Soaring Through Our Solar System!

"Man must rise above the Earth - to the top of the atmosphere and beyond - for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives. " - Socrates, 500 BC

It all started in America when the Wright Brothers invented the flying

machine.

"For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it

will soon cost me an increased amount of money if not my life.“

Wilbur Wright

With a little drawing, some imagination, and lots of heart and gust, the Wright Brothers

opened the door to space exploration.

First Flight

That was then.“Man Who Flew 75 Miles in Two Hours and Twenty -seven Minutes Talks

of Future of Flying”

And this is now!

There are nine known planets in our Solar System.

Rocky planets are full of craters and closest to the Sun. They are Mercury, Venus, Earth

and Mars.

First stop, Mercury

• Despite being closest to the sun, Mercury is not the warmest.

• Mercury does not have an atmosphere to absorb or trap any heat.

• Temperatures on the planet can be extremely hot or extremely cold depending on which side of it is facing the Sun.

• Mercury is the densest planet in the Solar System.

Mercury orbiting the Sun.

From Mercury to Venus

• Venus rotates in the opposite directions from the other planets because it is upside down!

• Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System. It is covered by a suffocating layer of thick clouds which traps heat from the Sun causing an extreme Greenhouse effect.

• Venus has a poisonous atmosphere and deadly volcanic surface. Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet in the Solar System.

• Venus strong pressure would immediately crushed a person or creature.

Good Ol’ Earth, the brightest planet in the Solar System, is our home. It is full of water that gives life. Earth has seasons and weather patterns, volcanic activities and earthquakes, Earth, a living planet in a sum.

• Mars has blue sunsets and rusted soil.

• It has the highest mountain in the solar system, Mount Olympus.

• It has frozen water in its polar caps and maybe there was life on Mars.

• Mars has seasons like in Earth.

Blue sunset in Mars.

The Asteroid Belt separates the rocky planets from the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and

Neptune.

Gas GiantsGas Giants have no ground but a huge , stormy atmosphere.

They are like a mini solar system with many moons orbiting them.

All of them have rings!

JupiterJupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, is made up almost entirely of gas with a liquid metal ocean at its center.

Europa, a Jupiter’s moon, has oceans of water under a thick layer of ice.

Jupiter’s Red Spot is a great storm that has raged for centuries.

Jupiter is the Vacuum cleaner of the Solar System. It sucks in comets and asteroids which could be on a collision course for Earth.

Jupiter’s sunset

Saturn• Saturn with huge rings surrounding it is

the most beautiful object in the Solar System.

• It is a gigantic gas planet with stormy weather and very low density. Saturn would float on water!

• Saturn has the most moons in the Solar System including Titan, a moon with an atmosphere similar to Earth’s billions of years ago.

Titan moon

Saturn from Titan

Uranus• Uranus is simply a gigantic pale blue ball of hydrogen, helium and methane gas with a faint ring system.

• Uranus rotates on its side!, as if the planet has fallen over.

• It is possible that the planet has a small rocky core surrounded by oceans of ice and water, with windy sky above it

.

Uranus

Neptune

Neptune is a stormy planet with the strongest winds in the Solar System. Storms in Neptune force icy methane crystals high up into the atmosphere forming white clouds.

Plutois the farthest planet from the Sun and

is also the most mysterious one.

Pluto

Pluto may have been a moon of Neptune which escaped the planet’s pull of gravity. The gravitational pull of the Sun prevents Pluto from escaping the Solar System.

Its orbit is elliptical . Pluto orbits the Sun on a different plain.

Pluto has one moon, Charon.

Space exploration happens because of the Wright Brothers.