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11,000¡F |
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A 'cool'
temperature on the sun. About 6,100¡C. |
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35,790
mph |
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Speed
Voyager 2 is traveling away from our Sun. About
57,600 kph. |
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100,000,000,000 |
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Tons
of dynamite you'd have to explode every second
to match the energy produced by the Sun. |
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1,300,000 |
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Rough
number of crushed up Earths that could fit inside
our Sun. |
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128 |
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Number
of known moons in our solar system. Sixty-one
of them orbit Jupiter. |
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3 |
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Planets
discovered in our solar system since the invention
of the telescope about 400 years ago. |
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4,500,000,000 |
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The
age of our solar system, give or take a few hundred
million years. |
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Our
solar system is made up of a star ö the Sun ö nine planets,
more than 125 moons and a bunch of comets, asteroids and
other space rocks. The nine planets are Mercury,
Venus,
Earth,
Mars,
Jupiter,
Saturn,
Uranus,
Neptune
and Pluto.
Mercury is closest to our Sun. Pluto
is the farthest. Remember the order of the planets like
this: My Very Educated Mother
Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.
There's also a gross-out version: My Very Early Morning Jam Sandwich Usually Nauseates People. Why not make up one of your own?
Planets, asteroids and comets orbit our Sun. They travel around in our Sun in a flattened circle called an ellipse. It takes the Earth one year to go around the Sun. Mercury goes around the Sun in only 88 days. It takes Pluto 248 years to make one trip around the Sun. Moons orbit planets. Right now, Jupiter has the most moons÷58. Mercury and Venus don't have any moons. Earth has one. It is the brightest object in our night sky. The Sun, of course, is the brightest object in our daytime sky. It lights up the moon, planets, comets and asteroids, too.
Without our Sun, there would be no life on Earth.
WHAT'S IT LIKE ON THE SUN?
The Sun is way too hot to visit. A person or spacecraft
couldn't even get near it. Even if you could get close,
powerful gravity would make one of your arms weigh as
much as your whole body. It would be impossible to move.
Our Sun is a ball of hot, glowing gases. The part we can see is about 11,000¡F (6,100¡C). It gets hotter as you go deeper. The hottest the oven in your kitchen gets is 500¡F (260¡C). The surface of our Sun boils like a pot of soup. It also shoots flares of hot gas thousands of miles into space.
SOLAR SYSTEM CHALLENGE
Up to five planets are visible in Earth's night sky. Which
ones do you think they are? Why? Now go out and try to
find the planets. (Note: Bright city lights make some
planets harder to see than others.)
SOLAR SYSTEM MISSIONS
Featured Mission: Voyager
After 25 years in space, this team of twin spacecraft
have sent back more information about our solar system
than was learned in nearly 400 years of Earth-based astronomy.
Source: NASA
