The document provides information about the planets in our solar system from Mercury to Pluto. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and has no atmosphere. Venus is the hottest planet and rotates backwards. Earth is the only planet known to harbor life. Mars has the largest canyon and dust storms that can cover the planet. Jupiter is the largest planet and has giant storms. Saturn is known for its iconic rings. Uranus rotates on its side. Neptune and Pluto are small icy planets on the outer edges of the solar system.

1. Interplanetary Exploration By: Irfan Noori

2. Mercury is named after the Roman messenger of the gods. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. Mercury has no moon. Mercury rotates the Sun in only 88 days. Mercury rotates very slowly on its axis with one day taking 58 Earth days. Mercury barely has any atmosphere, but does have glaciers. Planet Mercury

3. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system. In position Venus is the 2 nd planet from the sun. The brightest of all planets, Venus, is also known as the Morning Star and the Evening Star. This planet is about the same size as Earth but is covered with impenetrable clouds of carbon dioxide and sulfur compounds. Venus spins slowly retrograde (backwards west to east) in 243 days and takes about 225 days to orbit the sun. This makes the daytime about 115 days which can raise surface temperatures up to 464° C. Planet Venus

4. Earth is the only planet that got live. Earths age is 4.6 billion years old. In position earth is the 3 rd planet from the sun. Earth is the 5 th largest planet in our solar system. Earth surface area is 197 million square miles, about 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered with water. The earth is made mostly of iron, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, nickel and sulfur: 34.6% iron, 29.5% Oxygen, 15.2% Silicon, 12.7% Magnesium, 2.4% Nickel,1.9% sulfur, 0.05% Planet Earth

5. Mars has the largest canyon in the solar system. It would reach from Los Angeles to Chicago if it was on Earth! In position mars is 4 th is the planet from the sun. Mars has a very thin atmosphere, mostly carbon dioxide, but dust storms can cover the whole planet for months at a time. About every two years the Earth and Mars come close together. The planet has two moons, Deimos and Phobos. It would take about 6 months for a spacecraft to get to Mars but the crew would have to wait a year and a half before returning. Olympus Mons, a 550 km wide volcano, is the largest volcano in the solar system and covers an area about the size of Arizona. It is 27 km high in contrast to Mt Everest on Earth at 8.85 km. There are a number of volcanoes on Mars but none seem to be geologically active. Mars also has large canyons, dust storms, sand dunes, polar ice caps and other features similar to those found on earth. Planet Mars

6. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Jupiter takes about 12 years to orbit the sun and rotates in about 10 hours. This short Jupiter "day" is amazing since the planet is roughly 11 Earth diameters wide. Unlike the rocky planets, Jupiter is a ball of dense hydrogen, helium, water, nitrogen and other gases over a tiny rocky core. Powerful winds dominate the atmosphere with criss-crossing jet streams, lightning and huge hurricane-like storms like the Great Red Spot. This storm has been raging for over 300 years and is about 2 Earth diameters wide. The Great Red Spot can be seen on Jupiter along with four moons. The planet had 39 known moons. The planet contains 71% of the planetary matter in the solar system and so its huge gravity pulls every object toward it. In fact, most of its moons were captured rather than forming with Jupiter. Planet Jupiter

7. Saturn is the next biggest planet in the solar system. In position Saturn is 6 th from the sun. Saturn and some of its moons can be seen in the composite. Four more moons were found in late 2000 and 9 more were discovered recently for a total of 31. Scientists are tracking more objects that may be additional moons. The Voyager missions found winds, magnetic field, auroras and lightning on the planet similar to Jupiter. Also, the planet has light colure cloud bands (zones) and darker bands (belts) like the larger gas giant. The fascinating ring system observed by Galileo in 1610 is only beginning to be understood. Planet Saturn

8. Blue Neptune is one of the solar system's gas giants. In position Neptune is the 8 th planet from the sun. Unlike Earth, gas giants are mostly hydrogen, helium, and methane gases. The methane gas on Neptune gives the planet its blue colour because the gas absorbs red light and reflects the blue back into space. Although not seen in the image the planet has a set of very faint rings. The Great Dark Spot, the dark oval on the planet, was a storm like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. Planet Neptune

9. Hanging like a giant cue ball in space, Uranus has hidden its secrets in frozen gases. In position Uranus is the 7 th planet from the sun. The icy planet Uranus is a smaller version of Jupiter and not the small rocky bodies like Earth. It have faint rings and a number of moons. Uranus takes some 84 years to orbit the sun. It rotates on its side and so half the time one pole is toward the sun and then the other making each of the four seasons last about 20 years. The faint bluish colour of the planet is because the methane gas in the atmosphere absorbs red light and reflects blue light. Planet Uranus

10. Pluto is a dwarf planet far from the sun. In position Pluto is the 9 th planet from the sun. Pluto is a small rocky object that lies at the very edge of the solar system. The planet is so far out it takes light from the sun about 5 and one half hours to reach Pluto in contrast to the 8 minutes it takes to reach Earth. Its orbit of about 248 years sometimes takes it inside Neptune’s orbit. Planet Pluto