Key Information
A Tour of Our Solar System
| Type | Star System |
| Star Type | G2 V – Yellow dwarf |
| Planets | 8 |
Learning Point
- The Solar System is our cosmic neighborhood, centered around a 4.6-billion-year-old star called the Sun. It consists of eight diverse planets: four rocky inner worlds like Earth and Mars, and four massive outer gas and ice giants like Jupiter and Neptune. Beyond the planets, the system is packed with fascinating features like the asteroid belt, icy comets, and mysterious dwarf planets like Pluto. Held together by the Sun’s massive gravity, everything – from moon-sized rocks to giant ringed planets – follows a precise orbital path through the vast, cold vacuum of space.
Project
- Draw a picture of your favourite place in our Solar System and explain why you like it.
- Overview
Location
| Location | Sol, within the Milky Way |
Fun Facts
- You could fit about 1.3 million Earths inside the Sun! It accounts for 99.8% of all the mass in our entire Solar System.
- Venus spins so slowly that it takes longer to finish one full spin on its axis than it does to travel all the way around the Sun.
- Mars is home to Olympus Mons, a volcano three times taller than Mount Everest. It’s about the size of the state of Arizona!
- Saturn is a giant ball of gas. If you could find a bathtub big enough to put it in, the entire planet would actually float in water.
- Because there is no air in the vacuum of space, sound has no way to travel. Even if a massive star exploded right next to you, you wouldn’t hear a single “boom.”
Past Lessons
| 175 | May 12, 2026 | (North America) |