By Ellenie Mejias

Mercury was named for the Swift Roman Messenger God who wore winged sandals.

Mercury is a planet of extreme temperatures.

During the day , temperatures can reach over 800°F.

The craters were caused when comets and asteroids struck the surface billions of years ago.

A year on Venus is 225 Earth-days long.

One day on Venus is 243 Earth-days long .

Venus is the brightest object except the Moon.

The Earth is a ball of rock almost covered by oceans.

It is not too hot and not too cold .

From space, Earth looks like a ball covered with white clouds .

The atmosphere of Mars is only 1/100 as thick as Earth ‘s .

It is made up of 95% carbon dioxide .

The rest is mostly nitrogen and argon.

Jupiter has 16 moons.

If Jupiter were hollow, more than 1,000 planets the size of Earth could fit inside it .

One day is about 10 Earth-days long .

Saturn has at least 18 moons.

Saturn is the second largest gas planet .

Clouds cover Saturn.

Uranus has 5 large moons and 10 small moons.

Uranus rotates in a different way than the other planets .

Uranus tilts over its side.

Neptune has at least 8 moons .

Neptune is a large blue – green ball of gas with a center of rock and iron.

Neptune has faint rings.

Pluto is 3 billion, 666 miles (15 billion, 900 million kilometers ) from the Sun.

Pluto has one moon.

Pluto is the smallest planet. It’s smaller than Earth’s moon.