Burst out of the atmosphere into space with me!

Includes
out of
this
world
facts!

Written and chosen pictures by: Jason Calderon

Planets in order from the Sun

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Asteroid Belt
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Dwarf Planets, Meteorites, Asteroids, and
Comets

The Moon
Neil Armstrong was the first human on the
Moon.
The Moon is very small and around the same size as Australia.
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite.
The distance between the Earth and the Moon is 348,403
kilometers.
The far side of the Moon has more craters because it is not
protected from debris by the Earth.
The Moon is the brightest object in the night sky.
The Moon is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System.

The Sun

Can set fire to anything within 60 miles

Is spaces brightest object
About 1,000,000,000 Earths can fit inside the sun.
Inner core is 15,000,000 oC.
It takes eight minutes and twenty one seconds for
the sun to reach Earth.
The force of gravity on the surface of the sun is 28
times that on Earth.
The Sun and its solar system are about 4.6 billion
years old.

Mercury

Closest planet to the Sun

Has no moon
Has not yet been visited by a space probe.
If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you weigh 37
pounds on Mercury.
It has a diameter of 3,031 miles, about 2/5 the Earth's
diameter.
The craters on Mercury are named after famous artists
and writers.
Mercury has virtually no atmosphere. It however has
small traces of an atmosphere which consists minute
quantities of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Sodium, Potassium
and argon.

Venus
Its atmosphere is mainly made up mostly of carbon
dioxide.
It takes 243 days for Venus to make a rotation. (one
day)
And it takes 224 days for Venus to orbit around the
Sun. (one year)
The clouds of Venus is filled with sulfuric acid.
Under these clouds, Venus has many active
volcanoes.
The diameter of Venus is about 7,520 miles which is
about 400 miles smaller than that of Earth.
Venus has been known since prehistoric times.

Earth
161 kilometers from the sun
The Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old. It travels through
space at 660,000 miles per hour.
The Earth weighs 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
The Earth rotates on its axis more slowly in March than in
September.
The two oldest rocks on Earth are Saint Peter and Saint Paul. They
have lived for 4 billion years.
The temperature of the Earth's interior increases by 1 degree every
60 feet down.
So far Earth is the only planet that animals including humans can
live. Scientists are looking for more.

Mars
Mars is known as the red planet because of the rust in its
soil.
In winter, nighttime temperatures on Mars can drop as low
as -191F.
Mars has storms called dust devils which makes Mars
dusty.
Mars orbits the sun every 687 Earth days.
Mars is the second planet from Earth.
One of Mars' moons, Phobos, is moving closer and closer
to Mars.
Mars has the tallest volcano in the Solar System named
Olympus Mons.

Jupiter
Jupiter is bigger than all of the planets put together.
Jupiter rotates faster than any planet in the Solar System.
Jupiter's volume is large enough to contain 1,300 planets the size
of Earth.
The great red spot on Jupiter is a storm that has been going on for
over 300 years.
If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 264 pounds
on Jupiter.
Jupiter has a mass 318 times greater than the Earth's and a
diameter that is 11 times larger.
The mass of Jupiter is 70% of the total mass of all the other
planets in our Solar System.

Saturn
The atmosphere of Saturn comprises mostly of Hydrogen and
Helium.
Titan is the only Saturn Moon with an atmosphere.
Titan is also larger than the planet Mercury.
Galileo was the first astronomer to observe Saturn's rings.
The temperature difference between the poles and the
equator is very small on Saturn.
A 100 pound object on Earth would weight 116 pounds on
Saturn.
Saturn has no solid surface. It is a giant ball of gas, but it does
have a solid inner core.

Uranus
It is the second least dense planet after Saturn.
The planet was discovered in 1781 by William Hershel.
It takes 30,685 Earth days for Uranus to complete an orbit
around the Sun.
Because of the strange way it spins, nights on some parts of
Uranus can last for more than 40 years.
The planet's most extraordinary feature is the tilt of its
rotational axis.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and is named
after the Greek God of the sky in latin.
It is the only planet whose name came from a figure in
Greek mythology as opposed to Roman mythology.

Neptune
The most incredible thing was the Great Dark Spot. It
disappeared in 1980.
Neptune is 30 times farther from the sun as is the Earth.
It goes around the sun once every 165 Earth years.
The atmosphere is made up of Hydrogen, Helium and
Methane.
Neptune only receives 1/900 of the solar energy that
reaches Earth.
The winds there can blow up to 1,240 miles per hour.
The planet has a system of thin dark rings but they are
incomplete rings and are best described as arcs.

 They are to small to be a planet.

They are farther from the Sun than Neptune.
(except Ceres)

Pluto
Has a moon named Charon
Because of Pluto's irregular orbit, there are periods
of times when it is closer to the sun than Neptune.
Aside from Charon, Pluto has 2 smaller moons that
were found in 2005.
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh.
Some astronomers believe that Pluto was once a
moon of Neptune but it somehow escaped into its
own orbit.
Asteroids has been detected in our solar system
that are as large or larger than Pluto.

Eris

Biggest dwarf planet

Eris and Dysnomia are currently the most distant
known natural objects in the Solar System.
Eris is a plutoid, that is, a trans Neptunian dwarf
planet.
In January 2005, the re-analysis revealed Eris's slow
motion against the background stars.
Even though Eris can be up to three times farther
from the Sun than Pluto, it approaches close
enough that some of the ices on the surface might
warm enough to sublime.
Unlike the somewhat reddish Pluto and Triton,
however, Eris appears almost grey.

Ceres
In the asteroid belt
It was the first asteroid to be identified, though it
was classified as a planet at the time.
Ceres, is the only dwarf planet in the inner Solar
System, and the largest asteroid.
It contains about one third of the mass of the
asteroid belt.
It is named after Ceres, the Roman Goddess of
growing plants, the harvest, and motherly love.
The idea that an undiscovered planet could exist
between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter was
suggested by Johann Bode in 1772.

Makemake
Has no Moons
Diameter: 930 miles (distance through planet)
The average distance from the sun is 4.2 million
miles.
The discovery date is March 31, 2005.
Discovered by the team of Michele Brown Chad
Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz
It is about a fifth as bright as Pluto.

Haumea
The discovery date is December 28, 2004.
This dwarf planet has two Moons.
Two teams claim credit for the discovery of
Haumea.
Its two known moons are named, Hiiaki and
Namaka.

Meteorites and Meteors

Meteors
Made of iron, metal, or dust
Meteors burn up in Earths atmosphere as they approach Earth.
Fireballs are bright meteors.
They leave a trail in the sky for a few seconds.
Fireballs are brighter than some planets.
Meteors become visible between about 75 to 120 km (3470 miles) above the
Earth.
They usually disintegrate at altitudes of 50 to 95 km (3151 miles).
Meteors have roughly a fifty percent chance of a daylight (or near daylight)
collision with the Earth.
Most meteors are, however, observed at night, when darkness allows fainter
objects to be recognized.
For bodies with a size scale larger than (10 cm to several meters) meteor visibility
is due to the atmospheric ram pressure(not friction) that heats the meteoroid so
that it glows and creates a shining trail of gases and melted meteoroid particles.
The gases include vaporized meteoroid material and atmospheric gases that heat
up when the meteoroid passes through the atmosphere.

Most meteors glow for about a second.

Meteor Showers

Occur about the same time every year

Each one is slightly different.
Usually two or three are seen in twenty minutes.
The most visible meteor shower in most years are the Perseides,
which peak on 12 August of each year at over one meteor per
minute.
Although the Martian atmosphere has less than one percent of the
density of Earth's at ground level, at their upper edges, where
meteoroids strike, the two are more similar.
Because of the similar air pressure at altitudes for meteors, the
effects are much the same.
Only the relatively slower motion of the meteoroids due to increased
distance from the sun should marginally decrease meteor
brightness.
This is somewhat balanced in that the slower descent means that
Martian meteors have more time in which to ablate.

Some Meteorites hit

Russia
Canada
Antarctica
United States of America
Atlantic Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Moon
Mars
Mercury

Fun Facts About Asteroids

Asteroids often orbit in groups
Gaspra was the first asteroid to be seen close up by a space probe.
Some asteroids are as big as the country, Liechtenstein!
Kleopatara is the shape and size of a bone.
Asteroids are minor planets (small Solar System bodies and dwarf planets)

There are millions of asteroids, many thought to be the shattered

remnants of planesiamals, bodies within the young Sun's solar nebula
that never grew large enough to become planets.
The large majority of known asteroids orbit in the asteroid belt between
the orbits of Mars and Jupiter or co-orbital with Jupiter (the Jupiter
Trojans).
However, other orbital families exist with significant populations,
including the near Earth asteroids.
Individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the
majority falling into three main groups: C - Type, S - Type, and M-type.

Fun Facts about the Asteroid Belt

Located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and

Jupiter.
Ceres is the largest asteroid and the first to be discovered.
The asteroid Ida has 2 moons orbiting it but it has not been
classified as a dwarf planet yet.
Approximately one-third of the asteroids in the asteroid belt are
members of an asteroid family.
It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called
asteroids or minor planets.
The asteroid belt is also termed the main asteroid belt or main belt
to distinguish its members from other asteroids in the Solar
System such as near Earth asteroids and Trojan asteroids.
About half the mass of the asteroid belt is contained in the four
largest asteroids, Ceres, Vesta, Pellas, and Hygiea.

Make your own asteroid belt

1. Collect twelve rocks 10 small and 2 big.
2. Smash only the ten small rocks into very small
rocks.
3. Make the two big rocks 8 inches away from each
other.
4. Make a semicircle with the small rocks.
5. Watch as the asteroids become looking like the real
asteroid belt.

Famous Comets
Comet Hyakutake
Last Seen: 1996
Feature: Amazing Tail

Comet West
Last Seen: 1976
Not Seen for
500,000 years!

Halleys Comet

Comet Bale - Hoop

Last Seen: 1997
Features: 2 visible
tails

Comet McNaught
Last Seen: 2007
Visible during the
day

Facts about Comets

A comet hit Jupiter
In the outer Solar System, comets remain frozen and are extremely difficult or
impossible to detect from Earth due to their small size.

As a comet approaches the inner Solar System, solar radiation causes the
volatile materials within the comet to vaporize and stream out of the nucleus,
carrying dust away with them.
The streams of dust and gas thus released form a huge, extremely tenuous
atmosphere around the comet called the coma, and the force exerted on the
coma by the Sun's radiation pressure and solar wind cause an enormous tail to
form, which points away from the Sun.
Long-period comets have highly eccentric orbits and periods ranging from 200
years to thousands or even millions of years.
An eccentricity greater than 1 when near perihelion does not necessarily mean
that a comet will leave the Solar System.
[The future orbit of a long-period comet is properly obtained when the
osculating orbit is computed at an epoch after leaving the planetary region and
is calculated with respect to the center of mass of the Solar System

Trick to the Order of The Sun

My (Mercury)
Very (Venus)
Educated (Earth)
Mother (Mars)
Just (Jupiter)
Served (Saturn)
Us (Uranus)
Nachos (Neptune)*

* If you include Pluto, than it would be My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas

Make your own Solar System!

Cantaloupe = Sun
Bean = Mercury
Grape = Venus
Cherry = Earth
Pea = Mars
Grapefruit = Jupiter
Orange = Saturn
Peach = Uranus
Plum = Neptune