This force is called gravity and the first man to discover that it existed was Sir Isaac Newton in the 17th century.Įarth is the only planet on which we know that there have been plants and animals living. The same force that holds you on the surface of the Earth so that you don’t float away when you jump, is what keeps the Moon revolving around the Earth and the Earth revolving around the Sun. 2012 was a leap year, and 20 will be leap years. We call a year with 366 days a leap year. We call the length of time it takes to go around the Sun a year, but to make life easier, most years have 365 days and every 4th year has 366 days. It takes just over 365 days for the Earth to travel all the way around the Sun.
The surface of Mars seen from the NASA rover ‘Curiosity’. The planets which make up our Solar System. Look through the gallery below and see if you can spot all of the following: Find out more about human space exploration. The Moon is 239,000 miles away and is the only place in the Solar System that man has travelled to apart from Earth. It is much smaller than the Earth and takes 28 days to complete one orbit. The Moon is a ball of rock that orbits around the Earth, in the same way that the Earth orbits around the Sun. Like Jupiter, it is made of gas and is much bigger than Earth. 
Saturn is famous for having rings of small pieces of ice and dust around it.
There is even a storm on Jupiter that is bigger than Earth – this storm has been blowing for hundreds of years and is called the ‘Great Red Spot’. Jupiter is made of gas and is so big that you could fit 1,321 planets the size of Earth inside it. It is the closest planet to Earth, and is slightly smaller than Earth. Mars is sometimes the called ‘the red planet’ because the rocks that it is made from are red.The hottest planet is Venus where the average temperature is 460☌, and the coldest is Uranus, which is -220☌. Some planets like Earth are made of rock, and some like Jupiter are made of gas. There is a lot of difference between the planets.All of the planets and the Sun are round, like balls.
In order, going from the closest planet to the Sun, to the one that is farthest away, they are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
There are eight planets that orbit around the Sun. It takes 24 hours for the Earth to spin all the way around, and we call this a day. The Earth is always spinning around – sometimes from where you stand on the Earth you can see the Sun (this is the daytime) and sometimes the part of the Earth where you are is facing away from the Sun so it is dark (this is the nightime). The Earth travels around the Sun in a loop that is shaped a bit like an oval. The light from the Sun only takes 8 minutes to travel to the Earth, but it would take Usain Bolt – the fastest man on Earth – 450 years to run from the Sun to the Earth. The Sun is 93 million miles from the Earth. Not everything in the Solar system orbits directly around the Sun. This is the same force that keeps the Earth and the other planets orbiting around the Sun. You are held onto the surface of the Earth by a force called gravity. The whole Universe has at least 100 billion galaxies in it. The Sun is just one of hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy that we live in, which is called the Milky Way. It takes 365 days for the Earth to complete one circuit around the Sun. The Earth rotates as it orbits the Sun. The Earth is the only planet that we know has creatures living on it. The biggest planet is Jupiter, and the smallest planet is Mercury. The closest planet to the Sun is Mercury, and the farthest away is Neptune. The Sun is a star – a massive ball of hot gas that gives off light and heat. Everything in the Solar System revolves around the Sun. The Sun is even bigger than Jupiter – it would take 1.3 million planets the size of Earth to fill the same volume as the Sun. The biggest planet is Jupiter – you could fit 1,321 Earths inside Jupiter. You may think that the Earth is a pretty big place, but the Earth isn’t even the biggest planet in the Solar System. The Solar System includes the Sun, the Earth (where you are now!) and all of the other planets, asteroids and comets that go around and around it.
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