Planet X, Fact or hoax

On the edge of our solar system, there has been a so called planet discovered. Uranus is affected by something’s gravity Neptune was not the factor.  A man named Rodney Gomes has done computer simulations and came up with planet x. It is said to be 4 times the size of Jupiter. Since there is no physical evidence of it, it has to be knocked as a hoax for now, but is very promising. Some scientist have done their own experiments and have found the description of Planet X very closely related to Uranus’ problems.

Neptune

Neptune is the last official planet in our solar system. It is blue just like Uranus. When Neptune was first discovered, they did not see it, they mathematically figured it out. When scientists distinguished that something was interfering with Uranus’s orbit pattern, they had called the interferer Neptune, then saw it with a telescope. Its core is made of rock and is about as big as the Earth. It has, not rings but arcs because they are incomplete arcs around Neptune. Its day is 16 hours, but a year is 165 earth years. Its atmosphere is made of Hydrogen and Helium. Its winds can blow up to 1240 miles an hour there. It has 13 moons orbiting it. Neptune is named after the sea god because of its sea blue color.

 

 

Uranus

Uranus is the 7^th planet in our solar system. It is nowhere near as massive a Jupiter or Saturn, but it is a great deal larger than any of the inner planets. It is most known for its faint vertical rings. It rotates vertically, up and down other than normal planets that rotate horizontally. Scientist theorizes that Uranus was knocked over into a vertical rotation. It is a bluish color and is made of mostly ice. The only spacecraft to visit Uranus was Voyager 2. At that time, Uranus’ South Pole was pointed almost directly to the sun. Its day is 17 hours, but its year is 84 Earth years. Its atmosphere is made up of hydrogen and helium. It has 27 moons, all of which are named after Shakespeare’s and Alexander Pope’s characters. It is named after the roman sky god.

Saturn

Saturn is the 5^th planet from the sun. It is most distinguishable by its golden rings. These rings are made of dust, rocks, and ice. Saturn is also distinguishable by it very low density of 0.69g/cm³. If you could find a bathtub as big a Saturn and filled it with water, then Saturn would float! It is the same problem as Jupiter; it is not very dense, but very big in volume. You could fit roughly 750 Earths inside of it. Saturn has more than 60 satellites orbiting it. You wouldn’t know if it was day or night because there would always be a moon in sight. Saturn has one of the fastest days, only 11 hours. It year is a lot slower though, it would take 29 Earth years for Saturn to revolve around the sun. It has a core of rock about the size of Earth and the rest is hydrogen and helium. Saturn is named after the roman titan Saturn and most of its moons are named after titans also. Saturn is a great planet that many like to study.

Jupiter

Jupiter is the first planet in the four outer planets. It is the largest body in our solar system, except for our sun, which is 1000 times bigger than Jupiter, making it look very puny. It is often called the striped planet because of the bands on the surface. It has 67 moons orbiting it. Many are thought to be asteroids stolen from the belt. Jupiter is made mostly of Hydrogen and Helium, but may have a rocky core. It is very large in volume, but is not very dense. It can hold 1231 earths in it, but Earth is a lot denser. Jupiter is only 1.33g/cm³, but Earth is 5.52g/cm³. Jupiter’s most distinguishable aspect is the Red Spot’s on its surface. Imagine a storm about the size of Earth, which is what the Red Spots are. They are massive storms on the surface of planet Jupiter. Since Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System, they named it after the king of roman gods, Jupiter.

Asteroid Belt

The asteroid belt is a belt of asteroids and meteoroids that are in between the inner/terrestrial planets and the outer/gaseous planets. Jupiter’s gravity is what keeps all of these rocks from crashing into the inner planets. The asteroid belt contains trillions of asteroids, some of which are 200 miles long! They are made by the leftover rock and dust that was just lying around after the planets were made. We have launched plenty of spacecraft to observe asteroids. The NASA’s Galileo launched in 1991 was the first craft to take close-up pictures of asteroids and to discover a smaller asteroid serving as a moon to a larger asteroid. In 2001, the NEAR spacecraft landed on the asteroid Eros. Japanese Hayabusa, meaning Peregrine Falcon, was the first to land and take off from an asteroid. The rocks are under study in a lab in Japan. Humans also have seen a business opportunity from the metal rich asteroids. Planetary Resources said that they would send a mission to extract metal and water from near-Earth asteroids. Like our planets, individual asteroids are peculiar and intriguing to man. 

·         Most Massive: 4 Vesta

·         Biggest Diameter: 2 Pallas

·         Longest day: 846 Lipperta-1641 hours

·         Shortest day: 2010 JL₈₈-24.5 seconds!

·         Orbits backwards: Dioretsa (What’s asteroid backwards!)

·         First discovered asteroid with a moon: Asteroid-243 Ida. Moon- 243 Ida I Dactyl

Mars

Mars is the last part of the inner planets, or terrestrial planets. It is about half the size of Earth. It has two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Scientists believe that Phobos would crash into Mars in time. Mar’s surface is very red. It is red because its soil is very rich with iron and the air has rusted it greatly over the years. The rovers that have been to mars are Mars 2 and 3, Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. The reason why we can get many rovers there are because it has a very thin atmosphere of CO2. If it had an atmosphere similar to Earth, everything would burn up before it reaches the surface.  Mars rover Opportunity has discovered water on mar’s surface in the form of two giant polar ice caps. It is named after the Roman god of war because of its blood-red color. Mars is a planet that we know much about, but still has some unknown information in it.

Earth

Earth is the planet that humans and many other animals call home. It is the only known planet that holds life. The earth’s atmosphere consists of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon, and 0.03% carbon. The atmosphere is one thing that lets life live on earth. Without the atmosphere, huge meteorites would be a lot more common. The earth is exactly 1 AU from the sun. It has only one moon orbiting it. The earth is 4.6 billion years old. The earth is 70% water and 30% land. Earth is one of the inner planets and is rocky. Earth is the only planet that does not have a name from a roman god. Earth is an intriguing planet and the planet we live on.

Venus

Venus is the second planet in our solar system. It is a reddish color and is very hot, temperature averaging at 836 degrees Fahrenheit. One day on Venus is 118 Earth days. Although, their year is 224 Earth days, talk about a year that goes by quick! It is 0.72 Au away from the sun. Its mass is about 0.815s of the Earths mass. Venus and Earth are always called twins because they are similar in size and density. Its atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide (CO2), which makes its surface pressure a lot harder, 90% more than the Earths pressure! Venus is extremely dry because of the heat on the planet. Most probes that go there are destroyed within an hour. One reason why it is hot is because it’s so close to the sun, but is also more prone to it radiation because its magnetic field is so weak. Its magnetic field is only 0.000015 of Earth’s magnetic field. Venus was named after the roman god of beauty. Venus is an interesting planet and I want to learn more about.