Category Kids Queries

Mars has a 24-hour day. It has polar ice caps. Its axis is tilted compared with its orbit, just as Earth is tilted on its axis. That means Mars goes through seasons, just like Earth. Mars, as cold as it is, is not as oppressive an environment as almost any other place we can think of going in the Solar System. From a runaway greenhouse effect, Venus is 900 degrees Fahrenheit and would melt or vaporize most things you sent to its surface. Mercury is also very hot, being close to the Sun.

Distance from the sun: 128,409,598 to 154,865,853 miles (206,655,215 to 249,232,432 km)

Length of space journey from Earth: 3 years

Picture Credit : Google

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, and is Earth’s closest neighbor in the solar system. Venus is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon, and sometimes looks like a bright star in the morning or evening sky. The planet is a little smaller than Earth, and is similar to Earth inside. We can’t see the surface of Venus from Earth, because it is covered with thick clouds. However, space missions to Venus have shown us that its surface is covered with craters, volcanoes, mountains, and big lava plains. The surface of Venus is not where you’d like to be, with temperatures that can melt lead, an atmosphere so thick it would crush you and clouds of sulfuric acid that smell like rotten eggs to top it off! 

Distance from the sun: 66,782,596 to 67,693,905 miles (107,476,170 to 108,942,780 km)

Length of space journey from Earth: 6 months

Picture Credit : Google

There are many reasons you may want to visit Mercury. For one, the gravity is about 1/3 of that on Earth, so you can have the same low gravity effect as on the moon. Some phenomena that occurs on Mercury that may be of interest includes magnetic plasma tornadoes cause by conflict between the sun’s radiation and mercury’s magnetic field. Mercury is also the fastest moving planet in the solar system, so you can become the person who traveled the fastest in history. Mercury holds the solar system’s 17th largest mountain, Caloris Montes, and a huge crater called Caloris Basin. Mercury also has a tail that is not visible to the eye, but consists of tiny subatomic particles blown out by the sun.

Distance from the sun: 28,583,702 to 43,382,549 miles 

Length of space journey from Earth: 4 years

Picture Credit : Google

Asteroids are left over from the formation of our solar system. Our solar system began about 4.6 billion years ago when a big cloud of gas and dust collapsed. When this happened, most of the material fell to the center of the cloud and formed the sun.

Some of the condensing dust in the cloud became planets. The objects in the asteroid belt never had the chance to be incorporated into planets. They are leftovers from that time long ago when planets formed.

Picture Credit : Google

Asteroids are chunks of rock that orbit the sun and wander around the solar system. They’re the rubble left over from the solar system’s formation roughly 4.6 billion years ago. An asteroid is made of the same stuff under your feet – rock, bits of metal, maybe some carbon.

There are lots of asteroids in our solar system. Most of them live in the main asteroid belt—a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids hang out in other places, too. For example, some asteroids are found in the orbital path of planets. This means that the asteroid and the planet follow the same path around the sun. 

Picture Credit : Google

It’s not only possible – humans are doing it all the time! Of course, we’re all moving forward in the time right now (at a rate of one second for every second). And according to laws of physics that are far too complicated to explain here, time slows down as a person speeds up. This effect – known as time dilation – is really noticeable only as you approach the speed of light. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station orbit the Earth at about 18,000 mph (29,000 kph), which is just a tiny fraction of light speed, but they’re still moving fast enough to experience time dilation on a measurable scale. Once they return home a six-month assignment, astronauts are actually .007 seconds behind in time compared with their friends and family on Earth.

Picture Credit : Google