How many planets are there in our solar system and what are their names?

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

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 […]

How big is the Earth?

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

There are several things in our solar system bigger than the Earth; the Sun and all the gas giants like Jupiter. But of the four terrestrial planets - the rocky worlds you could actually walk on if appropriately attired (Venus has a strict jacket and tie requirement) - the Earth is the largest. You have […]

How far away is the Earth from the Sun?

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

The Earth circles peacefully around the Sun at about 149 million kilometers or 92.75 million miles on average. Our orbit is slightly elliptical so our distance swings from anywhere as far as 94.5 million miles and as close as 91 million miles. There are a lot of interesting facts about the Earth I’ll save for […]