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.