1) The document provides an overview of the solar system, including descriptions of planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. 2) It also describes other objects in our solar system like asteroids, which orbit the sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and comets, which have elliptical orbits that take them close to and far from the sun. 3) The document compares sizes and features of celestial bodies like Earth, the sun, and other planets to provide context for their scale and characteristics within our solar system.

1. G2
General Geography
Part 1
Ashish Ray H C
ray@sugarplum.in
www.sugarplum.in
nehakiasstudycircle.blogspot.in 1

2. 2
A walk through the Universe
 Space is big. You just won’t believe
how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly
big it is. I mean, you may think it’s
a long way down the road to the
chemist’s, but that's just peanuts
to space.
Douglas Adams,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
English humorist & science fiction novelist
(1952 - 2001)

3. 3

4. 4
The Earth
We are here @
Career Launcher,
Mysore

5. 5

6. 6
EARTH
Mercury
Venus
Mars

7. 7

8. 8
Earth
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Jupiter
Pluto
(not a planet)
and its moon
Charon

9. 9
The Sun
is our nearest star

10. 10
The Solar
System

11. 11
The Milky Way (Our Galaxy)
A hundred, thousand, million stars!

12. 12
the Milky Way
as seen from
the Enterprise
A hundred thousand light years across
Light would take
100 000 years to
travel across the
galaxy.

13. 13
Distances
 It takes 8 minutes for light to reach us
from the Sun.
 A light-year is the distance travelled by
light in 1 year.
 The Sun is our nearest star.
 Our next nearest star, Alpha Centauri is
4 light years away.
 The Milky Way is 100 000 light years
across.

14. 14
The local group of galaxies
Andromeda is
the nearest big
galaxy to the
Milky Way
Milky
Way

15. 15
Light from Andromeda takes
2 million years to reach us.
Milky
Way
Andromeda

16. 16
Local
group
The Local Supercluster
Here the local group has shrunk to the size of the
Milky Way in the last slide.

17. 17
It left when the dinosaurs
were on Earth.
Light from Virgo has taken 65 million
years to reach us.
Virgo
Cluster

18. 18
The Universe is mind-bogglingly big!
 The Sun is about 150 000 000 km away
from Earth
 Bright stars in the night sky are about
1000 000 (1 million) times as far away
as the Sun.
 The near galaxies are about 100 000
times as far away as the bright stars.
 15 000 000 000 000 000 000 km

19. 19NASA

20. The UniverseThe Universe
Computer Simulation
The observable
Universe is 27
Billion light-
years in
diameter.

21. Size and Scale of the UniverseSize and Scale of the Universe
Image courtesy of The Cosmic Perspective by Bennett, Donahue, Schneider, & Voit; Addison Wesley, 2002

22. EarthEarth
• Planet where we all live
• Comprised primarily of
rock
• Spherical in shape
• 12,700 km in diameter
• It would take 17 days to
circumnavigate the
globe driving a car at
100 km/hr
• At the speed of light, it
would take 0.13
seconds to go all the
way around Earth.

23. SunSun
• Star that Earth orbits
• Composed primarily of
hydrogen and helium
gas
• Uses nuclear fusion in
its core to generate
heat and light to allow
itself to resist the
crushing weight of its
own mass
• Spherical in shape
• 1.39 Million km in
diameter

24. Earth & SunEarth & Sun
• The Sun’s diameter is 109
times greater than that of
Earth
• Over 1 million Earths
would fit inside the Sun’s
volume
• Earth orbits the Sun at an
average distance of 150
million kilometers. This
distance is called an
Astronomical Unit (AU)
• It would take 11,780
Earths lined up side to
side to bridge between
Earth and Sun.

25. The Solar System
 The solar system consists of the
sun, 8 planets and their moons
 The 8 planets are Mercury, Venus,
Earth, Mars, Uranus, Neptune.

26. Mercury
 Mercury is the planet that is
closest to the sun
 Mercury does not have a moon
 A day on Mercury is equal to 176
days on Earth
 The surface of Mercury is similar
to that of the Earth’s moon

27. Venus
 Venus is the Second planet from
the sun
 A day on Venus is longer than a
year on Venus!!!
 The Atmosphere is composed of
Carbon Dioxide
 Venus has no moons
 Called Earth’s sister planet

28. Earth
 The third planet from the sun
 The only planet that supports life
in our Solar System
 Earth has 1 moon
 71% of the Earth’s crust is
covered with water

29. Mars
 Fourth from the sun
 Last of the Terrestrial (Earth-like)
planets
 Called the Red planet because of
its color
 Mars has 2 moons; Phobos and
Deimos

30. Jupiter
 Jupiter is the 5th
planet from the
sun and is the largest planet in the
Solar System
 Jupiter is the first of the Gas
planets
 Jupiter has 61 known moons!!!

31. Saturn
 Saturn is the 6th
planet from the
sun
 Saturn is best known for its rings
 The rings around Saturn are made
up of frozen gases, water ice and
rock. So the rings are not solid
bands around the planet
 There are 31 moons orbiting Saturn

32. Uranus
 Uranus is the 7th
planet from the
sun
 It, along with Neptune, are the
only planets whose orbits overlap
each other
 Uranus has 21 moons

33. Neptune
 Neptune is the 8th
planet from the
sun
 A year on Neptune is equal to over
164 years on earth!!
 There are 11 known moons, Triton
is the largest!

34. Pluto
 Pluto is 9th
from the sun. It is not
considered as a planet though.
 Pluto has 1 moon, Charon
 Pluto is the rockiest of the outer
planets

35. Asteroid Belt
BACK

36.  Asteroids are either rocky or metallic
objects that orbit the Sun. They are
too small to considered planets but
are sometimes called planetoids.
 They can be anywhere from the size
of a pebble up to a 1000km (620
miles) in diameter; the asteroid Ceres
is an example of an asteroid that is
this large.
 They have been found inside Earth’s
orbit and all the way out past
Saturn’s orbit. Most asteroids,
however, are located in the asteroid
belt which exists between the orbit’s
of Mars and Jupiter.
Asteroids

37.  Comets - small, fragile, irregular-
shaped body composed of a mixture
of non-volatile grains and frozen
gases.
 Their orbits are elliptical (oval) or
parabolic (U-shaped).
 The orbit brings them in very close
to the Sun and swings them far out
into space, sometimes out past Pluto.
 As comets approach the Sun,
radiation from the Sun evaporates
the ice and gases, creating the lone
tail.
 The closer to the Sun, the longer the
tail of the comet.
 The tail of the comet always faces
away from the Sun because of the
solar wind coming from the Sun.
Comets

38. Components of Comets

39. Example of a Comet’s Orbit
Comet 2P/Encke