Solar System- Our Family

Our Sun Family

And we are back with a new topic which is our own solar system. In this blog we will talk about the facts and planets of the solar system.

Following are the type of Bodies existing in the solar system

• Planets
• Dwarf Planets
• Asteroid Belts
• Moons of Different Planets
• Sun

Total no of official planets-8

Names are given below

1. Mercury
2. Venus
3. Earth
4. Mars
5. Jupiter
6. Saturn
7. Uranus
8. Neptune

Total no of Dwarf Planets - 5

1. Pluto
2. Eris
3. Ceres
4. Haumea
5. Make make

Some Important Facts About the Solar System

Largest Mountain- Olympus Mons (Mars)

Largest Crater- Hellas Planitia (Mars)

Largest Moon- Ganymede of Jupiter

The planet with Largest no of moons- Saturn has 82 moons. (Though  Saturn has 53 moons that have been named. Saturn also has 29 moons awaiting confirmation.

The planet with the slowest rotation- Venus (243 Earth Days)

A planet with slowest revolution- Neptune

Moon with most dense atmosphere - Titan ( Saturn)

PLANETS SECTION

1. Mercury

Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system. Mercury is appropriately named for the swiftest of the ancient Roman gods. As it is the nearest planet to the sun due to which it takes the shortest time to revolve around the sun. It does not have any atmosphere due to which it cannot trap the heat of the sun. Astronomers have estimated that the Mercury composition is made up of approximately 70% metals and 30% silicate material.

The first spacecraft to visit Mercury was Mariner 10, which imaged about 45 percent of the surface. And the messenger spacecraft flew by Mercury three times and orbited the planet for four years before crashing on its surface.

2. Venus

Coming at number 2 Venus is one of the 2 planets which rotate clockwise. It is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Though it is in second place from the sun but still it is the hottest planet in the solar system because unlike mercury it has a dense atmosphere in which 96% of the gases are greenhouse gases which enables Venus to trap most of the heat of the sun. Its atmosphere has yellow clouds of Sulphuric acid due to which it receives rain of sulphuric acid.

Scientists believe that in past billion years ago Venus was also like earth having streams of water and can support life at that time but according to many theories which state that a Mars-sized object hit Venus which slowed its rotation speed and due to which the magnetic field of Venus got weakened. After this the greenhouses gases started to accumulate in the atmosphere which eventually increased the temperature of Venus making it unfavorable for supporting life.

Spacecraft from several nations have visited Venus, including the Soviet Union’s successful Venera series made the first landings on the surface of Venus. NASA’s Magellan mission, which studied Venus from 1990 to 1994, used radar to map 98 percent of the planet’s surface. Currently, Japan’s Akatsuki is studying Venus from orbit.

3. Earth

Coming at number 3 it is Earth in which we reside having every type of resource insufficient amount, a molten core, rocky crust, the correct amount of every gas in the atmosphere and the most important existence if liquid water these all are the factors making life possible on earth.

Earth's atmosphere consists of different gases in different proportions. In the atmosphere nitrogen is present in 78%, Oxygen in 21% and in the rest of the gases like helium, Carbon dioxide, Argon, etc are present in less than 1%. So far it is the only planet in the universe that supports life. Along with the earth its core also rotates due to which the magnetic field of the earth keeps maintained around it. All of the planets, except for Earth, were named after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. However, the name Earth is a Germanic word, which simply means “the ground.”

Earth has only one natural satellite which is the moon which has a big contribution to maintaining life on earth. In further blogs we will study this in detail. Scientists have predicted that if the practice of irrational consumption of resources cannot be stopped soon them by 2050 Earthlings will face a shortage of resources. According to planetary scientists, one earth's atmosphere will also become like Venus due to the exploitation done by the humans

4. Mars

Coming at number 4 its Mars "The Red Planet". Currently it is the favorite and the next planet after Earth which can support life. Mars was named after the Roman god of war for its red color which resembles blood. Many space agencies like Space X, NASA, ESA, etc are putting lots of money for the development of space technology so that they build a human base on Mars. Mars has 2 asteroid type moons named Phobos and Deimos.

The martian soil is composed of iron oxide in a large proportion which gives it's surface a red color. The color of the sky of Mars is pink because the dust and ice particle in the martian atmosphere alter the scattering of atmospheric particles making the to appear pink. Along with this water is also available on the martian poles in the form of ice. Mars has a thin atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and argon gases. To our eyes, the sky would be hazy and pinkish-red because of suspended dust instead of the familiar blue tint we see on Earth. Mars' sparse atmosphere doesn't offer much protection from impacts by such objects as meteorites, asteroids and comets.

Currently, scientists have found no evidence about existing martian life. It is the only planet which completely covered by a robotic army. There are many missions sent on the martian surface and orbit. Six spacecraft are in orbit at Mars. NASA's trio are Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey and MAVEN. ESA managed the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express missions. India's first Red Planet spacecraft — the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) — since 2014. On its surface there are 3 robots currently working. Out of these three, 2 robots are rovers naming Curiosity and Spirit and 1 is probe naming Insight.

In present scientists are looking for any potential for future human life on Mars. As there are no chances for existing martian life. Scientists also believe that Mars too has an atmosphere where life can exist but there is a very violent history of mars that made it like a barren desert. We will study this in detail in further blogs.

5. Jupiter

The 5th planet from the sun is the huge Jupiter. It is the largest planet in the solar system which also has the largest moon(Ganymede) of the solar system revolving around it. It is a gas giant which have no solid crust, named after the king of Roman gods Jupiter take the shortest time to rotate on its axis. It is mainly made up of gases like hydrogen, helium. Jupiter's atmosphere has many active storms which will last over a million years. The biggest of them is the famous 'The Great Red Spot' which is big enough to swallow the whole earth.

Deep in the atmosphere, pressure and temperature increase, compressing the hydrogen gas into a liquid. This gives Jupiter the largest ocean in the solar system—an ocean made of hydrogen instead of water. Scientists think that, at depths perhaps halfway to the planet's center, the pressure becomes so great that electrons are squeezed off the hydrogen atoms, making the liquid electrically conducting like metal. Jupiter's fast rotation is thought to drive electrical currents in this region, generating the planet's powerful magnetic field. 

Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter. It was followed by Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flybys. NASA's Galileo mission was first to orbit Jupiter and to send an atmospheric probe into the stormy clouds. The international Ulysses mission used Jupiter's powerful gravity to hurl itself into orbital passes of the Sun's northern and southern poles. Both Cassini and New Horizons studied Jupiter as they hurtled on to their main science targets — Saturn for Cassini and Pluto and the Kuiper Belt for New Horizons. Two new missions are in the works to make close studies of Jupiter's moons NASA's Europa Clipper and ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer.

Jupiter’s environment is probably not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to. While planet Jupiter is an unlikely place for living things to take hold, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Europa is one of the likeliest places to find life elsewhere in our solar system. There is evidence of a vast ocean just beneath its icy crust, where life could possibly be supported.

6. Saturn

Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun and the most beautiful planet in the solar system. It is named after the Greek god of agriculture who was also the father of Jupiter. It is the which have the lowest density due to which it can even float in water. It is the second-largest planet in the solar system. Like Jupiter it is also a gas giant and almost has the same chemical composition as Jupiter as it is also made up of mainly Hydrogen and Helium. Scientists believe that though it does not have a solid surface on its crust it may have a solid core.

Saturn's north pole has an interesting atmospheric feature—a six-sided jet stream. This hexagon-shaped pattern was first noticed in images from the Voyager I spacecraft and has been more closely observed by the Cassini spacecraft since. Spanning about 20,000 miles (30,000 kilometers) across, the hexagon is a wavy jet stream of 200-mile-per-hour winds (about 322 kilometers per hour) with a massive, rotating storm at the center. There is no weather feature like it anywhere else in the solar system.

Saturn's magnetic field is smaller than Jupiter's but still 578 times as powerful as Earth's. Saturn, the rings, and many of the satellites lie totally within Saturn's enormous magnetosphere, the region of space in which the behavior of electrically charged particles is influenced more by Saturn's magnetic field than by the solar wind.

Saturn is home to a vast array of intriguing and unique worlds. From the haze-shrouded surface of Titan to crater-riddled Phoebe, each of Saturn's moons tells another piece of the story surrounding the Saturn system. Saturn's environment is not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.

While planet Saturn is an unlikely place for living things to take hold, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Satellites like Enceladus and Titan, home to internal oceans, could possibly support life. In the past few years Saturn has been studied through space crafts like Cassini and Voyager-1.

7. Uranus

Placed on the 7th spot from the sun it is the ice giant Uranus. It is named after the Greek god of the sky. Uranus is also one of just two planets that rotate in the opposite direction than most of the planets (Venus is the other one), from east to west. Uranus is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system (the other is Neptune). Most (80 percent or more) of the planet's mass is made up of a hot dense fluid of "icy" materials—water, methane and ammonia—above a small rocky core. Near the core, it heats up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit (4,982 degrees Celsius). Uranus is slightly larger in diameter than its neighbor Neptune, yet smaller in mass. It is the second least dense planet; Saturn is the least dense of all.

Uranus gets its blue-green color from methane gas in the atmosphere. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere and is reflected back out by Uranus' cloud tops. Methane gas absorbs the red portion of the light, resulting in a blue-green color. Uranus' atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane and traces of water and ammonia. The methane gives Uranus it's signature blue color. While Voyager 2 saw only a few discrete clouds, a Great Dark Spot and a small dark spot during its flyby in 1986, more recent observations reveal that Uranus exhibits dynamic clouds as it approaches equinox, including rapidly changing bright features.

Uranus has an unusual, irregularly shaped magnetosphere. Magnetic fields are typically in alignment with a planet's rotation, but Uranus' magnetic field is tipped over: the magnetic axis is tilted nearly 60 degrees from the planet's axis of rotation and is also offset from the center of the planet by one-third of the planet's radius.
Uranus has 27 known moons. While most of the satellites orbiting other planets take their names from Greek or Roman mythology, Uranus' moons are unique in being named for characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. All of Uranus' inner moons appear to be roughly half water ice and half rock. The composition of the outer moons remains unknown, but they are likely captured asteroids.

8. Neptune

Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, ice giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system. More than 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth, Neptune is the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked eye. In 2011 Neptune completed its first 165-year orbit since its discovery in 1846.

Neptune is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system (the other is Uranus). Most (80 percent or more) of the planet's mass is made up of a hot dense fluid of "icy" materials—water, methane and ammonia—above a small, rocky core. Of the giant planets, Neptune is the densest. Scientists think there might be an ocean of super hot water under Neptune's cold clouds. It does not boil away because incredibly high pressure keeps it locked inside. The planet is named after the Roman god of the sea, as suggested by Le Verrier.

Neptune's atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium with just a little bit of methane. Neptune's neighbor Uranus is a blue-green color due to such atmospheric methane, but Neptune is a more vivid, brighter blue, so there must be an unknown component that causes the more intense color. Neptune has 14 known moons. Neptune's largest moon Triton was discovered on October 10, 1846, by William Lassell, just 17 days after Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet. Since Neptune was named for the Roman god of the sea, its moons are named for various lesser sea gods and nymphs in Greek mythology.

Triton is the only large moon in the solar system that circles its planet in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation (a retrograde orbit), which suggests that it may once have been an independent object that Neptune captured. 

That's all for this blog. In the next part of the solar system, we will cover the following topics.

• Dwarf Planets
• Oort Cloud
• Kuiper Belt
• Asteroids and comets
• Unique Moons of Jupiter and Saturn

Keep Following for knowledge enhancing blogs.