MERCURY

Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the Solar System. Its orbital period around the Sun of
87.97 days is the shortest of all the planets in the Solar System. It is named after the Roman deity
Mercury, the messenger of the gods.

Size:
Mercury's diameter is 4,878 km.

Composition:
Astronomers have estimated that the Mercury composition is made up of approximately 70% metals
and 30% silicate material. In fact, it’s only slightly less dense than the Earth, with 5.43 g/cm3.

Distance from the Sun:

57.91 million km

Date of Discovery:
Mercury is one of the five classical planets visible with the naked eye and is named after the swift-
footed Roman messenger god. It is not known exactly when the planet was first discovered - although it
was first observed through telescopes in the seventeenth century by astronomers Galileo Galilei and
Thomas Harriot.
 VENUS

Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the sixth largest. Venus' orbit is the most nearly circular of
that of any planet, with an eccentricity of less than 1%.

Size:
Venus’s diameter is 12,100 km.

Composition:
The composition of Venus is pretty similar to Earth, with a core of metal, a mantle of liquid rock, and an
outer crust of solid rock.

Distance from the Sun:

108.2 million km

Date of Discovery:
Venus is one of the 5 planets visible with the unaided eye. In fact, Venus is the brightest object in the
night sky after the Sun and the Moon. When Venus is at its brightest, it even casts shadows. So even
ancient people would have been aware of Venus, and so there’s no way to know who that first person
was, and when it happened. The first person to point a telescope at Venus was Galileo Galilei in 1610.
 EARTH

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. According
to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed over 4.5 billion years ago. Earth's
gravity interacts with other objects in space, especially the Sun and the Moon, Earth's only natural
satellite. Earth revolves around the Sun in 365.26 days, a period known as an Earth year. During this
time, Earth rotates about its axis about 366.26 times.

Size:
Earth’s diameter is 12,742 km.

Composition:
Deep inside Earth, near its center, lies Earth's core which is mostly made up of nickel and iron. Above the
core is Earth's mantle, which is made up of rock containing silicon, iron, magnesium, aluminum, oxygen
and other minerals. The rocky surface layer of Earth, called the crust, is made up of mostly oxygen,
silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium. Earth's surface is mainly covered
with liquid water and its atmosphere is is mainly nitrogen and oxygen, with smaller amounts of carbon
dioxide, water vapor and other gases.

Distance from the Sun:

149.6 million km

Date of Discovery:
Earth is more than four billion years old. One would think that the Earth was “discovered” the moment
humans inhabited the planet. Of course, it’s not really possible to truly discover the Earth. However, it
took a while before humans actually became conscious of Earth as a planet. In fact, humans may have
learned of the existence of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn first before they realized that
Earth is a planet. It was only during the 16th century when humans perceived Earth as a planet.
 MARS

Mars is a cold desert world. It is half the size of Earth. Mars is sometimes called the Red Planet. It's red
because of rusty iron in the ground. Like Earth, Mars has seasons, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons,
and weather. It has a very thin atmosphere made of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon.

Size:
Mars’s diameter is 6,779 km.

Composition:
Like Earth, Mars is a differentiated planet, meaning that it has a central core made up of metallic iron
and nickel surrounded by a less dense, silicate mantle and crust. The planet's distinctive red color is due
to the oxidation of iron on its surface.

Distance from the Sun:

227.9 million km

Date of Discovery:

It is impossible to know the answer to ”when was Mars discovered”. It is bright enough to be seen in the
night sky without binoculars or a telescope and has been documented for at least 4,000 years. If you
were to change the question a little to ”who first theorized that Mars was a planet”, then an answer can
be found. Nicolaus Copernicus is the first astronomer to postulate that Mars and a few other bodies
known at the time were planets. The heliocentric theory that he published in 1543 marked the first time
that astronomers widely considered the possibility that the Sun was the center of the Solar System
instead of the Earth.
 JUPITER

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with a
mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, but two-and-a-half times that of all the other planets in the Solar
System combined. Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants; the other two giant planets, Uranus and Neptune,
are ice giants. Jupiter has been known to astronomers since antiquity. It is named after the Roman god
Jupiter. When viewed from Earth, Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of −2.94, bright enough for
its reflected light to cast shadows, and making it on average the third-brightest natural object in the
night sky after the Moon and Venus.

Size:
Jupiter’s diameter is 142,984 km.

Composition:
Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium (by numbers of atoms, 75/25% by mass) with traces of
methane, water, ammonia and "rock". This is very close to the composition of the primordial Solar
Nebula from which the entire solar system was formed. Saturn has a similar composition, but Uranus
and Neptune have much less hydrogen and helium.

Distance from the Sun:

778.5 million km

Date of Discovery:
No one can definitively say when the discovery of Jupiter took place or who discovered it. Why is it so
hard? It is one of the five planets that can be seen in the night sky. Only Venus and the Moon are
brighter. What is known are some of the firsts in the exploration of Jupiter. In 1610, Galileo Galilei
turned his rudimentary telescope on Jupiter, and realized that it had 4 large moons orbiting it: Io,
Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. This was an important discovery, because it demonstrated that Earth
was not the center of the Universe as proponents of the geocentric view believed.
 SATURN

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a
gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average
density of Earth, but with its larger volume Saturn is over 95 times more massive. Saturn is named after
the Roman god of agriculture; its astronomical symbol (♄) represents the god's sickle.

Size:
Saturn’s diameter is 116,460 km.

Composition:
Saturn is predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium, the two basic gases of the universe. The
planet also bears traces of ices containing ammonia, methane, and water. Unlike the rocky terrestrial
planets, gas giants such as Saturn lack the layered crust-mantle-core structure, because they formed
differently from their rocky siblings.

Distance from the Sun:

1.434 billion km

Date of Discovery:
Although people have known about Saturn for thousands of years, discoveries have still been made
about the planet more recently. No one knew that Saturn had rings until the 1600’s. Galileo discovered
them with his telescope in 1610, but he did not know what these were either. Thus they remained a
mystery until 1655 when the astronomer Christian Huygen figured out that they were planetary rings.
 URANUS

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest
planetary mass in the Solar System. Uranus is similar in composition to Neptune, and both have bulk
chemical compositions which differ from that of the larger gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. For this reason,
scientists often classify Uranus and Neptune as "ice giants" to distinguish them from the gas giants.

Size:
Uranus’s diameter is 50,724 km.

Composition:
The planet is shrouded in an icy cloud layer (made up of frozen methane, ethane, and acetylene) circling
this planet at 185 mph (300 kph. Uranus' icy atmosphere consist of 83% hydrogen,15% helium, and 2%
methane. The outer layers of the atmosphere are the coldest; temperature and pressure rise under the
cloud layer. Beneath the atmosphere, there is a liquid layer of hydrogen and helium. As depth increases,
this layer becomes more viscous, and then partly solid. This layer may be composed of compressed
water with ammonia and methane. Uranus has a molten rocky core about 10,500 miles (17,000 km) in
diameter and about 12,500°F (6927°C). This core may have a mass five times greater than the mass of
the Earth.

Distance from the Sun:

2.871 billion km

Date of Discovery:
The planet Uranus was discovered by William Herschel on March 13, 1781. He discovered Uranus while
surveying stars in the night sky using a telescope that he had built himself. Herschel noticed that one of
these "stars" seemed different, and after observing it many more times, noticed that it orbited the Sun.
He calculated that Uranus had an orbit that was about 18 times farther from the Sun than Earth.
Herschel also discovered two of the moons of Uranus (Titania and Oberon).
 NEPTUNE

Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. In the Solar System,
it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet.
Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth, slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus. Neptune is
denser and physically smaller than Uranus because its greater mass causes more gravitational
compression of its atmosphere. Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at an average distance of
30.1 AU (4.5 billion km). It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol ♆,
a stylised version of the god Neptune's trident.

Size:
Neptune’s diameter is 49,244 km.

Composition:
Neptune's atmosphere is made up predominately of hydrogen and helium, with some methane. The
methane is part of what gives Neptune its brilliant blue tint, as it absorbs red light and reflects bluer
colors. Uranus also has methane in its atmosphere, but has a duller shading. Something else must be
contributing to Neptune's hue, but scientists aren't certain what. The planet has ten to a hundred times
more methane, ethane, and ethyne at its equator than it does at its poles. Like other gas giants,
Neptune still has much of the same atmosphere it captured at its formation. Ammonia ice, water ice,
ammonia hydrosulfide, and methane ice also compose Neptune's atmosphere.

Distance from the Sun:

4.495 billion km

Date of Discovery:
September 23, 1846. The planet Neptune – now considered by most astronomers to be the outermost
major planet in our solar system – was discovered on this date, using mathematics. Johann Gottfried
Galle, Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, and John Couch Adams all worked independently to help discover
this world in 1846. Their separate work to find Neptune led to an international dispute as to whom
attribute the discovery of the farthest planet of our solar system.