The average distance between the Sun and Neptune is 4.55 billion km, and Neptune completes its orbit every 164.79 years; a year on Neptune is 164.79 Earth years. Despite this fact, it never appears in the same position in our sky because the Earth would have rotated in a different location during its 365.25 day […]
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The ice giant Uranus is certainly different from other gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn, which are both mostly composed of helium and hydrogen. Uranus is composed, mostly of various ices such as methane and ammonia. Its mass has been approximated at 14.5 times that of Earth. Astronomers believe that 9.3 and 13.5 Earth
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Although astronomers have officially downgraded Pluto to mere dwarf planet, it still remains an object of fascination for most scientists. In fact, NASA has sent an unmanned spacecraft, the New Horizons on a mission to Pluto. Its mission is to capture the first close-up images of its surface; the craft is scheduled to reach Pluto
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Pluto’s orbital period is long. It takes 248 years and its orbital characteristics are substantially different from every other planet in our Solar System; a year in Pluto is equivalent to 248 Earth years. As you already know, the planets orbit around the Sun on a flat reference plane which is called the ecliptic and
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Just to show you how big Uranus’ mass is, it will take 14 and a half Earth’s size just to fill Uranus. But Uranus doesn’t have the largest amount of mass in the solar system. Compared to the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter, Uranus is a mere 1/20 of its mass.
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Now that Pluto has been demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet, Neptune is now the most distant planet in the solar system. It is 2.8 million miles from the Sun or 30 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun. Its distance has also made it, until recently, one of the most
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Saturn’s average distance from the Sun is 1,400,000,000 km. The average orbital speed of Saturn is 9.69 km/s. It takes the earth 365 days to orbit the sun, Saturn takes 10,759 Earth days (or about 29½ years), to revolve around the sun; a year on Saturn is equivalent to 29.5 Earth years.
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Of the four giant planets, Neptune is the smallest. Its diameter is roughly 30, 755 miles. This is the measurement taken from a point in the atmosphere where the pressure does not exceed 1 bar. Neptune is four times bigger than earth but is just slightly smaller than Uranus. Despite being smaller than Uranus, Neptune’s
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Neptune, just like the other gas giant planets in our Solar System, can actually be broken up into different layers. In fact, its composition can change depending on which layers you’re looking at. Shall we go and learn more?
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Mercury is the innermost planet in the Solar System, but surprisingly it is not the hottest planet; that would be Venus. The reason for this is that Mercury has a thin atmosphere that cannot trap solar heat. Its maximum atmospheric pressure is estimated to be 0.00000000003 pounds per square inch; on Earth, the atmospheric pressure
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