Solar System Sun Earth Moon Orbital Model

Top facts about the Solar System for kids

• The Sun is a star – it gives off light and heat and is made up of hot gas.
• Not everything in the Solar System orbits the Sun. The Moon, for example, revolves around the Earth.
• There are 8 planets that orbit the Sun.
• The order of the planets in the System are – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
• The biggest planet is Jupiter and the smallest is Mercury
• The Earth rotates as it orbits the Sun. One day = One complete rotation. It takes 365 rotations or days to complete a whole year.
• Our Galaxy is called the Milky Way and the Sun is one of the hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy.
• Saturn’s ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice particles.
• The Solar System formed around 4.6 billion years ago.
• As of 2008, Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Makemake and Haumea are known as dwarf planets.
• The Sun is 93 million miles from the Earth. The light from the Sun only takes 8 minutes to travel to the Earth.
• Our sun collected 99.86% of our system’s mass. This shows you just how big our sun is. The sun is made up of hydrogen and helium and that demonstrates how much of these gasses are in the universe as compared to the metals and rocks as we have on Earth.
  Before humans explored the Earth, we thought it was flat. However, all planets and the Sun in the Solar System are shaped like balls.
• Each planet in our Solar System has different characteristics. For example, Earth is made up of rock, however, Jupiter is made from Gas!
• According to theplanets.org – the Sun comprises over 99.8% of the Solar System, with the planet Jupiter accounting for most of the remaining mass.
• The hottest planet is Venus with an average temperature of 460°C and the coldest planet is Uranus with an average temperature -220°C.
• Earth is the only planet we currently know of that has living creatures on it – although we’re still looking!
• All the planets were named after Roman and Greek Gods/Goddesses with the exception of Earth – which means ‘ground’ in old Germanic English.
• According to Planetforkids.com – We refer to the “solar system” as it has been named after our sun, called “sol” which is Latin for “sun.” The words “Solar System” related to two things: Any celestial body that is “of the Sun,” and a collection of objects that work together to form the entire whole.
• Our Solar System has 8 planets, 5 dwarf planets, 181 moons, 552,894 asteroids and 3,083 comets!