Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    101 Fun Facts About the Planets
    101 Fun Facts About the Planets
    101 Fun Facts About the Planets
    Ebook169 pages1 hour

    101 Fun Facts About the Planets

    By Jeannie Meekins

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Was Mercury bigger in the past?
    How did Venus change the way people saw the world?
    What is happening to Mount Everest, the highest place on Earth?
    Does Mars have seasons?
    Is there a surface to the planet Jupiter?
    Who discovered Saturn’s rings?
    What is strange about the way Uranus spins?
    What is the coldest place in our solar system? (Hint: It isn’t the planet,)

    Learn the answer to these questions and many more fun facts in this group of eight 15-Minute Books. The planets of our solar system have many strange and wonderful things about them. Surprise your friends, and even your parents with these fun facts.

    This compilation includes the following 15-minute books:
    14 Fun Facts About Mercury
    14 Fun Facts About Venus
    14 Fun Facts About Earth
    14 Fun Facts About Mars
    14 Fun Facts About Jupiter
    14 Fun Facts About Saturn
    14 Fun Facts About Uranus
    14 Fun Facts About Neptune

    LearningIsland.com believes in the value of children practicing reading for 15 minutes every day. Our 15-Minute Books give children lots of fun, exciting choices to read, from classic stories, to mysteries, to books of knowledge. Open the world of reading to a child by having them read for 15 minutes a day.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLearningIsland.com
    Release dateNov 12, 2011
    ISBN9781465714039
    101 Fun Facts About the Planets
    Author

    Jeannie Meekins

    Jeannie Meekins is an Australian writer who lives with her children and a couple of cats who think they own the computer. And if her dog could read, he’d be jealous, so it’s lucky that he can’t. Jeannie has also written over 10 books for children, many available through LearningIsland.com

    Read more from Jeannie Meekins

    Related to 101 Fun Facts About the Planets

    Related ebooks

    Children's For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Moon

      Oct 2, 2020

      The Moon
      4 min read

    • Article

      Your Lunar Travel Guide

      Jul 10, 2019

      Your Lunar Travel Guide
      12 min read

    • Article

      Worlds Without Suns

      Jun 17, 2021

      Worlds Without Suns
      6 min read

    • Article

      ASK Space

      Nov 4, 2021

      ASK Space
      6 min read

    • Article

      Does Our Sun Have A Lost Twin?

      Nov 16, 2022

      Does Our Sun Have A Lost Twin?
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Rogue Planets That Wander the Galaxy Alone

      Oct 29, 2020

      The Milky Way is home to hundreds of billions of stars, and many more planets. Some come in sets, as in our own solar system. But not every planet orbits a star. Some planets actually wander the galaxy alone, untethered. They have no days or nights,

      5 min read

    • Article

      Is Jupiter Protecting Us?

      Apr 20, 2023

      Is Jupiter Protecting Us?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Ask Space

      Nov 30, 2023

      Ask Space
      5 min read

    • Article

      Planet profile Mercury

      Nov 7, 2019

      Planet profile Mercury
      4 min read

    • Article

      ASK Space

      Dec 5, 2019

      ASK Space
      5 min read

    • Article

      Complete Guide To The Moon

      Oct 6, 2022

      Complete Guide To The Moon
      14 min read

    • Article

      Inside The Asteroid Belt

      Feb 16, 2023

      Inside The Asteroid Belt
      8 min read

    • Article

      What’s New At Mercury?

      Feb 27, 2020

      What’s New At Mercury?
      4 min read

    • Article

      Finding And Defining Exomoons

      Feb 24, 2022

      Finding And Defining Exomoons
      9 min read

    • Article

      Getting Started

      Mar 1, 2024

      Getting Started
      1 min read

    • Article

      Star Trek Strap In For An Interstellar Tour

      Nov 10, 2023

      Astronomy and cosmology can feel detached from everyday reality. But what if we could take a 23rd-century starship tour through the Milky Way and experience the cosmos like an Earth-bound tourist visiting exotic destinations? What would we see from o

      5 min read

    • Article

      Planets Unpacked

      Mar 14, 2024

      Planets Unpacked
      5 min read

    • Article

      Professor Brian Cox

      Jun 13, 2019

      Astronomer Brian Cox needs little introduction: while studying for his physics masters at the University of Manchester in the mid-90s, he enjoyed some success as a keyboard player with the pop band D:Ream, before he quit the band to pursue his resear

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for 101 Fun Facts About the Planets

    4/5

    3 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I loved this book and learned so many strange facts about our planets! This isn't your average "Saturn has rings" type of book. Instead, you get to learn some really strange and neat things about the planets, like Saturn would float on water! Loved it!

    Book preview

    101 Fun Facts About the Planets - Jeannie Meekins

    The planet Mercury. (NASA)

    In the Milky Way Galaxy, there is a yellow sun that has eight planets.

    The closest planet to the sun is Mercury – a tiny, hot, lifeless ball of rock that races around the sun in less than three months. What could possibly fascinate us about that?

    Read on and find out.

    Size comparison of Mercury, Venus and Earth. (NASA)

    Fact 1: Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system.

    Mercury is the closest planet to our sun. It has an average distance of only 36 million miles (58 million km) from the sun.

    Mercury has a slightly elliptical orbit. Its orbit is like a circle that has been stretched.

    With the exception of Pluto, which is no longer considered a planet, Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system. Mercury has a diameter of 3,031 miles (4,878 km) and is not much bigger than our moon, which has a diameter of about 2,165 miles (3,485 km).

    The planets in our Solar System. (NASA/JPL)

    Fact 2: Mercury was known to ancient peoples.

    Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were known to ancient peoples. These planets could be seen with the naked eye, without the aid of any special instruments.

    They have been visible since we first looked into the night sky. Their paths were plotted through the skies and they were known to affect everything that happened in one’s life.

    If you see a planet with the naked eye, it may look like any other star. It may be bigger, it may be brighter, it may be a different color, or it may look like any other star. The main difference is that it will move across the sky.

    You won’t see it move. Planets are not like shooting stars. They don’t flash across the sky. Instead, they move slowly. You would need to watch over several nights – or even several months – to make sure it does move, and you would need to compare its location to the other stars around it.

    If the other stars seem to stand still and your star seems to move, it’s a good chance that your star is a planet.

    Photo mosaic of Mercury. (NASA)

    Fact 3: Mercury is hard to see.

    Mercury is much harder to see today than it was for ancient peoples.

    The best times to see Mercury are about 30 minutes before sunrise or 30 minutes after sunset. The best time also depends on where Mercury is in its orbit of the sun. The planet will be low on the horizon and will either be following the sun or have the sun following it.

    Because Mercury is so close to the sun, the sun’s light makes the sky too bright to see the tiny planet. It is only before sunrise or after sunset that the sky becomes dark enough.

    There are many other things that stop us from seeing Mercury. If you live in an area that has city lights or even streetlights, the glare can often block out the tiny planet. If you have hills or trees, by the time the sun has gone down, the planet can be blocked out by such objects. Even the moon can brighten the sky enough to stop us from seeing Mercury.

    Thousands of years ago, there were no street lights or bright electric lights in the houses. Because of this, when the sun went down, the sky was black.

    Today, if you want to go Mercury watching, you would need to be on a hill or a flat desert. You would also need to be free of any lights from the land below. Then, maybe, at the right time you will see a tiny star low on the horizon, and that star might very well be Mercury.

    A drawing of Urbain Le Verrier.

    Fact 4: It was once believed that there was a planet between Mercury and the Sun.

    Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French astronomer and mathematician. He was one of the astronomers who predicted the existence of a planet beyond Uranus.

    He believed that another object was affecting Uranus’ orbit. Something appeared to be pulling on it. Telescopes were pointed beyond Uranus and Neptune was discovered.

    Using the same theory of affected orbits, he also predicted the possible existence of a body between Mercury and the sun. Something appeared to be affecting Mercury’s orbit.

    This object was supposedly seen several times, shortly after its prediction. It was even given a name – Vulcan. But it has never been sighted again. Nor has any other object been seen between Mercury and the sun.

    In 1915, Albert Einstein described his theory of general relativity. This explained the slight variations in Mercury’s orbit. Scientists no

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1