hi my name is Kaeleigh and welcome to the planets 1 in this video series you'll
become an expert on the eight planets in our solar system eight you may think
there are nine you'll find out why there are only eight and other facts about the
amazing and interesting planets that orbit our Sun this video will look at
the first couple planets and our next two videos we'll take a look at the
remaining five planets and Pluto get ready to launch into space
our Sun is at the center of our solar system it is so huge it has tremendous
energy and gravity gravity the same force that keeps you on earth without
flying off into space is what keeps planets close to it planets circle
around or orbit the Sun there are at least eight planets including earth here
are the planets in order from our closest to our farthest from the Sun
Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptune there's one more
Pluto that we will discuss in a bit astronomers sort of argue about Pluto
there are a lot of neat ways to remember them in order but I like to use this
sentence my very educated mother just served us noodles each letter of the
words and the sentence are the first letters of the planets in order from our
Sun let's take a look at the first few planets we will start out with the
closest planet to our Sun and work our way out mercury is the smallest planet
in our solar system and is about one-fifth the size of Earth it is about
as wide as the United States since it is only about 29 million miles away from
the Sun mercury gets very very hot during the day the surface temperature
on Mercury can reach 800 degrees Fahrenheit that is hot enough to melt
some metals scientists believe that mercury is
composed of or made up of a metal and rock they also think there was once a
lot of volcanic activity because there are a lot of craters on Mercury's
surface mercury has no moons or rings circling
it one day on Mercury takes just over 58 Earth days to complete but one year
mercury only takes about 88 Earth days so if we were ever able to visit mercury
days would take forever to be over but years would fly by in about three of our
months the gravity of mercury is different from ours - if you weigh a
hundred pounds on earth you'll weigh only 37.8 pounds on Mercury because the
force of Mercury's gravity is not as strong as Earth's gravitational pull the
second planet from the Sun is Venus Venus is our closest neighbor
astronomers also often called Venus our twin because is very close to the size
of Earth you can sometimes see Venus without using a telescope and you can
see it like a bright star shining in the sky depending upon where you live and if
the sky is clear at night Venus has a very rocky composition this means it is
made up of mostly rock it is always covered by thick clouds and astronomers
could only tell what was under the clouds by sending a small space probe to
Venus in the 1980s in 1990s Venus has no moons or rings circling it
its temperatures reach that of Mercury Venus spins or rotates much more slowly
than Earth and it rotates in the opposite direction of Earth and the
other planets on earth a one day rotation takes twenty-four hours on
Venus one rotation takes 5832 hours that's 243 Earth days yikes that's
actually longer than Venus takes to travel or orbit around the Sun so it may
be a little hard to imagine but a day on Venus takes longer than a year on Venus
pretty weird huh the gravity on Venus is almost the same
as ours if you weigh a hundred pounds on earth you would weigh 90 point seven
pounds on Venus Earth is of course our home and is a third planet from the Sun
our planet is the only one in the solar system to have a habitable atmosphere
this means our atmosphere has what we mean to have life on our planet this
includes oxygen and water vapor earth stay last 24 hours because that is how
long it takes to rotate or spin on its axis the axis is an imaginary line
running through the middle of the planet it helps to imagine a basketball players
spinning a ball on her finger Earth's ear is about 365 days this is
because it takes 365.25 days to travel in orbit around the Sun an orbit is the
path the planet travels around the Sun however every four years Earth has a
leap year this means instead of 365 days we have 366 days we do this by adding a
day in February February 29th that extra 1/4 of a year is what is left over to
make that extra day every four years earth is made of mostly rock both solid
and liquid forms the surface of Earth is made up of mountains and flat spaces
called plains and valleys the surface of the earth is covered in 71% water almost
all of that water is saltwater in our ocean earth has a range of temperatures
from negative 126 degrees Fahrenheit to 136 degrees Fahrenheit those are of
course the extremes most people live in an area of the earth that ranges from
about negative 58 degrees to 110 degrees Fahrenheit the earth has one moon and no
ring circling it a moon is a natural or not man-made object that orbits a planet
astronomers also call moons and rings natural satellites rings are made up of
lots of tiny particles of dust rocks ice or other materials we also have hundreds
of manmade satellites circling our planet we launch these satellites into
orbit around our planet using rockets they're used for communication like some
cell phone signals for researching outer space and for holding astronaut
like the International Space Station we have just went through a lot of amazing
facts about the first three planets in our solar system we've taken a journey
through them one by one and I hope you've enjoyed the trip for the next
part of our journey check out our video the planets to which we'll pick up where
we left off in that video we'll take a look at the next three planets if you'd
like to learn about astronomy which is the study of outer space check out our
other astronomy and science videos and games remember to always be clever