Kid-Friendly Venus Even though Mercury is closer to the Sun, Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system. Its thick atmosphere is full of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, and it has clouds of sulfuric acid. The atmosphere traps heat, making it feel like a furnace on the surface.
This is because of the fourth and all-important difference between the two worlds: Mercury has no atmosphere, while Venus has a very thick one. Transits of Venus (top) and Mercury (bottom)[+] Note how Venus' atmosphere diffracts sunlight around it, while Mercury's lack of atmosphere shows no such effects.
The hottest planet in the solar system is Venus with an average temperature of 464 degree Celsius and the coldest planet in the solar system is Pluto with an average temperature of -225 degree Celsius.
Neptune is the second coldest planet, Uranus's atmosphere makes it the coldest planet with temperature of minus 224 deg.
Mars is colder than Earth because it is farther from the Sun, and the atmosphere is too thin to retain heat at the surface. A vast ocean system of liquid water covers 71% of the surface of Earth.
Venus, which can be seen with the unaided eye fromEarth, is the brightest planet in our Solar System. Venus was given the nickname evening star and morning star because of its bright, consistent presence.
Jupiter formed less than 3 million years after the birth of the solar system, making it the eldest planet. Saturn formed shortly after, amassing less material since Jupiter gobbled such a large portion of the outer disk.
Uranus gets its blue-green color from methane gas in the atmosphere. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere and is reflected back out by Uranus' cloud tops.
Three planets are smaller. It is the third-closest planet to the sun. Only Mercury and Venus are closer. Earth has been called the "Goldilocks planet." In the story "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," a little girl named Goldilocks liked everything just right.
It takes 248 Earth years for Pluto to complete one orbit around the Sun. Its orbital path doesn't lie in the same plane as the eight planets, but is inclined at an angle of 17°. Its orbit is also more oval-shaped, or elliptical, than those of the planets.
Venus and Earth are sometimes called twins because they're pretty much about the same size. Venus is almost as big as Earth. They also formed in the same inner part of the solar system. Venus is in fact our closest neighbor to Earth.
Neptune is our solar system's windiest world. Despite its great distance and low energy input from the Sun, Neptune's winds can be three times stronger than Jupiter's and nine times stronger than Earth's.
Jupiter's rocky moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the solar system, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains dozens of miles (or kilometers) high.
Jupiter has the shortest day in the solar system. One day on Jupiter takes only about 10 hours (the time it takes for Jupiter to rotate or spin around once), and Jupiter makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Jovian time) in about 12 Earth years (4,333 Earth days).
Your age on other Planets
You will age slowest on Mercury, Venus and Jupiter as they are slower than Earth. You will age a couple of minutes faster on Mars as it is less massive and has less gravity than Earth.
Phaeton (hypothetical planet)
Jupiter was probably the first planet in the solar system to form, new research suggests. Its existence may have influenced how the planets evolved into the order we see today.
It's only about three million miles from its parent star — much closer than Mercury is to the Sun. And its night side may sizzle at almost 3,000 degrees. Yet the planet appears to be the darkest yet seen — darker than charcoal. TrES-2b is named for the project that discovered it — the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey.
Five Facts About Neptune, the Farthest Planet in our Solar System | NOVA | PBS.
So where does that redness come from? Well, a lot of rocks on Mars are full of iron, and when they're exposed to the great outdoors, they 'oxidize' and turn reddish - the same way an old bike left out in the yard gets all rusty.
The fourth planet from the sun, Mars has geological features like the Earth and moon, such as craters and valleys, many of which were formed through rainfall. Although there is a growing body of evidence that there was once water on Mars, it does not rain there today.
Mars does have an atmosphere, but it is about 100 times thinner than Earth's atmosphere and it has very little oxygen. The atmosphere on Mars is made up of mainly carbon dioxide. An astronaut on Mars would not be able to breathe the Martian air and would need a spacesuit with oxygen to work outdoors.
Water, water everywhere—and not a drop to drink. In 1972, scientists were astonished to see pictures from NASA's Mariner 9 mission as it circled Mars from orbit. The photos revealed a landscape full of riverbeds—evidence that the planet once had plenty of liquid water, even though it's dry as a bone today.