on Uranus is equal to a little more than 17 hours on Earth. Uranus maximum distance from the Sun is 3 billion km Uranus minimum distance from the Earth is 2.6 billion km

 The Moon is Earths lone natural satellite. The Moon is the fifth largest satellite in our Solar System. The Moon is a little more than one-fourth the size of Earth. The Moons diameter is 2160 miles (3476 km) The Moon rotates at ten miles per hour. Distance between the Earth and the Moon is about 239,000 miles. The Moons gravity is 1/6 that of Earth. Closest distance between the Moon and the Sun is 91,341,565 miles The speed in which the moon orbits the earth is at 2,300 miles an hour.

 Pluto is the smallest planet in the Solar System, smaller than Earths Moon, and half the width of Jupiters moon, Ganymede. Plutos journey around the Sun takes 248 Earth years. This means that, since its discovery in 1930, it still has 177 years to go until it has made a complete orbit around the Sun. Plutos orbit is elliptical, meaning that it can come closer to the Sun than Neptune, but then go almost two billion kilometers further away from Neptunes orbit. Pluto maximum distance from the Sun 7.38 billion km Plutos minimum distance from Earth 4.28 billion km In 2006, Pluto was declassified as a planet by the IAU (International Astronomical Union) and has classified Pluto as a dwarf planet.