May 01
There’s a lot more to our solar system than the planets. I’ll cover some of the less known objects and phenomenon such as the Oort Cloud, Kuiper Belt and other strange stuff in a future post, but when people think solar system, they usually think of the planets in orbit around the Sun. Our solar system boasts 8 planets; four terrestrial and 4 gas giants. Starting closest to the Sun and working out the planets are:
- Mercury - Terrestrial. Average distance from the Sun is 36 million miles
- Venus - Terrestrial. Average distance from the Sun is 67.5 million miles
- Earth - Terrestrial. Average distance from the Sun is 92.75 million miles
- Mars - Terrestrial. Average distance from the Sun is 141.5 million miles
- Jupiter - Gas giant. Average distance from the Sun is 484 million miles
- Saturn - Gas giant. Average distance from the Sun is 889 million miles
- Uranus - Gas giant. Average distance from the Sun is 1.95 billion miles
- Neptune - Gas giant. Average distance from the Sun is 2.79 billion miles
Each of the planets above has been linked to the corresponding statistics page on Windows to the Universe, but the site offers so much more information than just that shown on the stats pages. Pay them a visit and look around! The site is available in English and Spanish.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:05 am
[...] Whatever Web wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptHow many planets are there in our solar system and what are their names? AstronomyNo Comments » There’s a lot more to our solar system than the planets. I’ll cover some of the less known objects and phenomenon such as the Oort Cloud, Kuiper Belt and other strange stuff in a future post, but when people think solar system, they usually think of the planets in orbit around the Sun. Our solar system boasts 8 planets; four terrestrial and 4 gas giants. Starting closest to the Sun and working out [...]
angel Says:November 21st, 2008 at 6:00 pm
whatabout planet x
melissa Says:January 10th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
i want ro now what is ther life in oonother galaxies
melissa Says:January 10th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
how old is the solar system
Dave Says:January 14th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Melissa -
Great question! Our solar system is estimated to be 4.54 billion years old.
Dave Says:January 14th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Melissa - Regarding life in other galaxies, many of us would like to know the same thing. Is there life elsewhere? Is there intelligent life elsewhere?
For those of us who would like the answer to be “yes,” the news is pretty encouraging. Using our own solar system as an analog (an example from which we can make some assumptions) we have proof that -
1) Planets form around stars (and we have examples of this around other stars too)
2) Life has formed on at least one planet in our galaxy so it isn’t unreasonable to speculate it might form around others
3) Water seems to be a requirement for life and exploration of our own solar system (Mars in particular) shows that liquid water isn’t unique to our own planet and finally
4) Life is extremely hardy and resilient as evidenced by extremophiles (organisms that survive in seemingly toxic or hostile extremely unfavorable environments) and by our own planet’s ability to recover from global extinction events.
I wish I could tell you with certainty that there’s other life out there, Melissa, but I can tell you that were I asked to bet on the possibility, I’d bet the farm that we’re not the only living beings in the universe.
Dave
Jamie Pridgen Says:March 9th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Yes thank you for your help but we need to no the gravity of the planet and the weight its a class project