Solar System - The Planets
Planets of Our Solar System
There are may mnemonics for remembering the order of the planets in our solar system - one of the most popular being
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas
but the demise of Pluto as a planet has changed the picture! During the debate over the number of planets, some new mneumonics have been created and while there was a possiblity of keeping Pluto and adding Charon and Xena so:
My Very Eager Man-Child Just Sent Us Perfectly Capable Xenophobes.
However, the smaller Planets got kicked out and so
My! Very Educated Morons Just Screwed Up Numerous Planetariums
and we now have a plethora of mneumonics for the eight remaining planets such as this variation:
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nothing
but a very clever one found on Wikipedia goes:
My Very Easy Method Just Stop Using Nine!
| Mercury | |
| Picture of Mercury taken from Mariner 10 - NASA | |
|
|
| Distance from Sun | 38 Million Miles |
| Diameter | 3000 miles |
| Orbit | 88 days |
| Rotation Period | 58 days |
| Temperature | -170°C to +400°C |
| Satellites | 0 |
| Venus | |
| Computer Simulated Globe View of Venus centered at Latitude 180° East - NASA | |
|
|
| Distance from Sun | 67 Million Miles |
| Diameter | 7500 miles |
| Orbit | 225 days |
| Rotation Period | 243 days |
| Temperature | up to 480°C |
| Satellites | 0 |
| Earth | |
| Earth - NASA - Apollo 17 Crew | |
|
|
| Distance from Sun | 93 Million Miles |
| Diameter | 7900 miles |
| Orbit | 365.3 days |
| Rotation Period | 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds |
| Temperature | -88°C to +58°C |
| Satellites | 1 |
| Mars | |
| Mars - JPL/NASA | |
|
|
| Distance from Sun | 141 Million Miles |
| Diameter | 4200 miles |
| Orbit | 687 days |
| Rotation Period | 24.5 hours |
| Temperature | -140°C to +20°C |
| Satellites | 2 |
| Jupiter | |
| Jupiter - NASA | |
|
|
| Distance from Sun | 482 Million Miles |
| Diameter | 88250 miles |
| Orbit | 11.9 years |
| Rotation Period | 10.5 hours |
| Temperature |
Cloud tops average -153°C |
| Satellites | 28 |
| Saturn | |
| Saturn - NASA | |
|
|
| Distance from Sun | 884 Million Miles |
| Diameter | 74400 miles |
| Orbit | 29.5 years |
| Rotation Period | 10.5 hours |
| Temperature |
Cloud tops average -185°C |
| Satellites | 30 |
| Uranus | |
| Uranus with Transiting Moon - NASA | |
|
|
| Distance from Sun | 1778 Million Miles |
| Diameter | 32200 miles |
| Orbit | 84 years |
| Rotation Period | 17.2 hours |
| Temperature |
Cloud tops average -214°C |
| Satellites | 21 |
| Neptune | |
| Neptune - NASA | |
|
|
| Distance from Sun | 2790 Million Miles |
| Diameter | 30000 miles |
| Orbit | 165 years |
| Rotation Period | 19 hours |
| Temperature | Averages -255°C |
| Satellites | 8 |