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1:Soler system planet name

There are eight planets our soler system

1:Mercury

2:Venus

3:Earth

4:Mars

5:Jupiter

6:Saturn

7:Uranus

8:Naptune

2 :Planets have there moons

There are 146 moons in our soler system

1:Mercury-0

2:Venus-0

3:Earth-1

4:Mars-2

5:Jupiter-79

6:Saturn-82

7:Uranus-27

8:Naptune-14

3: Planets's moon names

There are 146 moons in our soler system

1:Mercury- Don’t have any moon

2:Venus-Don’t have any moon

3:Earth-1: Moon

4:Mars-1:Photos 2:Deimos

5:Jupiter-1.Metis 2.Adraste 3.Amalthea

4. Thebe 5.Io 6.Europa 7.Ganymede

8.Callisto 9.Themisto 10.Leda

11.Himalia 12.Lysithea 13.Elara

14.S/2000 J11 15.Iocaste

16.Praxidike 17.Harpalyke 18.Ananke

19.Isonoe 20.Erinome 21.Taygete

22.Chaldene 23.Carme 24.Pasiphae

25.S/2002 J1 26.Kalyke 27.Magaclite

28.Sinope 29. Callirrhoe 30.Euporie

31.Kale 32.Orthosien 33.Thyone

34.Euanthe 35.Hermippe 36.Pasithee

37.Eurydome 38.Aitne 39.Sponde

40.Autonoe 41.S/2003 J1  42.S/2003 J2

43.S/2003 J3      44.S/2003 J4

45.S/2003 J5      46.S/2003 J6

47.S/2003 J7      48.S/2003 J8

49.S/2003 J9      50.S/2003 J10

51.S/2003 J11    52.S/2003 J12

53.S/2003 J13    54.S/2003 J14

55.S/2003 J15    56.S/2003 J16

57.S/2003 J17    58.S/2003 J18

59.S/2003 J19    60.S/2003 J20

61.S/2003 J21    62.S/2003 J22

17 more

6:Saturn-1.Pan 2.Daphnis 3.Atlas

4.Prometheus 5.Pandora 6.Epimetheu

7.Janus 8.Mimas 9.Methone 10.Anthe

11.Pallene 12.Enceladus 13.Tethys

14.Telesto 15.Calypso 16.Dione

17.Helene 18.Polydeuces 19.Rhea

20.Titan 21.Hyperion 22.Iapetus

23.Kiviuq 24.Ijiraq 25.Phoebe

26.Paaliaq’27.Skathi 28.Albiorix

29.S/2007 S 2 30.Bebhionn 31.Erriapo

32.Skoll 33.Siarnaq 34.Tarqeq

35.S/2004 S 13 36.Greip 37.Hyrrokkin

38.Jarnsaxa 39.Tarvos 40.Mundilfari

41.S/2006 S 1  42.S/2004 S 17

43.Bergelmir  44.Narvi  45.Suttungr

46.Hati  47.S/2004 S 12  48.Farbauti

49.Thrymr  50.Aegir  51.S/2007 S 3

52.Bestla   53.S/2004 S 7

54.S/2006 S 3  55.Fenrir 56.Surtur

57.Kari 58.Ymir 59.Loge 60.Fornjot 22 more

7:Uranus-1.Titania 2.Oberon 3.Umbriel

4.Ariel 5.Miranda 6.Sycorax 7.Puck

8.Portia 9.Caliban 10.Juliet

11.Belinda 12.Cressida 13.Rosalind

14.Desdemona 15.Bianca 16.Ophelia

17.Cordelia 18.Setebos 19.Prospero

20.Perdita 21.Stephano 22.Mab

23.Cupid 24.Francisco 25.Ferdinand

26.Margaret 27.Trinculo

8:Naptune-1.Naiad 2.Thalassa 3.Despina

4.Galatea 5.arissa 6.Hippocamp

7.Proteus 8.Triton  9.Nereid

10.Halimede 11.Sao12.Laomedeia

13.Psamathe14. Neso

Fact-Jupiter and Saturn have too much moon because they are near to the asteroid belt.

4: Soler system draft planet name

There are five draft  planets our soler system

1:Ceres

2:Pluto

3:Makemake

4:Haumea

5:Eris

5: Draft Planet have there moons

There are 9 draft  planets moon in our soler system

1:Ceres-0

2:Pluto-5

3:Makemake-1

4:Haumea-2

5:Eris-1

6:Draft Planet’s moon name

There are 9 draft  planets moon in our soler system

1:Ceres-does not have any moon

2:Pluto-1.Charon 2.Hydra 3.Kerberos

4.Nix 5.Styx

3:Makemake-1.S/2015 (136472) 1

4:Haumea-1:Hiʻiaka 2:Namaka,

5:Eris-1:Dysnomia

7: Soler system planet gravity

1:Mercury-3.7 m/s²

2:Venus-8.87 m/s

3:Earth-9.807 m/s²

4:Mars-3.721 m/s²

5:Jupiter-24.79 m/s²

6:Saturn-10.44 m/s²

7:Uranus-8.87 m/s²

8:Neptune-11.15 m/s²

8: Soler system draft planet gravity

1:Ceres-0.27 m/s²

2:Pluto-0.62 m/s²

3:Makemake-0.5 m/s²

4:Haumea-0.401 m/s²

5:Eris-0.82 m/s²

9: Knowing about mercury

Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, is only slightly larger than Earth's moon and is pockmarked with craters.Even though Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, its surface can still be extremely cold, thanks to its lack of a heat-trapping atmosphere. The temperature during the day can reach a scorching 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius), but at night, temperatures can plummet as low as  -290 F (minus -180 C), according to NASA. That fluctuation equals a temperature swing of about 1,100 F (600 C), the largest of any planet in the solar system.Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system. The dinky planet is approximately 3,030 miles (4,876 kilometers) in diameter.

Saturn's moon Titan and Jupiter's moon Ganymede are both larger than Mercury. Pluto was long considered to be the smallest planet in the solar system, but after it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006, the award of the smallest planet has been bestowed upon Mercury.

Being so close to the sun, you might find it strange that Mercury could harbor any surface ice at all. But the planet has very little axial tilt, meaning that the polar regions receive very little direct sunlight, and some craters remain constantly in the dark. And Mercury has no atmosphere to speak of, so its temperatures rise and fall dramatically during the day and night, respectively.

Mercury has a huge metallic core approximately 2,200 miles to 2,400 miles (3,600 to 3,800 km) wide — about 75% of the planet's diameter! To put things into perspective, Mercury's outer shell is only 300 miles to 400 miles (500 to 600 km) thick. The huge core has more iron in it than any other planet in the solar system. Scientists aren't exactly sure how it formed, or why it's so outlandishly large.Scientists have discovered that Mercury has streams of particles sloughing off its surface, much like a comet. Long-exposure photographs taken by astrophotographers on Earth can capture these curious tails, as detailed in an article from EarthSky.

Scientists believe that the tails are produced when the sodium in Mercury's exosphere glows as a result of being excited by light from the sun. Sunlight can also free these molecules from Mercury's surface and push them away into space, according to an article from NASA Science(opens in new tab).

Scientists are puzzled by Mercury's magnetic field; the planet appears to be too small to host a global magnetic field, yet it does. Though the magnetic field has only 1% the strength of Earth's, it can cause quite the commotion on the surface of Mercury in the form of magnetic tornadoes.

According to NASA, when Mercury's magnetic field interacts with the solar wind, it sometimes generates magnetic tornadoes(opens in new tab) that channel fast, hot, solar wind plasma to the surface of the little planet. When the solar wind plasma hits the surface, it displaces neutrally charged atoms on the surface, sending the loops high into Mercury's atmosphere.

10: Knowing about Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is Earth’s closest planetary neighbor. It’s one of the four inner, terrestrial (or rocky) planets, and it’s often called Earth’s twin because it’s similar in size and density. These are not identical twins, however – there are radical differences between the two worlds.

Venus Resources Parker Solar Probe Captures its First Images of Venus' Surface in Visible Light

Venus has a thick, toxic atmosphere filled with carbon dioxide and it’s perpetually shrouded in thick, yellowish clouds of sulfuric acid that trap heat, causing a runaway greenhouse effect. It’s the hottest planet in our solar system, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. Surface temperatures on Venus are about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius) – hot enough to melt lead. The surface is a rusty color and it’s peppered with intensely crunched mountains and thousands of large volcanoes. Scientists think it’s possible some volcanoes are still active.

Venus has crushing air pressure at its surface – more than 90 times that of Earth – similar to the pressure you'd encounter a mile below the ocean on Earth.

Another big difference from Earth – Venus rotates on its axis backward, compared to most of the other planets

As Parker Solar Probe flew by Venus in February 2021, its WISPR instrument captured these images, strung into a video, showing the nightside surface of the planet. Credit: NASA/APL/NRL

In June 2021, three new missions to Venus were announced. NASA announced two new missions, and ESA announced one:

VERITAS: NASA's VERITAS, or Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy, will be the first NASA spacecraft to explore Venus since the 1990s. The spacecraft will launch no earlier than December 2027. It will orbit Venus, gathering data to reveal how the paths of Venus and Earth diverged, and how Venus lost its potential to be a habitable world.

DAVINCI: NASA’s DAVINCI mission will launch in the late 2020s. After exploring the top of Venus’s atmosphere, DAVINCI will drop a probe to the surface. On its hour-long descent, the probe will take thousands of measurements and snap up-close images of the surface. The probe may not survive the landing, but if it does, it could provide several minutes of bonus science.

EnVision: ESA has selected EnVision to make detailed observations of Venus. As a key partner in the mission, NASA is providing the Synthetic Aperture Radar, called VenSAR, to make high-resolution measurements of the planet’s surface features.This means that, on Venus, the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east, opposite to what we experience on Earth. (It’s not the only planet in our solar system with such an oddball rotation – Uranus spins on its side.)

Venus was the first planet to be explored by a spacecraft – NASA’s Mariner 2 successfully flew by and scanned the cloud-covered world on Dec. 14, 1962. Since then, numerous spacecraft from the U.S. and other space agencies have explored Venus, including NASA’s Magellan, which mapped the planet's surface with radar. Soviet spacecraft made the most successful landings on the surface of Venus to date, but they didn’t survive long due to the extreme heat and crushing pressure. An American probe, one of NASA's Pioneer Venus Multiprobes, survived for about an hour after impacting the surface in 1978.

More recent Venus missions include ESA’s Venus Express (which orbited from 2006 until 2016) and Japan’s Akatsuki Venus Climate Orbiter (orbiting since 2016).

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has made multiple flybys of Venus. On Feb. 9, 2022, NASA announced the spacecraft had captured its first visible light images of the surface of Venus from space during its February 2021 flyby.

11: Knowing about Earth

Our home planet is the third planet from the Sun, and the only place we know of so far that’s inhabited by living things. While Earth is only the fifth largest planet in the solar system, it is the only world in our solar system with liquid water on the surface. Just slightly larger than nearby Venus, Earth is the biggest of the four planets closest to the Sun, all of which are made of rock and metal.

The name Earth is at least 1,000 years old. All of the planets, except for Earth, were named after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. However, the name Earth is a Germanic word, which simply means “the ground.”

Earth has a very hospitable temperature and mix of chemicals that have made life abundant here. Most notably, Earth is unique in that most of our planet is covered in liquid water, since the temperature allows liquid water to exist for extended periods of time. Earth's vast oceans provided a convenient place for life to begin about 3.8 billion years ago.

Some of the features of our planet that make it great for sustaining life are changing due to the ongoing effects of climate change. To find out more visit our sister website, climate.nasa.gov.

With a radius of 3,959 miles (6,371 kilometers), Earth is the biggest of the terrestrial planets and the fifth largest planet overall.

From an average distance of 93 million miles (150 million kilometers), Earth is exactly one astronomical unit away from the Sun because one astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. This unit provides an easy way to quickly compare planets' distances from the Sun.

It takes about eight minutes for light from the Sun to reach our planet.

As Earth orbits the Sun, it completes one rotation every 23.9 hours. It takes 365.25 days to complete one trip around the Sun. That extra quarter of a day presents a challenge to our calendar system, which counts one year as 365 days. To keep our yearly calendars consistent with our orbit around the Sun, every four years we add one day. That day is called a leap day, and the year it's added to is called a leap year.

Earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.4 degrees with respect to the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun. This tilt causes our yearly cycle of seasons. During part of the year, the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun, and the southern hemisphere is tilted away. With the Sun higher in the sky, solar heating is greater in the north producing summer there. Less direct solar heating produces winter in the south. Six months later, the situation is reversed. When spring and fall begin, both hemispheres receive roughly equal amounts of heat from the Sun.

Earth is the only planet that has a single moon. Our Moon is the brightest and most familiar object in the night sky. In

Our home planet Earth is a rocky, terrestrial planet. It has a solid and active surface with mountains, valleys, canyons, plains and so much more. Earth is special because it is an ocean planet. Water covers 70% of Earth's surface.

Earth's atmosphere is made mostly of nitrogen and has plenty of oxygen for us to breathe. The atmosphere also protects us from incoming meteoroids, most of which break up before they can hit the surface.

many ways, the Moon is responsible for making Earth such a great home. It stabilizes our planet's wobble, which has made the climate less variable over thousands of years.

Earth sometimes temporarily hosts orbiting asteroids or large rocks. They are typically trapped by Earth's gravity for a few months or years before returning to an orbit around the Sun. Some asteroids will be in a long “dance” with Earth as both orbit the Sun.

Some moons are bits of rock that were captured by a planet's gravity, but our Moon is likely the result of a collision billions of years ago. When Earth was a young planet, a large chunk of rock smashed into it, displacing a portion of Earth's interior. The resulting chunks clumped together and formed our Moon. With a radius of 1,080 miles (1,738 kilometers), the Moon is the fifth largest moon in our solar system (after Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, and Io).

The Moon is an average of 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) away from Earth. That means 30 Earth-sized planets could fit in between Earth and its Moon.

When the solar system settled into its current layout about 4.5 billion years ago, Earth formed when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become the third planet from the Sun. Like its fellow terrestrial planets, Earth has a central core, a rocky mantle, and a solid crust.

Earth is composed of four main layers, starting with an inner core at the planet's center, enveloped by the outer core, mantle, and crust.

The inner core is a solid sphere made of iron and nickel metals about 759 miles (1,221 kilometers) in radius. There the temperature is as high as 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit (5,400 degrees Celsius). Surrounding the inner core is the outer core. This layer is about 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) thick, made of iron and nickel fluids.

In between the outer core and crust is the mantle, the thickest layer. This hot, viscous mixture of molten rock is about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) thick and has the consistency of caramel. The outermost layer, Earth's crust, goes about 19 miles (30 kilometers) deep on average on land. At the bottom of the ocean, the crust is thinner and extends about 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the seafloor to the top of the mantle.

Like Mars and Venus, Earth has volcanoes, mountains, and valleys. Earth's lithosphere, which includes the crust (both continental and oceanic) and the upper mantle, is divided into huge plates that are constantly moving. For example, the North American plate moves west over the Pacific Ocean basin, roughly at a rate equal to the growth of our fingernails. Earthquakes result when plates grind past one another, ride up over one another, collide to make mountains, or split and separate.

Earth's global ocean, which covers nearly 70% of the planet's surface, has an average depth of about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) and contains 97% of Earth's water. Almost all of Earth's volcanoes are hidden under these oceans. Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano is taller from base to summit than Mount Everest, but most of it is underwater. Earth's longest mountain range is also underwater, at the bottom of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. It is four times longer than the Andes, Rockies and Himalayas combined.

Near the surface, Earth has an atmosphere that consists of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% other gases such as argon, carbon dioxide, and neon. The atmosphere affects Earth's long-term climate and short-term local weather and shields us from much of the harmful radiation coming from the Sun. It also protects us from meteoroids, most of which burn up in the atmosphere, seen as meteors in the night sky, before they can strike the surface as meteorites.

Our planet's rapid rotation and molten nickel-iron core give rise to a magnetic field, which the solar wind distorts into a teardrop shape in space. (The solar wind is a stream of charged particles continuously ejected from the Sun.) When charged particles from the solar wind become trapped in Earth's magnetic field, they collide with air molecules above our planet's magnetic poles. These air molecules then begin to glow and cause aurorae, or the northern and southern lights.

The magnetic field is what causes compass needles to point to the North Pole regardless of which way you turn. But the magnetic polarity of Earth can change, flipping the direction of the magnetic field. The geologic record tells scientists that a magnetic reversal takes place about every 400,000 years on average, but the timing is very irregular. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn't cause any harm to life on Earth, and a reversal is very unlikely to happen for at least another thousand years. But when it does happen, compass needles are likely to point in many different directions for a few centuries while the switch is being made. And after the switch is completed, they will all point south instead of north.

12: Knowing about Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun – a dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. Mars is also a dynamic planet with seasons, polar ice caps, canyons, extinct volcanoes, and evidence that it was even more active in the past.

The Latest from Mars

Stunning New Meteoroid Impact on Mars

Mars Resources

Mars is one of the most explored bodies in our solar system, and it's the only planet where we've sent rovers to roam the alien landscape.

NASA currently has two rovers (Curiosity and Perseverance), one lander (InSight), and one helicopter (Ingenuity) exploring the surface of Mars.

Perseverance rover – the largest, most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world – touched down on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, after a 203-day journey traversing 293 million miles (472 million kilometers). The Ingenuity helicopter rode to Mars attached to the belly of Perseverance.

Perseverance is one of three spacecraft that arrived at Mars in 2021. The Hope orbiter from the United Arab Emirates arrived on Feb. 9, 2021. China’s Tianwen-1 mission arrived on Feb. 10, 2021, and includes an orbiter, a lander, and a rover. Europe and India also have spacecraft studying Mars from orbit.

In May 2021, China became the second nation to ever land successfully on Mars when its Zhurong Mars rover touched down.

An international fleet of eight orbiters is studying the Red Planet from above including three NASA orbiters: 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and MAVEN.

These robotic explorers have found lots of evidence that Mars was much wetter and warmer, with a thicker atmosphere, billions of years ago.

Go farther. Explore Mars In Depth ›

This mosaic comprises about 50 red-, green-, and violet-filter Viking Orbiter images, mosaiced in an orthographic projection at a scale of 1 km/pixel. The images were acquired in 1980 during late northern summer on Mars. Image Credits: NASA/JPL/USGS

13: Knowing about Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from our Sun and is, by far, the largest planet in the solar system – more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. Jupiter's stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth that has raged for hundreds of years.

Jupiter is surrounded by dozens of moons. Jupiter also has several rings, but unlike the famous rings of Saturn, Jupiter’s rings are very faint and made of dust, not ice.

Jupiter, being the biggest planet, gets its name from the king of the ancient Roman gods.

Potential for Life

Jupiter’s environment is probably not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures, and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.

While planet Jupiter is an unlikely place for living things to take hold, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Europa is one of the likeliest places to find life elsewhere in our solar system. There is evidence of a vast ocean just beneath its icy crust, where life could possibly be supported.

Size and Distance

With a radius of 43,440.7 miles (69,911 kilometers), Jupiter is 11 times wider than Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Jupiter would be about as big as a basketball.

From an average distance of 484 million miles (778 million kilometers), Jupiter is 5.2 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes Sunlight 43 minutes to travel from the Sun to Jupiter.

Jupiter has the shortest day in the solar system. One day on Jupiter takes only about 10 hours (the time it takes for Jupiter to rotate or spin around once), and Jupiter makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Jovian time) in about 12 Earth years (4,333 Earth days).

Its equator is tilted with respect to its orbital path around the Sun by just 3 degrees. This means Jupiter spins nearly upright and does not have seasons as extreme as other planets do.

Moons

With four large moons and many smaller moons, Jupiter forms a kind of miniature solar system. Jupiter has 80 moons. Fifty-seven moons have been given official names by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Another 23 moons are awaiting names.

Jupiter's four largest moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – were first observed by the astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610 using an early version of the telescope. These four moons are known today as the Galilean satellites, and they're some of the most fascinating destinations in our solar system. Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system (even bigger than the planet Mercury). Callisto’s very few small craters indicate a small degree of current surface activity. A liquid-water ocean with the ingredients for life may lie beneath the frozen crust of Europa, making it a tempting place to explore.

Discovered in 1979 by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Jupiter's rings were a surprise, as they are composed of small, dark particles and are difficult to see except when backlit by the Sun. Data from the Galileo spacecraft indicate that Jupiter's ring system may be formed by dust kicked up as interplanetary meteoroids smash into the giant planet's small innermost moons.

Formation

Jupiter took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become this gas giant. Jupiter took most of the mass left over after the formation of the Sun, ending up with more than twice the combined material of the other bodies in the solar system. In fact, Jupiter has the same ingredients as a star, but it did not grow massive enough to ignite.

About 4 billion years ago, Jupiter settled into its current position in the outer solar system, where it is the fifth planet from the Sun.

Structure

The composition of Jupiter is similar to that of the Sun – mostly hydrogen and helium. Deep in the atmosphere, pressure and temperature increase, compressing the hydrogen gas into a liquid. This gives Jupiter the largest ocean in the solar system – an ocean made of hydrogen instead of water. Scientists think that, at depths perhaps halfway to the planet's center, the pressure becomes so great that electrons are squeezed off the hydrogen atoms, making the liquid electrically conducting like metal. Jupiter's fast rotation is thought to drive electrical currents in this region, generating the planet's powerful magnetic field. It is still unclear if deeper down, Jupiter has a central core of solid material or if it may be a thick, super-hot and dense soup. It could be up to 90,032 degrees Fahrenheit (50,000 degrees Celsius) down there, made mostly of iron and silicate minerals (similar to quartz).

Surface

As a gas giant, Jupiter doesn’t have a true surface. The planet is mostly swirling gases and liquids. While a spacecraft would have nowhere to land on Jupiter, it wouldn’t be able to fly through unscathed either. The extreme pressures and temperatures deep inside the planet crush, melt, and vaporize spacecraft trying to fly into the planet.

Atmosphere

Jupiter's appearance is a tapestry of colorful cloud bands and spots. The gas planet likely has three distinct cloud layers in its "skies" that, taken together, span about 44 miles (71 kilometers). The top cloud is probably made of ammonia ice, while the middle layer is likely made of ammonium hydrosulfide crystals. The innermost layer may be made of water ice and vapor.

The vivid colors you see in thick bands across Jupiter may be plumes of sulfur and phosphorus-containing gases rising from the planet's warmer interior. Jupiter's fast rotation – spinning once every 10 hours – creates strong jet streams, separating its clouds into dark belts and bright zones across long stretches.

With no solid surface to slow them down, Jupiter's spots can persist for many years. Stormy Jupiter is swept by over a dozen prevailing winds, some reaching up to 335 miles per hour (539 kilometers per hour) at the equator. The Great Red Spot, a swirling oval of clouds twice as wide as Earth, has been observed on the giant planet for more than 300 years. More recently, three smaller ovals merged to form the Little Red Spot, about half the size of its larger cousin.

Findings from NASA’s Juno probe released in October 2021 provide a fuller picture of what’s going on below those clouds. Data from Juno shows that Jupiter’s cyclones are warmer on top, with lower atmospheric densities, while they are colder at the bottom, with higher densities. Anticyclones, which rotate in the opposite direction, are colder at the top but warmer at the bottom.

The findings also indicate these storms are far taller than expected, with some extending 60 miles (100 kilometers) below the cloud tops and others, including the Great Red Spot, extending over 200 miles (350 kilometers). This surprising discovery demonstrates that the vortices cover regions beyond those where water condenses and clouds form, below the depth where sunlight warms the atmosphere.

The height and size of the Great Red Spot mean the concentration of atmospheric mass within the storm potentially could be detectable by instruments studying Jupiter’s gravity field. Two close Juno flybys over Jupiter’s most famous spot provided the opportunity to search for the storm’s gravity signature and complement the other results on its depth.

With their gravity data, the Juno team was able to constrain the extent of the Great Red Spot to a depth of about 300 miles (500 kilometers) below the cloud tops.

Belts and Zones In addition to cyclones and anticyclones, Jupiter is known for its distinctive belts and zones – white and reddish bands of clouds that wrap around the planet. Strong east-west winds moving in opposite directions separate the bands. Juno previously discovered that these winds, or jet streams, reach depths of about 2,000 miles (roughly 3,200 kilometers). Researchers are still trying to solve the mystery of how the jet streams form. Data collected by Juno during multiple passes reveal one possible clue: that the atmosphere’s ammonia gas travels up and down in remarkable alignment with the observed jet streams.

Juno’s data also shows that the belts and zones undergo a transition around 40 miles (65 kilometers) beneath Jupiter’s water clouds. At shallow depths, Jupiter’s belts are brighter in microwave light than the neighboring zones. But at deeper levels, below the water clouds, the opposite is true – which reveals a similarity to our oceans.

Polar Cyclones Juno previously discovered polygonal arrangements of giant cyclonic storms at both of Jupiter’s poles – eight arranged in an octagonal pattern in the north and five arranged in a pentagonal pattern in the south. Over time, mission scientists determined these atmospheric phenomena are extremely resilient, remaining in the same location.

Juno data also indicates that, like hurricanes on Earth, these cyclones want to move poleward, but cyclones located at the center of each pole push them back. This balance explains where the cyclones reside and the different numbers at each pole.

The Jovian magnetosphere is the region of space influenced by Jupiter's powerful magnetic field. It balloons 600,000 to 2 million miles (1 to 3 million kilometers) toward the Sun (seven to 21 times the diameter of Jupiter itself) and tapers into a tadpole-shaped tail extending more than 600 million miles (1 billion kilometers) behind Jupiter, as far as Saturn's orbit. Jupiter's enormous magnetic field is 16 to 54 times as powerful as that of the Earth. It rotates with the planet and sweeps up particles that have an electric charge. Near the planet, the magnetic field traps swarms of charged particles and accelerates them to very high energies, creating intense radiation that bombards the innermost moons and can damage spacecraft.

Jupiter's magnetic field also causes some of the solar system's most spectacular aurorae at the planet's poles.

14: Knowing about Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest planet in our solar system. Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Saturn is not the only planet to have rings, but none are as spectacular or as complex as Saturn's. Saturn also has dozens of moons.

From the jets of water that spray from Saturn's moon Enceladus to the methane lakes on smoggy Titan, the Saturn system is a rich source of scientific discovery and still holds many mysteries.

The farthest planet from Earth discovered by the unaided human eye, Saturn has been known since ancient times. The planet is named for the Roman god of agriculture and wealth, who was also the father of Jupiter.

Saturn's environment is not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures, and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.

While planet Saturn is an unlikely place for living things to take hold, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Satellites like Enceladus and Titan, home to internal oceans, could possibly support life.

Size and Distance

With a radius of 36,183.7 miles (58,232 kilometers), Saturn is 9 times wider than Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Saturn would be about as big as a volleyball.

From an average distance of 886 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers), Saturn is 9.5 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight 80 minutes to travel from the Sun to Saturn.

Saturn has the second-shortest day in the solar system. One day on Saturn takes only 10.7 hours (the time it takes for Saturn to rotate or spin around once), and Saturn makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Saturnian time) in about 29.4 Earth years (10,756 Earth days).

Its axis is tilted by 26.73 degrees with respect to its orbit around the Sun, which is similar to Earth's 23.5-degree tilt. This means that, like Earth, Saturn experiences seasons.

Saturn is home to a vast array of intriguing and unique worlds. From the haze-shrouded surface of Titan to crater-riddled Phoebe, each of Saturn's moons tells another piece of the story surrounding the Saturn system. Saturn has 83 moons. Sixty-three moons are confirmed and named, and another 20 moons are awaiting confirmation of discovery and official naming by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

Saturn's rings are thought to be pieces of comets, asteroids, or shattered moons that broke up before they reached the planet, torn apart by Saturn's powerful gravity. They are made of billions of small chunks of ice and rock coated with other materials such as dust. The ring particles mostly range from tiny, dust-sized icy grains to chunks as big as a house. A few particles are as large as mountains. The rings would look mostly white if you looked at them from the cloud tops of Saturn, and interestingly, each ring orbits at a different speed around the planet.

Saturn's ring system extends up to 175,000 miles (282,000 kilometers) from the planet, yet the vertical height is typically about 30 feet (10 meters) in the main rings. Named alphabetically in the order they were discovered, the rings are relatively close to each other, with the exception of a gap measuring 2,920 miles (4,700 kilometers) in width called the Cassini Division that separates Rings A and B. The main rings are A, B, and C. Rings D, E, F, and G are fainter and more recently discovered.

Starting at Saturn and moving outward, there is the D ring, C ring, B ring, Cassini Division, A ring, F ring, G ring, and finally, the E ring. Much farther out, there is the very faint Phoebe ring in the orbit of Saturn.

Saturn took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become this gas giant. About 4 billion years ago, Saturn settled into its current position in the outer solar system, where it is the sixth planet from the Sun. Like Jupiter, Saturn is mostly made of hydrogen and helium, the same two main components that make up the Sun.

Like Jupiter, Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen and helium. At Saturn's center is a dense core of metals like iron and nickel surrounded by rocky material and other compounds solidified by intense pressure and heat. It is enveloped by liquid metallic hydrogen inside a layer of liquid hydrogen –similar to Jupiter's core but considerably smaller.

It's hard to imagine, but Saturn is the only planet in our solar system with an average density that is less than water. The giant gas planet could float in a bathtub if such a colossal thing existed.

As a gas giant, Saturn doesn’t have a true surface. The planet is mostly swirling gases and liquids deeper down. While a spacecraft would have nowhere to land on Saturn, it wouldn’t be able to fly through unscathed either. The extreme pressures and temperatures deep inside the planet would crush, melt, and vaporize any spacecraft trying to fly into the planet.

Saturn is blanketed with clouds that appear as faint stripes, jet streams, and storms. The planet is many different shades of yellow, brown, and gray.

Winds in the upper atmosphere reach 1,600 feet per second (500 meters per second) in the equatorial region. In contrast, the strongest hurricane-force winds on Earth top out at about 360 feet per second (110 meters per second). And the pressure – the same kind you feel when you dive deep underwater – is so powerful it squeezes gas into a liquid.

Saturn's north pole has an interesting atmospheric feature – a six-sided jet stream. This hexagon-shaped pattern was first noticed in images from the Voyager I spacecraft and has been more closely observed by the Cassini spacecraft since. Spanning about 20,000 miles (30,000 kilometers) across, the hexagon is a wavy jet stream of 200-mile-per-hour winds (about 322 kilometers per hour) with a massive, rotating storm at the center. There is no weather feature like it anywhere else in the solar system.

Saturn's magnetic field is smaller than Jupiter's but still 578 times as powerful as Earth's. Saturn, the rings, and many of the satellites lie totally within Saturn's enormous magnetosphere, the region of space in which the behavior of electrically charged particles is influenced more by Saturn's magnetic field than by the solar wind.

Aurorae occur when charged particles spiral into a planet's atmosphere along magnetic field lines. On Earth, these charged particles come from the solar wind. Cassini showed that at least some of Saturn's aurorae are like Jupiter's and are largely unaffected by the solar wind. Instead, these aurorae are caused by a combination of particles ejected from Saturn's moons and Saturn's magnetic field's rapid rotation rate. But these "non-solar-originating" aurorae are not completely understood yet.

15: Knowing about Uranus

The seventh planet from the Sun with the third largest diameter in our solar system, Uranus is very cold and windy. The ice giant is surrounded by 13 faint rings and 27 small moons as it rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. This unique tilt makes Uranus appear to spin sideways, orbiting the Sun like a rolling ball.

The first planet found with the aid of a telescope, Uranus was discovered in 1781 by astronomer William Herschel, although he originally thought it was either a comet or a star. It was two years later that the object was universally accepted as a new planet, in part because of observations by astronomer Johann Elert Bode.

William Herschel tried unsuccessfully to name his discovery Georgium Sidus after King George III. Instead, the planet was named for Uranus, the Greek god of the sky, as suggested by Johann Bode.

Uranus' environment is not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures, and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.

With a radius of 15,759.2 miles (25,362 kilometers), Uranus is 4 times wider than Earth. If Earth was the size of a nickel, Uranus would be about as big as a softball.

From an average distance of 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers), Uranus is 19.8 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight 2 hours and 40 minutes to travel from the Sun to Uranus.

One day on Uranus takes about 17 hours (the time it takes for Uranus to rotate or spin once). And Uranus makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Uranian time) in about 84 Earth years.