Marsha Jay M.

Miguel Grade 11 - Descartes

Cara Mae E. Asis EARTH SCIENCE

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

There are 8 planets in the solar system which all revolves around the sun due to the
strong gravity pull of it. The 8 planets are namely, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. In the 8 planets, usually the farther from the Sun the colder the
temperature it has. The different planets consists of varying physical and chemical properties
since they all have dissimilar compositions. A physical property is a characteristic of a
substance that can be observed or measured without changing the identity of the substance.
Physical properties of a planet include its radius, mass, density, gravity, gravitation period, tilt
and temperature. Moreover, a chemical property is the chemical composition of the planet.
The radius of the planets varies depending on its size. The planet with the largest radius
being the Jupiter with 71,494 km while the planet with the smallest radius is Mercury with
2,439 km. Here are the radius of the rest of the planets: Mars with 3,398 km, Venus with 6,052
km, Earth with 6,378 km, Neptune with 24,750, Uranus with 25,559, and lastly Saturn with
60,330 km. The order of the planets are given in an increasing order based on the radius size.
Mass is the measure of amount of matter in a body of a planet. In this comparison I will be
using Earth as measure 1 or base to compare with the other planets. Mercury has 0.0558 mass,
Venus has 0.815, Mars has 0.1075, Jupiter has 317.83, Saturn has 95.147, Uranus has 14.54,
and Neptune has 17.23 mass. The planet with the largest mass is Jupiter while the planet with
the smallest mass is Mercury. Density is the measurement of how tightly packed the materials
of a planet is packed together. The planet with the highest density is Earth 5,497 kg/m3, on the
other hand the planet with the lowest density is Saturn with 690 kg/m3. Gravity means the
universal force acting between all matter, in this comparison I will use the Earth as the measure
1 or base same as the mass which was compared earlier. The planet with the heaviest gravity is
Jupiter with 2.54, while Mercury is the planet with the lowest gravity with 0.378. The rest of the
planets have gravity of 0.903 for Venus, 0.379 for Mars, 1.16 for Saturn, 0.919 for Uranus and
1.19 for Neptune. The rotation period of a planet refers to the time taken to rotate about its axis
relative to the background stars. The planet with the longest rotation period is Venus with 244.3
days while the shortest rotation is the planet Jupiter with 9h50.0m. Mercury takes 58.646d to
rotate to its own axis, while Earth takes 23h56m, Mars takes 24h37m, Saturn takes 10h14m,
Uranus 17h14m and Neptune takes 16h3m to rotate to its own axis.
The chemical properties of all 8 planets are all different from each other since they
have varying chemical composition. Mercury possesses a thin exosphere made up of atoms
blasted off the surface by the solar wind and striking meteoroids. Mercury's exosphere is
composed mostly of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium. Mercury’s surface to
have surprisingly high abundances of the moderately volatile elements, sodium, sulfur,
potassium, chlorine, and thorium, and a low abundance of iron. On the other hand, Venus’
atmosphere is composed of more than 96 percent carbon dioxide and 3.5 percent molecular
nitrogen. Trace amounts of other gases are present, including carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide,
water vapor, argon, and helium. The atmosphere of Venus is made up almost completely of
carbon dioxide. It also includes small doses of nitrogen and clouds of sulfuric acid. The air of
Venus is so dense that by mass, the small traces of nitrogen are four times the amount found on
Earth, although nitrogen makes up more than three-fourths of the terrestrial atmosphere. Its
chemical composition is carbon dioxide: 96 percent, nitrogen: 3.5 percent, carbon monoxide,
argon, sulfur dioxide, and water vapor: less than 1 percent. For the Earth its chemical
composition include; Iron (34.6 percent), oxygen (29.5 percent), silicon (15.2 percent),
magnesium (12.7 percent), nickel (2.4 percent), sulphur (1.9 percent), and titanium (0.05
percent). In Mars the most abundant chemical elements in the Martian crust are silicon, oxygen,
iron, magnesium, aluminium, calcium, and potassium. These elements are major components of
the minerals comprising igneous rocks. The chemical elements–carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,
oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur–have all been detected on Mars. Carbon is found as gaseous
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide ice, organic carbon, and carbonate minerals.
The composition of Jupiter is similar to that of the Sun – mostly hydrogen and helium. The
interior of Jupiter contains denser materials—by mass it is roughly 71% hydrogen, 24% helium,
and 5% other elements. Saturn is approximately 75% hydrogen and 25% helium with traces of
other substances like methane and water ice. Saturn's interior is thought to be composed of a
rocky core, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid
hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally, a gaseous outer layer. Uranus' atmosphere is mostly
hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane and traces of water and ammonia. The
methane gives Uranus its signature blue color. Molecular hydrogen: 82.5 percent. Helium: 15.2
percent. Methane: 2.3 percent. Neptune is made of a thick soup of water, ammonia, and
methane over an Earth-sized solid center. Its atmosphere is made of hydrogen, helium, and
methane. The methane gives Neptune the same blue color as Uranus. It discovered that the
planet is made up of about 83 percent hydrogen, 15 percent helium and two percent methane