clix - Unit 3: The Solar System and Beyond

Glossary

All the planets revolve around the Sun. You must know that there are eight planets in our Solar System. Can you name them? Well, one is the Earth of course! Out of the remaining seven planets, five can be seen with the naked eyes. They are Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn. In fact, Jupiter is the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus. Mars and Saturn are also among the brightest objects in the night sky because they are much closer than the stars. Try to observe them with the help of your teacher or someone who can identify planets. We need a telescope to watch Uranus and Neptune. All these planets are of different sizes, are at different distances from the Sun and they rotate and revolve with different speeds. (See Table 1 for more details).

Table 1: Basic data of the Sun and the planets

Name of the Planet	Mass (M⊕)	Radius (R⊕)	Average distance from the Sun (AU)	Rotation Period	Revolution Period
Sun	332946	109	0	25 Earth days	Not Applicable
Mercury	0.06	0.38	0.387	58.65 Earth days	87.97 Earth days
Mars	0.82	0.95	0. 723	243.03 Earth days	1.88 Earth years
Earth	1	1	1	1 Earth day	365.256 Earth days
Venus	0.11	0.52	1.524	24 hours 37 minutes	224.7 Earth days
Jupiter	317.8	11.21	5.203	9 hours 50 minutes	11.86 Earth years
Saturn	95.2	9.45	9.537	10 hours 14 minutes	29.46 Earth years
Uranus	14.6	4.01	19.19	17 hours 14 minutes	84.01 Earth years
Neptune	17.2	3.88	30.07	16 hours 3 minutes	164.8 Earth years

M⊕: Mass (multiples of the Earth); Mass of the Earth is 5.97×10²⁴ kg

R⊕: Radius (multiples of the Earth); Radius of the Earth is 6371 km

1 AU (astronomical unit): Average distance from the centre of the Earth to the centre of the Sun = 149.6×10⁶ km

Go through table one and write the following in the notebook :

Which planet or planets are similar to earth and in what aspect. Example- Venus’s rotation period is similar to earth, it is 24 hours and 37 minutes.
Which is the biggest planet?
Which is the smallest planet?
Which planet is the closest to the sun?
Which planet is the farthest from the sun?
Which planet takes shortest time to complete one revolution around the sun?
Which planet takes longest time to complete one revolution around the sun?

(Click on icon to write)

Check what others have shared in Notebook, comment on others notebook posts if you find anything interesting or problematic.

Let us see how these planets move around the Sun through an activity.

Select from the following:

1.2 The Planet