PLANETS

ASTRONOMY
 A planet is a celestial body that is in orbit
around the Sun, has sufficient mass for its self-
gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it
assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly
round) shape, and has cleared the
neighbourhood around its orbit.
 MERCURY Hermes/Mercurius
the smallest planet in our solar system and nearest to the Sun

Mercury is one of the five classical planets visible with the naked eye and is named after the swift-footed
Roman messenger god. It is not known exactly when the planet was first discovered - although it was first
observed through telescopes in the seventeenth century by astronomers Galileo Galilei and Thomas Harriot.
 Venus is the second planet from the Sun, and our closest planetary
neighbor. It's the hottest planet in our solar system, and is sometimes
called Earth's twin.

Aphrodite
VENUS

Venus has been known and observed by civilizations throughout history. The first recorded observation of
the planet was by Babylonian astronomers in the 17th century BCE. The name comes from the Romans,
who gave named the planet after the goddess of love and beauty, Venus.Venus is named after the Roman
goddess of love and peace. To the Greeks this was Aphrodite, to the Egyptians the goddess Isis and to the
Phoenicians the goddess Astrate
 Earth is the planet we live on, one of eight planets in our solar
system and the only known place in the universe to support life.
Earth is the third planet from the sun, after Mercury and Venus, and
before Mars.

TERR
EARTH
A
Still, it's clear that while Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all started out as the
proper names of ancient Greek and Roman gods, "Earth" did not. That's why our planet is sometimes
called "the earth" with a lowercase "e."
Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago, approximately one-third the age of the universe, by accretion
from the solar nebula. Volcanic outgassing probably created the primordial atmosphere and then the
ocean, but the early atmosphere contained almost no oxygen.
 MARS
Ares
the fourth planet from the Sun – is a dusty, cold, desert world with a
very thin atmosphere. This dynamic planet has seasons, polar ice
caps, extinct volcanoes, canyons and weather.

Like the other planets in the Solar System, Mars was formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. During
the Noachian period from about 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago, Mars's surface was marked by meteor
impacts, valley formation, erosion, and the possible presence of water oceans.
 the fifth planet from our Sun and is, by far, the largest planet in the
solar system – more than twice as massive as all the other planets
combined. Jupiter's stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds
of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and
helium.

JUPITER
Zeus

Jupiter took shape along with rest of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. Gravity pulled swirling
gas and dust together to form this gas giant. Jupiter took most of the mass left over after the formation of
the Sun, ending up with more than twice the combined material of the other bodies in the solar system.
 SATURN
Cronus
Saturn took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity
pulled swirling gas and dust in to become this gas giant. About 4 billion years ago, Saturn settled into its
current position in the outer solar system, where it is the sixth planet from the Sun.

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet
in our solar system. Adorned with a dazzling system of icy rings,
Saturn is unique among the planets. It is not the only planet to have
rings, but none are as spectacular or as complex as Saturn's.
 URANUS
Caelus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and it has the third largest
diameter of planets in our solar system. Uranus appears to spin
sideways.

Uranus was the first planet found 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.
 Poseidon
NEPTUNE
Neptune is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system . Most
(80% 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.

The ice giant Neptune was the first planet located through mathematical calculations. Using predictions
made by Urbain Le Verrier, Johann Galle discovered the planet in 1846. The planet is named after the
Roman god of the sea, as suggested by Le Verrier.
 Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of
Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to
directly orbit the Sun.

Astronomers studying Neptune saw that it too wobbled in a surprising way – so they predicted, and
eventually found a ninth object. This cold and distant rock was seen by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and
eventually named as the new planet Pluto – after the god who presided over Ancient Greece's cold, dark
underworld.

PLUTO
HADES