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Details of the Planets Name in our Details of the Planets Name in our Solar System:
The solar system is the Sun and all the celestial objects gravitationally bound to it, including eight planets, their moons, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. These bodies orbit the Sun in a system held together by its gravity, with the Sun making up approximately 99.9% of its total mass.
1. Mercury
1. Planet Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun in our Solar system. Its size is also the smallest among all other planets.
We can see this planet from Earth with binoculars in the morning and evening times as the intensity of the sun is low these times.
Life is impossible in Mercury because of the absence of air.
This planet’s maximum and minimum temperature is 430°C (midday) and -180°C (midnight), respectively.
The distance from Mercury to the Sun is 57.91 million Km, and it takes only 88 days to complete one revolution around the Sun.
There are no satellites on Planet Mercury.
Elements like Sulphur and Chlorine are found in large quantities on this planet.
The abundance of iron is found on this planet because of its rocky surface, and due to this, its color is also dark brown.
2. Venus
Planet Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun and the closest planet to Earth among all the planets in the Solar System.
It is also called the Sister of Planet Earth because of its similarities like atmospheric presence, features, weight, size, etc.
This planet is called the morning and evening stars due to its brightness of this planet. It is also the second brightest object in the night after the Moon.
Venus is considered to be the hottest planet in the Solar System. People consider Mercury to be the hottest planet because it is near the Sun, but this is not true. The night and day temperatures on this planet are almost the same, which is 475 °C.
One day on Planet Venus is about 243 Earth days and takes only 225 days to make one complete orbit around the Sun.
This planet also does not have any satellites.
It rotates in the opposite direction from the direction of rotation of other planets – from east to west, and the distance from the Sun is estimated to be 108.2 million Km.
3. Earth
Earth is the only planet in the solar system where life exists.
Earth comes in third place among the planets through the distance from the Sun, which is also called the blue planet, as the surface is mostly filled with water.
It is the fifth-largest planet in our Solar System, and this planet has a satellite named Moon, which was the brightest object at night in our solar system. The shape of the earth is like a Geoid (a hypothetical solid figure whose surface corresponds to mean sea level and its imagined extension under (or over) land areas.).
Like other planets, Earth also revolves around the Sun in its own orbit, which takes 365 days (1 year) to make one revolution of the Sun and 24 hours to make one rotation on its own axis.
Earth’s polar axis diameter is 12713.6 Km, and its equatorial diameter is 127.
The distance between Earth and the Sun is around 148.76 million Km, whereas the Moon is nearly 3,84,400 km away from this planet.
It takes only 8 minutes and 18 seconds for the sun ray to reach the earth.
Earth’s surface is 71% hydrosphere (water) and 29% lithosphere (land), where humans, animals, birds, and other land creatures live and the water creatures live in water.
The rotation of the earth causes day and night and the revolution around the sun causes the change of seasons because the pole in which the Earth revolves around the Sun is elliptical in size due to which the distance between the Sun and the Earth keeps on changing, and the minimum distance is called Perihelion, and the maximum distance is called Aphelion.
This planet is covered with a protective Ozone layer that protects the Earth’s atmosphere from the UV rays of the Sun.
Earth had no oxygen in the beginning. Then a volcano erupted: Story by India Today Science Desk 06/07/2025
Read in details: When Earth evolved, it did not have the life-supporting oxygen that we breathe today. Researchers have now identified the conditions on the planet before the evolution of oxygen by using rock fossils.
"Fossils are like time capsules, preserving life's story in stone," said Richard Fortey, a British palaeontologist, geologist, and writer.
Researchers analysed stromatolites, layered rock-like formations made by Cyanobacteria (one of the oldest bacteria). They hold ancient records from two-and-a-half billion years ago.
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HOW NITROGEN HELPED EARTH
The team analyzed nitrogen cycling patterns within ancient stromatolites, preserved in southern Zimbabwe.
Nitrogen, which is vital for life on Earth, must be converted into usable, bio-available, forms as it passes through the atmosphere, soil, plants, and animals in the nitrogen cycle.
Nitrogen cycling patterns were chosen as they can help in finding the Earth's condition before the evolution of oxygen and the beginning of photosynthesis. This method of research is also less explored when compared to oxygen evolution and its impact.
Dr. Ashley Martin from the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at Northumbria University said that nitrogen and phosphorus are the two key nutrients that control productivity in the oceans over periods.
Dr. Martin added a note on the importance of ammonium for the biological process, and mentioned the presence of a high amount of nitrogen deep inside the ocean in the form of ammonium.
This ammonium reservoir would have been very beneficial for early life, providing the nitrogen source needed for biological processes to occur.
As early oceans had very little oxygen, they were influenced by volcanic activities. This in turn helped in the growth of microbes which acted as pioneers in the evolution of oxygen.
"We have long been puzzled by the unusual nitrogen isotope values in these rocks. "Our new findings suggest a strong linkage to hydrothermal nutrient recycling, meaning that early life may in part have been fuelled by volcanic activity," Dr Eva Stueken from the University of St Andrews explained.
The study published in Nature Communications highlights the role of the volcano, which had a lasting impact on the evolution of life at that time.
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4. Mars
Mars is the fourth planet in the solar system according to the distance of the planets from the Sun.
Mars is the second smallest planet in the Solar System after Planet Mercury.
Mars is also called the Red Planet because its surface looks like rusted iron, and this planet’s atmosphere is very viral. This planet’s surface is dry and dusty like a desert, due to which dust storms run on this planet, sometimes it is so huge that it lasts for months.
The average distance of this planet from the Sun is 227.9 million km.
One day on Mars is approx 24 hours as on Earth, and one year is about 687 earth days.
It has two natural satellites, named Phobos and Deimos. The Deimos satellite is the smallest satellite in the solar system.
There is a mountain on Mars named Nix Olympia, whose height is three times more than Earth’s Mount Everest (Mt. Everest), and also a giant volcano on this planet named Olympus Mons.
5. Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest planet among other planets in the Solar System, and in terms of distance from the Sun, it comes fifth, whose distance is about 746.22 million km from the Sun.
It takes only 10 hours to complete one rotation and an estimated 11.9 Earth years (one Jovian year) to make one revolution around the Sun.
The diameter of the planet Jupiter is 1,39,820 Km, which is 11 times more than Earth’s diameter.
This planet has 79 named satellites, of which Ganymede is the largest satellite in the Solar System.
Like stars, this planet also receives energy from the sun’s rays and emits twice as much as energy. This planet has its own radio energy. Therefore this planet also attains the qualities of stars.
Hydrogen and helium gas are present in the atmosphere of this planet. The atmospheric pressure of this planet is 10 million times greater than that of the Sun.
6. Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet in our Solar system according to the distance of the sun and is the second-largest planet in the solar system in size, whose distance from the Sun is around 1.4805 billion Km.
The diameter of Saturn is 1,16,480 Kms and is the visible planet in our Solar system.
It takes only 10.7 hours to complete one rotation and an estimated 29.5 Earth years to make one revolution around the Sun.
Saturn has about 82 satellites, out of which 53 are known satellites, and the search for the other 29 is still going on.
Satellite Titan is the largest satellite of Saturn and the second-largest satellite in the Solar System. Nitrogen is present in the atmosphere of this satellite.
This planet is also called a gas ball or galaxy in the Solar system because, in the middle of this planet, there are seven developed spectacular rings like a circle, which revolve around this planet due to gravity.
The surface of this planet is not solid like Earth or other planets but is of gasses like Hydrogen and Helium.
7. Uranus
Uranus comes in seventh place in the distance from the Sun in the Solar system, which is at a distance of 2.9491 billion Km from the Sun.
Like the rings of the planet Saturn, Uranus also has five rings, whose names are- Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon.
The diameter of the planet Uranus is 50,724 km which is the third-largest planet in diameter.
This planet takes about 17 hours to rotate in its axis (one Uranian day) and 84 Earth years (one Uranian year) to complete an orbit of the Sun.
Planet Uranus has 27 known satellites, and all satellites of this planet revolve in the opposite direction of the earth.
This planet appears blue in appearance because Methane gas is present in large quantities on this planet as the atmosphere of this planet consists of gasses like Hydrogen, Helium, Methane, and Ammonia.
8. Neptune
The Neptune planet comes eight in the distance from the Sun in the Solar System, which is 4.4747 billion Kms.
It takes around 16 hours (one Neptunian day) to complete one rotation and 165 Earth years (one Neptunian year) to complete one orbit around the sun.
It looks like giant ice, and the atmosphere is gaseous as it contains 80% Hydrogen, 19% Helium, and 1% amount of water and methane.
It has 14 satellites, of which Triton and Proteus are the main ones.
ↂ 9. Pluto is a dwarf planet located in the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies beyond Neptune's orbit.
Discovered in 1930, Pluto was initially classified as the ninth planet in our solar system but was redefined as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union in 2006. It is characterized by its small size, irregular orbit, and diverse geological features, including mountains, valleys, and glaciers.
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Ans. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgraded the status of Pluto to that of a dwarf planet because it did not meet the three criteria the IAU uses to define a full-sized planet. Essentially, Pluto meets all the criteria except one—it “has not cleared its neighboring region of other objects.”
Study more:
A planet is a celestial body that orbits a star, such as the Sun. To be classified as a planet, it must meet the following criteria:
- It must have enough mass for its gravity to create a nearly round shape.
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