| The Planets |
|---|
| Mercury |
| Venus |
| Earth |
| Mars |
| Jupiter |
| Saturn |
| Uranus |
| Neptune |
| Pluto |
Before you head off to visit the planets, let's go over a few facts about our Solar System:
The diameter of the sun is 865,000 miles and sunspots are the cool, dark patches on the surface of the sun. The sun's atmosphere has the Corona, the outer layer, and Chromosphere the thin middle layer. The Photosphere is the surface of the sun and the Core is the center where the sun's energy is produced. Energy from the Core travels through the Radiative Zone and the energy travels in a circular pattern in the Convective Zone. Prominence are clouds of hot gases that erupt from the sun's surface.
Asteriods, sometimes called minor planets, are made up mostly of rocks and metal. They come in many different shapes and sizes. The largest asteriod, Ceres, is nearly 500 miles wide. Most of the thousands of asteriods are found in the large area between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter known as the Asteriod Belt.
Meteoroids are loose particles of dust that come from comets and asteriods. Most are extremely small in size. When a meteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, the resulting friction forms a bright streak of light called a meteor, or shooting star. Most meteors burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. If a meteor does reach the Earth's surface, it is called a meteorite.
Comets, sometimes referred to as "Dirty Snowballs", are masses of ice, frozen gases and dust. Comets become visible when they near the sun. A comet normally has three parts: the Nucleus, the Coma, and the Tail.
Hally's Comet was discovered by Edmond Halley, an English astronomer. This Comet appears about every 76 years and was last seen in 1986 and will appear again in 2062.
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