The Gaseous Planets     It is believed that all the planets were formed as a result of the combination of gases and clouds of dust about 4500 million years ago. Hydrogen is believed to have been found in the largest quantities in all planets, including the Sun. As time passed most of the smaller planets lost their reserves of hydrogen, largely because of their weak gravitational force. On the other...

The Sun As we look up in the night sky we see stars from end to end. Our Sun is no more than a star, It is our proximity to the Sun which makes it so bright and large in size. The Sun was born about 5000 million years ago as a result of the contraction of clouds of hydrogen, helium and dust into a ball under gravitational pressure. Very soon...

Jupiter the Largest Planet Jupiter is largely made of liquids, gases and swirling clouds of hydrogen and helium. These liquids and gases become denser and denser as we move towards the planet’s centre. Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar system with a diameter of 1,42,884 kilometres, which is 318 times that of Earth. Besides this it is also the fastest spinning planet, it takes only 9 hours and 50...

Pluto-The dwarf planet Till around 1929 the outermost planet known to man was Neptune. In 1915 the American astronomer, Percival Lowell discovered that the movement of Uranus and Neptune was affected by something which existed beyond Neptune. This opinion led to the search for a new planet and it was in February 1930 that an astronomer named Tombaugh discovered Pluto the ninth planet. Pluto has a diameter of about 2445 kilometres...

Uranus- The Seventh Planet  Uranus was discovered by William Herschel in the year 1781. Herschel built the largest telescope of that age to do so. Located at about 2890 million kilometres from the Sun, Uranus is the seventh planet in our Solar system. Third largest in size, Uranus has a diameter of 51,118 kilometres and it is about 15 times the size of Earth but has a surface gravity of only...

Mercury-Closest To the Sun Almost twice the size of Pluto and 4879 kilometres in diameter, Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun at a distance of only 57.9 million kilometres. It is only five percent of the Earth’s size and takes 58.65 days to revolve once on its axis which means that it has a day which is equal to 180 Earth days. Like Venus, Mercury does not have any...

Venus the Hottest Planet   Next, to Mercury, Venus is the hottest and the brightest planet in the Sun’s family. Venus has a diameter of 12,104 kilometres and is located 108 million kilometres from the Sun. It has a surface gravity of 0.90 as compared to Earth. Venus rotates on its axis in a clockwise direction in 243.16 days thus having a four year day. It travels at a speed of...

Mars the ‘Red Planet’ Mars, the fourth planet has a diameter of 6,794 kilometres and it orbits at a distance of 228 million kilometres from the Sun. The surface gravity on Mars is 0.38 of the Earth’s gravity and the planet is about one tenth the size of the Earth. Mars moves at a speed of 24 kilometres per second and takes about 780 days to complete one revolution around the...