OUR solar system has eight planets orbiting the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
There are also several dwarf planets, such as Ceres, which is found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The other dwarf planets, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris, are at the outer edges of our solar system.
Let’s take a closer look at the planets then discuss the sun itself.
MERCURY
Mercury, closest to the sun, is also the smallest– it’s just a little bigger than the moon.
The side facing the sun gets as hot as 450°C but on the planet’s shadow side temperatures plummet to hundreds of degrees below zero. Mercury has almost no atmosphere and its surface is riddled with craters.
A solar year – how long it…