Exactly Two-hundred Words About Space

There are lots of fascinating facts about our solar system. Our sun, the biggest object and the only star inside it, is at the center. It is one-million-four-hundred-thousand kilometers wide. If you had a jar that big, you could fit all the planets inside it seven-hundred times over! Our sun is in the middle of its ten-billion year life. It is considered to be a medium sized star. Other stars can be from one-thousand times smaller to one-thousand times bigger.

The planets of our solar system, in order of distance from the sun, are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Each planet is uniquely different from other planets. Mercury orbits the sun in eighty-eight Earth days (two-thousand-one-hundred-twelve hours). Venus is the only planet that rotates backwards. In other words, the sun rises in the west on Venus. Earth is the only planet that is about three fourths liquid water. Mars looks red because of its red dust and pink sky. Jupiter has a hurricane on it three times bigger than Earth. Saturn has the most moons, about twenty. Uranus rotates sideways, so each pole faces the sun every half-year. Neptune has eight moons and four rings.

Anders Visser lives in Edwardsburg, Michigan. He is fourteen years old.