Welcome to our planet page.  The following information has been gathered by Mrs. McMahon's grade two and three students, through our study of space.
    We have had a lot of fun putting the information together using information from the sites listed at the bottom of this page.  We hope you like sharing our work with us.  We are all very proud to be Web authors.
 
 

SUN	MERCURY	VENUS	EARTH
MOON	MARS	JUPITER	SATURN
URANUS	NEPTUNE

        The sun is a big star; a giant fireball of gas.  It is only one of the billions of stars in the centre of our solar system.  The planets get most of their energy from the sun.  The sun's energy travels the distance to Earth in about 8 minutes flat.
        The sun is fueled by nuclear reactions.  In 5 billion years, the hydrogen in the centre of the sun will start to run out.  The sun heats our world and makes life possible.  The sun gives an ideal amount of heat and light.

    Named after a swift messenger, Mercury is thought to be an orange or a grey planet, but you can hardly see it. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, and it is only a tiny bit bigger than Earth's moon. Mercury is hard to see, but you can see it at twilight. The atmosphere on Mercury is so, so thin that, when we do see it, we just see the rocks on the surface.

    Mercury has no moons or rings. It is a hot, but small planet and really rocky. Mercury is covered in lots of craters. It has holes in it because meteorites and asteroids crashed into it. Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system, now that Pluto is no longer considered a planet.

    Mercury travels around the sun the fastest of any of the planets in the Solar System. The only mission to visit Mercury was Mariner10.

    We could not live on Mercury because the atmosphere is too thin, although it is not poisonous. Also, it is too hot in the daylight and too cold at night for anything to grow there, and one day on Mercury is 2 months long. Mercury is the number one planet of them all!

    Venus is Earth's nearest neighbour. Venus has a size twin, and that's Earth. No one knows who discovered Venus, but Venus is easy to see. Venus's clouds reflect light and thatís why we mostly can see it. Venus is one of the brightest planets, so sometimes they call it the evening star!

    Venus was named after the Roman beauty god, Venus. It has rapid spin clouds that cover the surface, and that's a reason why it's so hot. Venus also has a lot of active volcanoes, and much of Venus has old lava on it.

    We can't live on Venus because there's carbon monoxide (which is what car exhaust is). There cannot be life like animals or plants there because it's too hot and the air is too dangerous. It may be super dangerous, but Venus is still great!

    Our planet Earth is a smaller planet.  Earth is the third planet from the sun.  Earth is -88ºC to 58ºC.  The surface of Earth can be walked on.  Our atmosphere breaks up whatever comes in it.  A whole day on Earth is 24 hours.  Our planet is the only planet that has life on it.
      The Earth is 93,000,000 miles from the sun.  It was formed about 4 or 5 billion years ago.  Earth is the only planet with oxygen and carbon dioxide that does not contain poisonous gases as well.  We can breathe here.  We are the only planet with a high atmosphere, and the only planet that has good air.

     The moon is close in size to Earth.  The moon is 384,400 km from Earth.  It can be 107ºC on the light side and -153ºC on the dark side.  The moon is dusty and hard with craters.
    We could not live on the moon because there is no atmosphere or oxygen.  The moon takes 27 days and 8 hours to circle Earth.  It is too cold and too hot to live on the moon, and there is no oxygen or atmosphere.

    Mars is one of the small planets, but it is bright and  is easy to see. It has two moons named Phobos and Deimos. The atmosphere of Mars is thinner than Earth's atmosphere. It is a rocky and lifeless planet.

    Meteors have been found on Mars. The warmest day on Mars is still cold. The wind is very strong. You cannot grow crops on Mars because it is too cold.

    Mars has carbon dioxide, nitrogen, argon, oxygen, carbon monoxide, neon, krypton, xenon, and water vapour. We could not breathe on Mars because it has carbon monoxide and other poisonous gases. Something in the air turns the iron in the ground rusty, giving Mars a reddish colour. Mars is awesome.

    Jupiter was named after one of the Roman gods. It is the 5th planet from the sun. Jupiter is very far from the sun and very cold. It is 741 million km from the sun, so that is why it is very cold. Jupiter is -149 ºC and a day plus a night is 10 hours long.

    Jupiter is a gas planet, and it is the largest planet in our Solar System. It is one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Jupiter has a giant red spot that is a huge storm and it has a ring system.

    Jupiter has at least 63 moons that we know of. The largest four moons are called Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. One of Jupiter's moons, Io, has active volcanoes on it.

    Jupiter could not support life because it has carbon monoxide and ammonia gases in its air. We could not breathe on Jupiter. Nobody could live on Jupiter.

    Saturn is a huge planet! You can see Saturn without a telescope. It has bright rings, and the rings are thin. There are thousands of beautiful rings!

    Saturn can't support life because you can't even walk on it, and it has a poisonous atmosphere. It was first visited by the Pioneer II spacecraft in 1979.

    Saturn would float because it's just gases. There's 75% hydrogen and 25% helium. In Roman mythology, Saturn is the god of agriculture. He is known as Cronus in Greek mythology. Cronus was the father of Zeus (Jupiter). Saturn is a really cool planet.

    Uranus is a very special planet. The name Uranus is the ancient Greek god of the heavens. It is the 7th planet from the sun. Did you know the color blue on that planet is all the gases?

    Uranus is one of the giant planets. It has 15 known moons and spins differently from most planets. It is known as the sideways planet because it spins East to West. It has a cold temperature at -216ºC. The days on Uranus are 22 hours Earth time. There are two ways to say its name, but it is spelled the same.

    Uranus has no solid surface because it is a gas giant. It has hydrogen, helium, and methane. Uranus was first planet to be discovered in modern times. Uranus is a cool planet!
 
 

    Neptune is a beautiful blue planet. Perhaps because of its blue colour, it is named after the god of the sea. Actually, its blue colour comes from the gases in its atmosphere. There is no oxygen in its atmosphere. The winds on Neptune blows over 2000 km an hour.

    There are 13 moons that orbit Neptune, and the biggest moon is called Triton. Triton is made of rock and ice. A space probe passed within 4900 km of Neptune in 1968.

    Neptune cannot support life because it has no oxygen and no solid surface on which to grow plants or even to walk on. Also, it is really, really cold, - 218ºC, because it is very , very far from the sun. Neptune used to be the second to last planet but now it is the last planet in our Solar System.

The sites we used to gather our information and pictures from are:

Bertoch, Hiram. Kids Astronomy.com. © 1998-2001. Online. Available: http://www.KidsAstronomy.com. December, 2001.

Finer, A. The Nine Planets Just For Kids. ©1998. Online. Available: http://mercury.nineplanets.org:8011/tnp4kids/index.html. December, 2002.

The StarChild Team. StarChild. Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics (LHEA), NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Online. Available: http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild. December, 2001.

Welcome to the Planets. Online. Available: http:/pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets. December, 2001.

Windows to the Universe team. Our Solar System. Boulder, CO: ©2000-01 University Corporation of Atmospheric Research (UCAR), ©1995-1999, 2000 The Regents of the University of Michigan, September, 2000. Online. Available: http://www.windows.ucar.edu. December, 2001.

Here are our links:

4. Windows to the Universe

http://www.windows.ucar.edu
A NASA-funded site from the University of Michigan offering a choice of elementary age-appropriate informative text .
 
 
5. StarChild

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild
A NASA site with elementary age-appropriate informative text.
 
 
6. The Nine Planets Just For Kids

http://mercury.nineplanets.org:8011/tnp4kids/index.html
A CalPoly University graduate student site transforming the original "The Nine Planets" site of SEDS (Students for Exploration and Development of Space) from University of Arizona.  Excellent informative facts written at an elementary level.
 
 
7. Kids Astronomy

http://www.KidsAstronomy.com
A site by Hiram Bertock - a former elementary teacher with a background physics.  A great site for younger audiences.

Great graphic sites of the planets from NASA.

APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day)
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Welcome to the Planets
http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets