The Center of It All

1. The Center of It All The Sun The Sun’s distance from the Earth is 150 million km (93 million miles)

2. The Sun http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/sun-article/

3. Fun Facts The sun in the largest object on the solar system. Approximately 109 planet Earths would fit on the surface of the sun and more than one million planets Earths would fit inside the sun. The sun is often personified in mythologies: Greeks call is Helios and the Romans call it Sol. In Japan it is called Amaterasu. The sun is 70 % hydrogen, 28% helium by everything else amounts to less than 2%. The sun converts hydrogen to helium in its core.

4. The Sun is recognized as having the largest mass in our Solar System. Approximately every 11 years, the sun reverses its overall magnetic polarity: its north magnetic pole becomes a south pole, and vice versa. The sun rotates on its axis once every 25.38 Earth days or 609.12 hours. A person weighing 150 pounds on Earth would weigh 4,200 pounds on the sun because the sun’s gravity is 28 times that of Earth.

5. Solar Flares and Solar Wind Solar flares are jets of particles that burst from the sun and can disrupt satellite communications and knock out electricity on Earth. The sun radiates heat and a steady stream of charged particles known as the solar wind, which blows about 280 miles (450 kilometers) per second throughout the solar system.

6. Our Solar System

7. Comets They have tails that can stretch for millions of Kilometers Sometimes called dirty snowballs Comets are small, icy rock bodies that did not get incorporated into the Sun or the planets. They comprise of a nucleus, coma, hydrogen cloud, dust tail, and ion tail.  Comets are spectacular sights in the night sky. Comets have orbits that bring them close to the sun, then out to the far ends of the system and back. One famous comet is Halley’s Comet Also called long-haired stars As a comet passes closer to the sun, it heats the ice and the gases released make the tail that is seen.

8. Asteroids These are rocky bodies that orbit the sun Irregular in shape They can be all sizes The smallest size is the size of a pebble Most orbit the sun between Jupiter and Mars Asteroids that pass close to Earth are called NEO’s or Near Earth Objects.

9. Asteroids Continued Asteroids Asteroids have hit every planet in our solar system. Most space rocks that hit Earth burn up or slow down enough not to cause serious damage. Evidence of what happens when they don't can be seen at Barringer Crater in Arizona - a giant hole almost 1.6 km (1 mile) across and 175 meters (570 feet) deep.

10. Meteors Often called shooting stars Created by tiny particles the size of a grain of sand Most burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, sometimes they are large enough to hit the Earth’s surface before completely burning up. These are called meteorites- they are the surviving meteors. Meteroid is when a meteor travels through Earth’s atmosphere(while it is burning up)

11. Dwarf Planets Pluto, Ceres and Eres are considered dwarf Planets in our solar system dwarf planets lack the gravitational muscle to sweep up or scatter objects near their orbits. They end up orbiting the sun in zones of similar objects such as the asteroid and Kuiper belts They are not a moon Ceres, Eres and Pluto are dwarf planets in our solar system

12. Dwarf Planet Eres- Orbit

13. Terrestrial Planets Terrestrial planet is a planet which has solid surfaces and is primarily composed of silicate racks and/or metals. There are 4 known terrestrial planets in our solar system – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, which are all inner planets and one terrestrial dwarf planet, Ceres, located in the asteroid belt.

14. Mercury First planet from the sun Mercury is only slightly larger than Earth's Moon.   Mercury has very little atmosphere to stop impacts covered with craters Mercury's dayside is super-heated by the sun, but at night temperatures drop hundreds of degrees below freezing  Ice may even exist in craters Mercury's egg-shaped orbit takes it around the sun every 88 days Extreme surface temperatures Has no moons

15. Venus 2nd planet from the sun Very thick atmosphere of Carbon Dioxide Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system due to the greenhouse effect Venus has no moons It is always cloudy on Venus Similar to the size of Earth Has no moons

16. Earth Third planet from the sun Small, rocky planet Earth is about 4.5 billion years old Made up of water and land masses called continents Frozen icecaps at its polar regions Earth has a protective atmosphere composed of predominately nitrogen and oxygen Has a natural magnetic field which helps shield Earth from harmful solar radiation Earth has one moon

17. Mars Fourth planet from the sun Half the diameter of Earth Very thin atmosphere which makes it a cold planet Mars has two moons

18. Gas Giants/Ice Giants Sometimes called Jovian- Jupiter like planets Gas Giants/Ice Giants have many moons that orbit them.  As these planets grew in the early solar system, they were able to capture objects with their large gravitational fields.

19. Jupiter Has 50 known moons Fifth planet from the sun Largest planet in the solar system 300 times larger than Earth Giant ball of liquid hydrogen and helium Average temperature is -153 degrees Celsius One of the Gas Giants

20. Saturn Sixth planet from the sun Gas Giant with temperatures as low as -185 degrees Celsius Has 52 known moons Composed of hydrogen and helium Saturn has a huge system of rings made of chunks of ice and rock

21. Uranus Seventh planet from the sun Considered an Ice Giant Has 27 known moons Uranus' blue-green color is the result of atmospheric methane, made of hydrogen and methane Smallest of the Gas Giants, it is only 4x the diameter of Earth Temperature is around -214 degrees Celsius It has ten thin rings going around it

22. Neptune Eighth planet from the sun and last Gas Giant/Ice giant Considered an Ice Giant Has 13 known moons The ice giant Neptune was the first planet located through mathematical predictions rather than through regular observations of the sky. (Galileo had recorded it as a fixed star during observations with his small telescope in 1612 and 1613.) Neptune orbits the sun once every 165 years Temperature -225 degrees Celsius

23. Neptune Interestingly, the unusual elliptical orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto brings Pluto inside Neptune's orbit for a 20-year period out of every 248 Earth years  Neptune's blue color is the result of methane in the atmosphere Neptune is a little smaller than Uranus

24. Significant Dates Significant DatesHuygens' image of Titan surface. The rocks are about the size of pebbles. 1610: Galileo Galilei and Simon Marius independently discover four moons orbiting Jupiter. The moons are known as the Galilean satellites in honor of Galileo's discovery, which also confirms the planets in our solar system orbit the sun. 1877:Asaph Hall discovers Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos. 1969: Astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first of 12 men to walk on the surface of Earth's Moon. 1980: Voyager 1 instruments detect signs of surface features beneath the hazy atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. 2005: The European Space Agency's Huygens probe lands on the surface of Titan. It is the first spacecraft to successfully land on a moon beyond Earth's own moon. 2000-present Using improved ground-based telescopes, orbiting observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope and spacecraft observations, scientists find dozens of new moons in our solar system.