The Basics of the Solar System in 10 Minutes!

Subtitles

The National Science Foundation

reported that in 2012

26% of Americans thought that

the Sun orbited the Earth,

rather than the Earth orbiting the Sun.

While it's a slightly old statistic,

the public's scientific knowledge has stayed

almost the same for the past decade.

So let's explore our Solar System

and learn some interesting facts along the way!

Let's start with the Moon,

our closest neighbour.

The Moon has a diameter

of 2159 miles at its equator.

A little more than one quarter

the diameter of Earth.

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite.

And even though it's our closest neighbour,

it's still a long distance away.

The Moon is an average of

about 238,000 miles from Earth.

To put that into perspective,

all the planets in the Solar System can fit

between the Earth and the Moon!

Now since it has an elliptical orbit,

the distance can vary about 26,000 miles.

Which observed from Earth,

makes the Moon appear different sizes

depending on where it is in it's orbit.

Another interesting fact about the moon

is that it rotates at nearly the same rate

that it orbits the Earth,

so we only ever see one side of the moon.

The Sun is the largest,

most massive object in our Solar System,

with a diameter of over 864,000 miles

and over 333,000 times the mass of Earth!

Light can travel around the entire Earth

in nearly one tenth of a second,

but light would take nearly 15 seconds

to travel around the Sun!

Even though that sounds big,

the Sun is actually just an average sized star.

Other stars have been found

that are over 1,700 times larger than the Sun!

Because the Sun is the most massive,

the Sun is the center of the Solar System,

with all the planets and asteroids orbiting around it,

hence the name "Solar System".

The Sun is composed of hydrogen and helium,

and is held together by its own gravitational pull.

In the center of the Sun,

where hydrogen is fused to form helium,

the temperature exceeds

25 million degrees Fahrenheit!

Mercury is the first planet out from the Sun

and has the fastest orbit velocity of all the planets,

making one complete orbit about every 3 months.

Mercury is also the smallest planet

with a diameter of only 3032 miles,

just 873 miles bigger than the Moon.

And at 364 quintillion tons,

Mercury is also the planet with the lowest mass.

Mercury is the only other

terrestrial planet, besides Earth,

to have a global magnetic field.

So you'd probably get lost on all the others.

Venus is a special planet for many reasons,

one of which is that at 7521 miles,

its diameter is just 405 miles smaller than Earth's!

It's also the only planet that spins backwards…

at least sort of.

Technically Uranus spins backwards too, but…

we'll get to that later.

Another thing that makes Venus special is that

it is the third brightest object in the sky,

with only the Sun and Moon brighter than it!

In fact, on a clear night with no ambient light,

such as the Moon,

Venus is actually bright enough to cast shadows!

Even though Venus has a size similar to Earth,

because it's closer to the Sun

it has a faster orbit velocity than Earth.

It's not quite as fast as Mercury, though.

Instead,

Venus takes a little over 7 months to orbit the Sun.

Venus is also very warm with temperatures

exceeding 850 degrees Fahrenheit!

The hottest temperatures of all the planets!

Even more special than Venus

is Earth.

Earth is the only planet designed to support life

and do to the Earth's large amount of water,

which covers over 70% of it's surface,

the Earth has often been referred to as

the Blue Marble.

Earth is the largest of the four terrestrial planets

with a diameter of 7926 miles,

which, though it sounds big,

is nearly invisible when compared to the Sun!

Speaking of the Sun.

Remember that light that could travel

around the Sun in 15 seconds?

Well, for it to travel from the Sun to Earth

takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds!

And here's an interesting fact,

if sunlight takes

8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth,

every time you look at the Sun

you are looking 8 minutes and

20 seconds back in time!

Quite fascinating,

though, I wouldn't recommend doing it

for very long.

Not surprisingly,

Earth takes 365 days to orbit the Sun…

at 66,600 miles per hour…

that is one fast ride.

As the third planet from the Sun,

we are already 93 million miles away,

and we still have 5 planets to go!

Mars is the last terrestrial planet

and is also the second smallest planet with

a diameter of only 4221 miles.

But it's small size doesn't prevent it

from having both the largest canyon

and largest mountain

in the entire Solar System!

Valles Marineris, the largest canyon,

is long enough to stretch across the

entire Continental US

and is nearly 4 times deeper

than the Grand Canyon!

Olympus Mons, the largest mountain,

is three times taller than Mount Everest,

and has a base as large

as the state of Arizona!

Mercury and Venus have no moons,

but Mars has two.

Mars is also the planet with the

closest day length to Earth,

taking just 42 minutes longer to make

one rotation around its axis.

It also has a fairly similar orbit velocity,

though, the orbit velocity of Venus is

technically closer to Earths orbit velocity.

We're now transitioning from hot to cold.

Mars has a average temperature of

-85 degrees Fahrenheit.

For comparison,

the average on Earth is 59.

The Asteroid Belt is not a planet…

but is instead a belt of asteroids,

just in case that needed to be clarified.

The Asteroid Belt contains millions of

asteroids and is about 92 million miles thick.

Even though there's

millions upon millions of asteroids,

because the belt is spread out through

a large area of space

if you were to stand on one asteroid

the asteroid next to you would

be so far away that it'd be barely visible.

The belt is positioned about

230 million miles from the Sun,

between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter.

We're now past the four terrestrial planets

and on to the four gas planets,

which or often referred to as the gas giants,

because they are massive!

The first in the lineup is Jupiter,

the largest of all the planets

in the Solar System

with a diameter of 88,846 miles!

Jupiter is so massive that in technicality,

it doesn't actually orbit the Sun!

Rather the Sun and Jupiter orbit

a center point just above the surface of the Sun.

Jupiter is more than double the mass of

all the other planets in the Solar System

combined!

Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet

making a full rotation in less than 10 hours.

Although, it's not so fast orbiting the Sun,

taking nearly 12 years to orbit the Sun.

Jupiter is also very cold

with a average temperature of

-166 degrees Fahrenheit.

Saturn is the second largest planet

in the Solar System

with a diameter of 74,897

miles and, not surprisingly,

is also the second most massive.

Although Saturn is the second most

massive planet

it is also the planet with

the lowest density.

Saturn has such a low density

that it could actually float,

if you could find a container

large enough to fit it in.

Saturn is best known for its beautiful rings

which are composed of objects

ranging in size from a grain of sand

to a entire mountain!

But, even though there are huge objects

in Saturn's rings,

if the rings were scaled down to

the diameter of Earth

they would be thinner than

a single sheet of paper!

Besides its rings,

Saturn also has an astounding

82 moons,

which is the highest number of

natural satellites of all the planets!

Like Jupiter, Saturn is very cold with

an average temperature of

-220 degrees Fahrenheit!

Saturn has been known for

thousands of years making it

the farthest planet from the Sun that

was discovered without the use

of a telescope.

With a diameter of 31,763 miles,

Uranus is less than half the size

of Saturn but is still 4 times

larger than Earth.

Uranus is also only about 15%

the mass of Saturn

but is still 15 times more

massive than Earth.

Unlike Saturn, which was discovered

without the use of a telescope,

Uranus was the first planet discovered

with the aid of a telescope.

It was discovered in 1781 by

astronomer William Herschel,

although he originally thought

it was either a comet or a star.

Uranus takes over 80 years

to orbit the Sun!

Although it doesn't orbit quite

like all the other planets.

While all the other planets orbit

the Sun like a spinning top,

Uranus rolls around the Sun like a ball.

Since it orbits in this way,

it actually spins clockwise,

the same direction as Venus,

which is opposite of all the other planets.

The average temperature on Uranus is

-320 degrees Fahrenheit!

Although that's not why it's blue.

Uranus is actually blue

because Neptune is blue…

Well,

not really.

But it is for the same reason.

Because of all the methane gas in

their atmosphere,

most of the red light is absorbed

causing the blue color.

Speaking of Neptune…

At about 2.8 billion miles,

Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun.

At this amazing distance,

Neptune takes over 160 years

to orbit the Sun!

Because it's so far from the Sun,

broad daylight on Neptune would

appear more like dim twilight to us.

Noon on Earth is about 900 times brighter

than noon on Neptune!

At 30,775 miles in diameter,

Neptune is the smallest gas planet

but that doesn't make it docile.

Neptune has the strongest winds

in the Solar System,

blowing at over 1,200 miles per hour!

That's literally mach 1.5!

Faster than the speed of sound!

The average temperature on Neptune is

-330 degrees Fahrenheit,

exactly 10 degrees colder than Uranus!

Although that sounds cold,

Triton, one of Neptune's moons,

is one of the coldest objects in

the Solar System with temperatures

falling below -390 degrees Fahrenheit,

that's colder than liquid nitrogen!

Although Neptune is the farthest planet,

there's still more to the Solar System,

like the 5 dwarf planets which aren't

classed with the others since they're too small

to keep their orbit clear of other objects.

But whatever the case,

all these planets,

dwarf planets,

and asteroids,

orbit the Sun

creating our Solar System

in the Milky Way galaxy.