E xtreme P lanets - E xtreme S ports!

Noreen Grice, Travelers Science Dome at the Gengras Planetarium

Our neighborhood in space is called the solar system.
It has planets, moons, asteroids, comets, meteoroids
and one star (the Sun). The planets can have extreme
conditions where they are very hot, cold, wet or dry.
Some planets also have craters, mountains, valleys and
inactive volcanos. Let’s check out some amazing facts
about our extreme planets and try to imagine which
sports would be good matches for them.
Our home planet Earth has temperatures that
can range from more than 125 degrees F in
the deserts to -125 degrees F in Antarctica. Oceans
make up more than two-thirds of Earth and our
home has lots of mountains, valleys, deserts and an
atmosphere that we can breathe. Can you think of a
new extreme sport that we could try on Earth?
Saturn is a gas planet like Jupiter, but a little smaller.
This planet is most famous for its
rings. For a long time, people thought
Saturn had three rings. Then scientists sent robotic
spacecraft and found thousands of rings orbiting the
planet. The rings are not solid but are made of small
pieces of ice, gas and rocks. What sport could be
played in Saturn’s rings?

Mars is about half the size of Earth. Valles

How fast can you run? Speedy Mercury travels
about 31 miles per second as it orbits the Sun.
That’s like running from Boston to Hartford in less than
4 seconds! Mercury also has extreme temperatures.
The side of Mercury that faces the Sun can reach 800
degrees F, while the other side of the planet, in shade,
can dip below -300 degrees F. Would you play summer
sports, winter sports or try both on Mercury?
Venus, the second planet from the Sun, is
the hottest planet in our solar system. How
can Venus be hotter than Mercury? Mercury has no
atmosphere of its own, but Venus has an atmosphere
so thick that the clouds hold in heat, causing the
temperature to soar to more than 880 degrees F! And
when it rains, it rains sulfuric acid. What sports would
work well here?
Marineris is a dry valley on the red planet,
but if that valley were brought back to Earth it
would stretch from Connecticut to California. Mars
has the solar system’s largest volcano, called Olympus
Mons. It’s not active but it’s three times taller than Mt.
Everest and as wide as the state of Colorado. Orbiting
spacecraft images suggest that there is water below
some surface areas. Besides hiking, what other sport
could we do on Mars?
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar
system, but you can’t walk on it. This is a gas
giant, so most of the planet is composed of hydrogen
and helium gases, and you could fit 1200 Earth’s
inside. Jupiter spins fast, rotating once in about 10
hours, and this causes many storms and high winds.
One of the most famous storms is the Great Red Spot,
which is the size of about three Earths side-by-side.
What sport would be good in windy conditions?
Uranus and Neptune are also gas
planets, about four times the size of Earth. They
have a small number of thin rings, and storms have
been observed in their atmospheres. Uranus is extreme
because its poles do not face “up and down” like on
Earth, but face sideways, as if the planet was knocked
on its side. Neptune is extreme because it can be
very windy, with wind speeds reaching 750 miles per
hour! Can you think of a sport that would be good with
extreme winds?
Let’s include Pluto in our tour. Pluto is smaller than
Earth’s Moon, and it takes 248 years to
complete its long journey around the Sun. In
2015, The New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto.
We learned that it has an icy surface, a thin nitrogen/
methane atmosphere and at least 5 moons. When
scientists compared surface images of Pluto, they saw
that the ice was slowly moving. What’s a good sport
for ice?

Did you come up with extreme

sports for our extreme planets?

F un T hings To Do !
Look through this week’s
Hartford Courant to find:
D id
id You
ou K now
now
Our solar system is not the only place for
• News about new planet discoveries with the
Kepler Space Telescope
planets. There are planets beyond our
• News about NASA missions to other planets
solar system and we found more than two
thousand of them using the Kepler Space
The Children’s Museum Telescope. When you look up at the night
Visi t in West Hartford! sky and look at the faint stars, think
Check out the International Which planets are currently
about other planets orbiting those stars.
Space Station model in the visible in the sky? If there is life there, are they
Find out under the
GENGRAS TRAVELER’S looking back at us?
PLANETARIUM SCIENCE DOME

Common Core State Standard

RI (Reading Standards for informational text):
grades 3-5 (1,2,3,5,7) and RF (Reading Standards
for Foundational Skills):
grades 2-5 (4)
CT Science Standards: 2.1, 3.1, 4.1 5.3