How many moons does each planet have? name of the moons | eNotes How many moons does each planet have? name of the moons linda-allen | High School Teacher | (Level 3) Senior Educator Posted on January 10, 2010 at 10:19 PM Seems like this would be an easy question for you to find the answer yourself. In fact, if you had typed your question into the search box on the eNotes home page, you would have been directed to a page on eNotes titled "Space--How Many Moons Does Each Planet Have"? I have typed some of that info for you here. If you want to know the names we have given to each of the many moons, then click on the link in the Sources section and check out that page. Mercury--0 moons triteamdan | Teacher | (Level 2) Adjunct Educator Posted on February 18, 2012 at 9:18 AM No one knows.

New moons are discovered around the outer planets with fair regularity, the most recent of which was a fourth moon of Pluto's Please note that there have also been new planets discovered recently (reclassified as dwarf planets) some of which also have moons. like 3 dislike 1 krishna-agrawala | College Teacher | (Level 3) Valedictorian Posted on Moons, also called satellites, are heavenly bodies that circle planets. IN our solar system seven of the planets have moon circling them. The names of these planets with number of moon that each of them have are listed below. Earth ... 1. This is called Moon Pluto ... 1. This satellite is named Charon. Mars ... 2. These are named Phobos and Deimos. Neptune ... 8. Only two of these can be seen by telescope on earth. These are named Titon and Nereid. Uranus ... 15. Largest five of these are named Titania, Ariel, Miranda, Puck and Portia Jupiter ... 16. Four of the largest of these are called Io, Europa, Ganymede ,and Callisto. Saturn ... 18.

Largest five of these are named Titan, Iapetus, Rhea, Dione and Tithys. There are no known satellites or moons of Mercury and Venus. like 5 dislike 1 Pluto's Moons | Five Satellites of Pluto Pluto's Moons | Five Satellites of Pluto By Tim Sharp, Reference Editor | February 23, 2016 11:00am ET MORE These close views of Pluto's four smaller moons were captured by NASA's New Horizons probe during its historic July 2015 flyby. Data from New Horizons suggests that at least two (and maybe even all four) were born from mergers of even smaller moons. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI Pluto, the dwarf planet that was once considered the ninth planet, has a growing entourage of satellites. The tiny world has five moons of varying size in orbit around it that tumble and dance in a strange and chaotic pattern. "The way I would describe this system is not just chaos, but pandemonium," Mark Showalter, a co-investigator on the New Horizons mission, said at a press conference last November.

To the surprise of many, NASA's New Horizons mission did not turn up any additional moons during its historical flyby. Charon, Pluto's largest companion Pluto has one very large moon that is almost half the planet’s size. Discovered in 1978, it was named Charon after the demon who ferried souls to the underworld in Greek mythology. (Pluto is named for the god of the underworld.) The huge size of Charon (750 miles or 1,200 kilometers in diameter) sometimes leads scientists to refer to Pluto and Charon as a double dwarf planet or binary system. Pluto's diameter is 1,473 miles (2,370 km). Pluto and Charon are just 12,200 miles (19,640 km) apart, less than the distance by flight between London and Sydney, Australia. Charon's orbit around Pluto takes 6.4 Earth days, and one Pluto rotation — a Pluto day — also takes 6.4 Earth days. This means Charon hovers over the same spot on Pluto's surface , and the same side of Charon always faces Pluto, a phenomenon known as tidal locking.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft obtained this high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto's moon Charon just before the closest approach on July 14, 2015. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute While Charon is mostly gray, its northern pole has a reddish tint. Most of the moon is covered with water-ice, but the red region is likely made up of shredded pieces of Pluto's atmosphere. The moon has a surprisingly young surface, suggestive that it once housed an ocean in its interior, one that would have long ago frozen. Compared with most of solar system's planets and moons, the Pluto-Charon system is tipped on its side in relation to the sun. Also, Pluto's rotation is retrograde compared to the other worlds — it spins backwards, from east to west. Two smaller moons In 2005, as scientists photographed Pluto with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in preparation for the New Horizons mission — the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and the Kuiper Belt — they discovered two other tiny moons of Pluto, now dubbed Nix and Hydra . These are two to three times farther away from Pluto than Charon.

While NASA's New Horizons mission was able to capture significant details about Charon during its 2015 flyby, it was only able to view the other four moons from a distance. Still, it provided the best look at the satellites to date. The spacecraft revealed details as small as 2 miles (3 km) on Nix and 0.7 miles (1.2 km) on Hydra. The mission also provided the best measurements for the tiny moons. Nix is estimated to be 26 miles (42 km) long and 22 miles (36 km) wide, while Hydra is 34 miles (55 km) in length. Hydra has a shape resembling a mitten or a rubber duck with at least two large craters. The moon resembles Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which Europe's Rosetta mission has been orbiting since August 2014. Scientists think that Comet 67P may have formed when two separate bodies merged, and the same process may have played a role in the formation of Hydra. Hydra was the nine-headed mythological serpent that guarded Pluto's realm.

The irregularly shaped Nix looks much like a jellybean, with a surprisingly big impact crater. It is not as bright as Pluto, though brighter than Charon. In Greek mythology, Nyx was the goddess of the night and mother of Charon. The spelling was changed to Nix, the Egyptian goddess of night and darkness, to avoid confusion with two asteroids of the same name. "Nix isn't very large, and there is a very fine line between an impact that will make a crater that big and one that will break Nix apart," New Horizons team member Simon Porter, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, wrote in a blog post . "So, either Nix was very lucky in surviving that collision, or it's a fragment of an older moon that was somehow destroyed." All four of the small moons appear to be coated by relatively pure water-ice. Fourth and fifth moons Scientists using Hubble discovered a fourth moon, Kerberos, in 2011. New Horizons revealed that the moon has two lobes, one about 5 miles (8 km) wide and the other about 3 miles (5 km) in diameter. Like Hydra, it may have formed from the merger of two separate objects.

Kerberos orbits between Nix and Hydra. Despite its small size, Hubble observations revealed that it exerts a strong gravitational influence on the neighboring moons. Before New Horizons arrived, scientists thought the moon might be large but dark, keeping it obscured. Instead, the moon is small and bright. The moon was named for the three-headed dog in Greek mythology (Cerberus to the Romans). The fifth moon, spotted in 2012, is named Styx after the river separating the living from the dead. It is estimated to be irregular in shape and 4.5 miles (7 km) wide. It is in a 59,030-mile (95,000-km) diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to lie in the same plane as Pluto’s other known moons. Scientists anticipated the discovery of more moons when New Horizons arrived at Pluto, but none were spotted. Collision debris Pluto's entire moon system is thought to have formed by a collision between Pluto and a similar-size body early in the history of the solar system. The collision threw out material that coalesced into the family of satellites orbiting Pluto. New Horizons found that the four moons were surprisingly chaotic.

Hydra is the fastest-rotating, spinning once every 10 hours during its 38-day orbit of Pluto, or 89 times every orbit. "If Hydra were spinning much faster, material would fly off its surface due to the centrifugal force," Showalter said in a statement from NASA. The other three moons rotate between 6 to 10 times during their orbit, which is still surprisingly fast. In addition to that, Nix is tilted on its axis by 132 degrees and rotating backward. Such rapid rotations are surprising because the gravity of Pluto should slow down the spin of the smaller moons. "The question is, why [don't they] slow down? It's not so much why [are they] so fast. … There's clearly something fundamental about the dynamics of the system that we do not understand," Showalter said in the statement. Additional reporting by Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor. Follow Nola on Twitter @NolaTRedd or Google+ . Follow us at @Spacedotcom , Facebook or Google+ . Originally published on Space.com . Charon: Moon or Dwarf Planet? - Farmers' Almanac Email Address: Verify Email: Thank you!

You're all set to receive updates from the us! To make sure you receive our emails properly, you may want to add newsletter@farmersalmanac.com to your email address book. You are here: Home » Astronomy » Charon: Moon or Dwarf Planet? Charon: Moon or Dwarf Planet? by Jaime McLeod | Monday, August 22nd, 2011 | From: Astronomy The Debate Over Pluto: Is It A Planet Or Not? When Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006, astronomers began thinking in a new way about its largest moon, Charon. Charon was the first of Pluto’s four moons to be discovered, and its largest. Charon is believed to be more than half the diameter of Pluto. Because Charon is so large in comparison to Pluto, the two bodies actually revolve around one another, instead of Charon revolving around Pluto, as once believed. For this reason, some astronomers have proposed upgrading Charon to the status of dwarf planet. Here are some more interesting facts about Charon: – Charon was first discovered on June 22, 1978, by astronomer James Christy at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station.

The moon (or dwarf planet, as the case may be) was first seen as a bulge appearing on some photos of Pluto. The bulge wasn’t confirmed to be a moon until nearly a decade later, when the two bodies entered a period of eclipsing one another. – The surface of Charon probably a rocky core surrounded by an icy outer layer, similar to Pluto. The moon is believed to feature numerous active volcanoes that spew ammonia-rich water. – Astronomers do not know the composition of Charon’s atmosphere, or if it even has one. Many unknown details will become clearer in 2015, when New Horizons, the first spacecraft sent to explore Pluto and its moons, arrives at its destination. – Charon is about 750 miles in diameter, just over half the size of Pluto. – It takes Pluto and Charon about 248 Earth years to complete one orbit around the Sun, and about 6.5 Earth days to revolve around one another. – The average distance between Charon and Pluto 12,160 miles.

– Charon takes its name from the mythological ferryman who carried the dead across the River Styx to the realm of Hades (Pluto to the Romans), god of the underworld. Christy chose it because of its similarity to a nickname he had for his wife, Charlene. – The average surface temperature on Charon is around -390° F, a little colder than Pluto’s. – In addition to Charon, Pluto has three other moons, Nix, Hydra, and the as-yet-unnamed P4 (S/2011 P 1). Because Pluto and Charon revolve around one another, these other three moons orbit both bodies. – Charon cannot be seen with the naked eye, or with most consumer grade telescopes. It can really only be observed with some of the most powerful telescopes in the world. The first clear images of it were taken from space by the Hubble Space telescope. Whether Charon remains a moon or is eventually upgraded to a dwarf planet, it remains one of the most interesting objects in our solar system. Jaime McLeod is a longtime journalist who has written for a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including MTV.com.

She enjoys the outdoors, growing and eating organic food, and is interested in all aspects of natural wellness. Articles you might also like... 1 comment 1 Clicking Here { 04.20.16 at 7:55 am } This interface generates visual and auditory feedback on an electronic device, wherein the human player reacts upon the images on the screen in order to achieve a certain on-screen goal or objective. The best part of Star Wars games is that they can easily be molded into different genres. 3) Desert to Sea Bundle (Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Spec – Ops The Line). Pluto's 5 Moons Explained (Infographic) Pluto's 5 Moons Explained: How They Measure Up (Infographic) By Karl Tate, SPACE.com Infographics Artist | July 11, 2012 01:33pm ET MORE Dwarf planet Pluto has one giant moon, Charon, but now is known to have four more tiny satellites. Credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com Contributor Pluto is the second-largest object in the outer reaches of our solar system, barely smaller than another dwarf planet, Eris.

Charon, Pluto’s most massive moon, was discovered in 1978. Charon has a diameter of 648 miles (1,043 kilometers) and orbits Pluto at a distance of 12,200 miles (19,640 kilometers). Charon completes one orbit in 6.4 Earth days, which is the same time it takes Pluto to rotate once on its axis. As a result, the two bodies are tidally locked, eternally facing one another, just as our moon always presents the same face to Earth. [ Photos: Pluto and its Moons ] In recent years, other small moons of Pluto have been discovered orbiting the distant dwarf planet. Nix and Hydra, both discovered in 2005, each have a diameter of about 25 miles (40 kilometers). Kerberos, found in 2011, is smaller at 8 to 21 miles in diameter (13 to 34 kilometers). The latest discovery, Styx , was found in 2012 and is the smallest moon so far, only 6 to 15 miles across (10 to 25 kilometers).

Pluto/Charon The Kuiper Belt Pluto the Misfit Planet As we shall see, Pluto and its large moon Charon (pronounced shehr-on) do not fit into our simple picture of 2 types of planets: terrestrial and giant. But problems with our simple planet classification is less important than what Pluto and Charon have to tell us about the outer solar system. Discoveries of Pluto and Charon Both Pluto and its moon Charon were discovered by US astronomers - Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1930, as shown below, by comparing the motion of a faint object relative to the stars (just as, more recently, the Kuiper Belt objects). After Clyde Tombaugh died in 1997, a website was created in his memory. Charon was discovered by James Christy of the US Naval Observatory in 1978, in the photograph shown in Figure 12.15a Even with a good telescope and clear skies Pluto and its moon Charon are fuzzy objects.

Figure 12.15b is a Hubble Space Telescope picture of Pluto and Charon taken in 1994 (go here for more information about this image). (1) What prompted the searches for a planet beyond Neptune? Why did astronomers think there might be additional planets? Were their suspicions justified in the end? Characteristics of Pluto and Charon There is no doubt that Pluto is small compared with the other planets. At the same time, compared with its parent planet, Charon is the largest moon in the solar system. Here is a comparison of the sizes of Pluto and Charon with the United States (click on the picture to get a larger version): With such fuzzy images, even with the best telescopes, how we able to measure the sizes of Pluto and Charon? The opportunity was provided by a fortunate quirk of Pluto and Charon's orbits. The rotation axis of Pluto as well as Charon's orbit around Pluto are, like Uranus, aligned almost with the plane of its orbit: During the period from 1985 through 1990, Pluto and Charon would eclipse each other on a daily basis - a Pluto day, that is.

These eclipses turned out to be very important, since observations of the eclipses (called "mutual events") led to the first accurate determination of Pluto' and Charon's sizes, and subsequently to surprising albedo maps of the surface. Here are albedo maps of Pluto based on these mutual eclipses of Pluto and Charon. Below are maps based on Hubble Space Telescope data. This synthetic image of Pluto is created by processing many Hubble Space Telescope observations of the planet (typical images are shown in the small insets on the upper left). The dark and light regions could be due to different types of ices on the surface, or could be topological features. This surface map of Pluto's albedo is reconstructed by imaging the planet at different times during its day. (2) Compare the albedo maps derived from the mutual eclipses with the maps derived from Hubble data. Did the mutual eclipse researchers get roughly the same features as shown by Hubble? (e.g., compare where the light and dark regions are on Pluto in each case). The mutual eclipses of Pluto and Charon provide their sizes. Measurements of Charon's orbit gives us Pluto's mass.

With these pieces of information models have been constructed of Pluto's interior (the interior of Charon is really little more than guesswork). (3) (a) HOW does Charon's orbit allow us to determine Pluto's density? (b) What are the densities of rock and of pure ice? (c) The density of Pluto is about 2 g/cm3--corresponding to about 70% rock and only 30% ice. By comparing the density of Pluto with the densities of Charon and of the moons of Uranus and Neptune, would you judge Pluto to have more or less ice that is typical for small bodies in the outer solar system? (d) Compare the density of Pluto with that of Triton. (4) Compare the properties of Pluto and Charon listed above with the table of properties of terrestrial and giant planets, Table 8.2 of the textbook. Why Pluto is a "misfit" planet? Consider Pluto's size, orbit, moon, density, etc; Impact Origin Pluto and Charon are thought to have come together and collided--in a similar way that we believe the earth's Moon collided with the Earth and re-formed to form the Moon.

This impact theory for the origin of Charon explains various 'strange' things about Pluto and Charon. One clue is the density of Pluto and Charon. (5) (a) Say Pluto had a lot more ice before it suffered a big impact, what would have happened to the ice during the impact? Would the density of Pluto increase or decrease due to the impact? (b) What is believed to have happened to Triton that might similarly have led to Triton loosing ice and having a similar, more rocky composition as Pluto? Is Pluto a Planet? This topic has led to a major public debate. You have just listed why Pluto is a misfit - but some want to re-classify Pluto as an asteroid or "minor planet" instead of a planet. Is Pluto a Planet? (6) (a) What are some of the criteria that people use for deciding whether to call Pluto a planet or not? (b) Is this a scientific issue? (c) So, what do YOU think? Should Pluto be called a planet? The Kuiper Belt Pluto & Charon are not alone. Over the past 5 years over a hundred new objects have been discovered beyond the orbit of Pluto. These objects are listed and plotted as they are discovered.

Lots of information can be found on the Kuiper Belt page of Dave Jewitt, the co-discoverer of the first Kuiper Belt object, including a movie sequence of its detection. The issue of why the outer solar system dramatically changes at 30 A.U. from 4 large giant planets to lots of small icy objects is hotly debated. At stake is the understanding of how our solar system formed and evolved to be the way it is now--and whether we should expect other solar systems to be the same. (7) (a) Look at the plot above. The masses of outer solar system objects are plotted vs. distance from the Sun. The graph has scales that increase in powers of ten--with MASS (relative to earth) on the Y-axis vs. Distance from the Sun (in A.U.) on the X-axis. How many powers of 10 are there on each axis? (b) Note that the giant planets form a group that are 10-300 times the mass of the earth.

Pluto, Charon and Triton form a group that is 0.001-0.01 times the mass of the earth--that is 0.1 to 1% of the earth's mass. The new "QB1" objects are about 10 to 100 times smaller than Pluto/Charon/Triton. The smallest objects, comets, are found outside Pluto's orbit, greater than 50 A.U.--how many Kuiper Belt objects (such as QB1) does it take to add up to the mass of the Earth? (c) How many comets does it take to add up to the mass of the Earth? It is now thought that there are probably 1000s of small objects--with masses between the those of Pluto and comets--that orbit the Sun at distances between 50 and 100 A.U., forming a "fuzzy" disk in the ecliptic plane. This disk is named after the Dutch astronomer, Gerald Kuiper who proposed such a disk existed in the 1950s. These Kuiper objects are just now being discovered.

The following SKETCH shows the outer planets and the location of the objects that we believe make up the Kuiper Belt. Pluto's orbit is shown in red. The four outer giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) have their orbits outlined in blue. (8) Using this picture and what you know about the sizes of the orbits of the outer planets (e.g. Neptune's orbit is 30 AU from the Sun) how far away from the Sun are the objects at the inner edge of the Kuiper Belt? What about objects at the outer edge? Here is a MAP showing the actual location of the Kuiper Belt Objects discovered to date. The map is from the Minor Planets Center at the Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and is updated as new objects are found. Pluto Links - ( Here is a Pluto scientist's ranking of Pluto sites): Pluto and Charon System - Space Art and Astronomical Illustrations Pluto's Discovery When studying the orbit of Neptune, astronomers came to the conclusion that there must be yet another planet behind it that is tugging on it. A search for a new planet (sometimes called 'Planet X') had begun.

In 1930, while studying some photographs taken with a few days separation (January 23 - 29), Clyde Tombaugh saw one object moving. He concluded that it must be a planet. Later, it has been found that not only is Pluto smaller than all planets, but it is actually so small that 7 of the solar system moons outsize it (equatorial radius: 1 151 km). While Voyager 2 was at Neptune it showed that Neptune actually had less mass than was previously thought, which eliminates the "need" for a planet which is tugging on Neptune. Thus the discovery of Pluto was purely coincidental. In June 2006, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered 2 new moons orbiting Pluto. They were named Nix and Hydra. They are about 45 and 60 km in diameter and orbit Pluto in matter of days. They are very faint, and therefore difficult to study accurately. Future missions should reveal more about these mysterious worlds. Physical characteristics As mentioned earlier, Pluto is very small. It orbits the sun at an average distance of 5.9 billion km.

Though the orbit is so eccentric, that during a period of 20 years Pluto is within the orbit of Neptune. The last period was 1979 - 1999. Pluto orbits in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Neptune, which means that for every 2 orbits Pluto makes, Neptune makes 3. When Pluto is at perihelion (closest to the sun) it has an atmosphere (which was detected when it passed infront of a star), but as it gradually moves further away from the sun, the atmosphere freezes to ice and falls down to the surface. The atmosphere consists of (probably) nitrogen and carbon monoxide, which is in equilibrium with the solid nitrogen and carbon monoxide ices present on the surface. The pressure of the atmosphere may be between 0.15 - 0.30 Pascal. Exploring Pluto (and the Kuiper belt) The solar system is divided in three parts (the sun excluded): the inner rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune), and the outermost part: The Kuiper belt objects , which Pluto is a part of.

This region of the solar system is left vastly unexplored till today. It contains small icy objects that are the material from which the solar system was created (and, to an extent, from which life was created on Earth). Also, the Kuiper belt contains comets that impact the Earth from time to time. Gaining an understanding of this region could give us more safety. Till this date, no spacecraft has been sent to Pluto. When Voyager 2 had visited the gas giants, it left Pluto unexplored and headed for interstellar space. It is important to send a probe to explore Pluto in the near future, or we might have to wait for many years before another economic launch window opens up again. For this reason, NASA is planning on sending a spaceprobe, New Horizons in January 2006. It is scheduled to reach Pluto in July 2015. Its mission will be to: Map surface composition of Pluto and Charon. Characterize geology and morphology ("the look") of Pluto and Charon. Characterize the neutral atmosphere of Pluto and its escape rate. Search for an atmosphere around Charon. Map surface temperatures on Pluto and Charon. Search for rings and additional satellites around Pluto. PLUS...

conduct similar investigations of one or more Kuiper Belt Objects. Charon - Pluto's Moon For many decades, Pluto's mass was unknown. It took the discovery of a moon accompanying it to determine its mass with Newton's formulation of Kepler's third law. Charon as the moon was named, was discovered by James W. Christy in July 2, 1978. Charon's surface, which is mostly covered with water ice is different from Pluto's surface, which is covered with nitrogen ice. They also have a different density: Pluto: 1.8-2.1 g/cm^3, Charon: 1.2-1.3 g/cm^3. The fact that Pluto's axis of rotation and Charon's orbit are highly inclined to the equatorial plane, in combination with the difference in density and surface composition makes some astronomers believe that not only did they both form independently, but that they formed through a similar impact/collision which created the moon/earth . The initial size would have been about 1 600 - 2 000 km in diameter for each object, according to Dr. Robin Canup (assistant director of Southwest Research Institute'sï¿½ Department of Space Studies).

This would also explain why the relative (to Pluto) size of Charon is so large: Our moon's mass if 1% of the Earth's, while Charon's mass is 10-15% of Pluto's. The Outer Planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto & Charon | Online Homework Help | SchoolWorkHelper The Outer Planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto & Charon You are here: Our solar system is divided into two sections, the first section being the inner planets consisting of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The inner planets have rocky crusts, dense mantle layers, and very dense cores. The second section consists of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Except for Pluto, the outer planets are gaseous with the outer most layer of gas being hydrogen, they have ring systems, and are much less dense than earth. The main differences between the two sections are distance from the sun and the facts that the inner planets are contained by the asteroid belt, where as the outer planets are not. With the exception of Pluto, All outer planets are massive in comparison to the inner planets. The smallest outer planet, being Neptune.

The inner planets are also called terrestrial planets, and the outer planets (excluding Pluto) are Jovian planets. Pluto is excluded because it does not fit the properties of either the Terrestrial or Jovian planets All Jovian planets have three layers, and the temperature increases as the depth increases. As mentioned before, All Jovian planets have a ring system composed of many little particles that orbit around the planet (very hard to see on some planets). The rings orbit closer to the planet than the planets moons. The rings all orbit over the planets equators. Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and is also the largest planet in our solar system and weights more than twice as much as all the other planets combined. It revolves around the sun every 11.9 earth years, but has the fasted rotation time of any planet at about 10 hours. Jupiter is about 5 time farther from the sun than Earth. As well as being the biggest planet, Jupiter also has the strongest magnetic field in our solar system. Just like on earth interactions between the magnetic field and the planets winds cause auroras. Jupiter radiates about twice as much heat back out into space than it takes in from the sun.

this is thought to be because of the original heat of formation and from concentration due to gravity. Jupiter’s Atmosphere is made up of zones and belts. Dark belts are areas of sinking gasses, and bright zones are areas of rising gasses. Between the zones and belts, high speed winds blow parallel to the equator. The most famous feature of Jupiter is the great red spot, and is part of Jupiter’s atmosphere. Although Jupiter also has other spots, they appear and disappear frequently, with the great red spot being more permanent. These spots are areas of the atmosphere that are relatively calm compared to the rest of Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere. The first space craft to enter Jupiter’s atmosphere was the Galileo probe on December 7th, 1995. Saturn Saturn is the 6th planet from the sun, has the most visible ring system, and take nearly 30 earth years for the planet to revolve around the sun. It takes a bit longer than 10 hours to rotate once. Saturn is about 8 times father from the sun than earth. The planet has an oblate shape, which means its flattened at the poles and bulges at the equator.

Similar to Jupiter, Saturn has dark belts of sinking gases and light zones of rising gases, just not as many zones and belts as Jupiter. Also like Jupiter, Saturn gives off more heat back into space than it receives from the sun because it has internal heating. Unlike Jupiter, wind speeds on Saturn can reach up to 1,800 km/h Saturn the least dense of all the planets and even less dense than water. The planet has 61 know moons orbiting it not including hundreds of moonlets in the moon system. Saturn’s magnetic field isn’t as strong as Jupiter’s, but is much stronger the Earths. Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun, and takes a period of 84 earth years to make one revolution around the sun and17.2 hours to rotate once. Uranus is close to 19 times farther from the sun that Earth which causes the sunlight the planet receives to be 300 times fainter than earth. This resulting in the average temperature on the planet being -200 degrees celcius. Uranus has a weird axis of rotation and orbits the sun on its side.

Many scientists believe the planet collided with a Earth size object in the early history of our solar system. In 1986 Voyager two flew past Uranus and noticed that although the planets axis of rotation is on its side, its magnetic field is not. This was surprising because with most other planets, the magnetic field and axis of rotation vary by only a few degrees, it the case of Uranus the variance is 60 degrees. This causes the magnetic field to create a spiral pattern in the solar wind as the planet rotates. Neptune Neptune is the 8th planet from the sun, and is the farthest of the Jovian planets. It takes Neptune about 165 Earth years to rotate the sun and 16.1 Earth ours to rotate once. It is 30 time farther from the sun than Earth. Like Uranus, Neptune’s magnetic field is tipped 47 degrees and off set 13, 500 km from its center in relation to its axis of rotation. Scientist believes there is a conductive material in Neptune’s center which creates its magnetic field.

Neptune’s atmosphere is very turbulent with winds over 2000 km/h and a temperature of -225 degrees and is made up of 74% hydrogen, 25% helium, and 1% methane. Pluto and Charon Pluto use to be smallest planet in our solar system at a diameter of 2700 km (smaller than 7 of the solar systems moons, including Earths) and the farthest away. Although every 248 years Pluto’s weird orbit brings it in closer to the sun than Neptune, making it the eight planet from the sun for about 20 years. Because of Pluto’s odd orbit, its distance from the sun varies. Pluto has only one moon, called Charon, which is about half the of Pluto with a diameter of 1200 km. Pluto and Charon as so similar in their mass and properties that scientist consider them a double planet rather than a planet and moon.

It is believed Pluto’s temperature varies from -210 degrees celcius to 235 degrees celcius, and although no space craft has ever reached the planet scientist hypothesize it is composed of 70% rock and 30% water. Related posts: The Planets The Planets Orbiting the Sun are nine planets. In the order they are out from the sun, they are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Of these, the five bright naked eye planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn have been known since antiquity, but until the invention of the telescope, their nature was unknown. Our home, the Earth, is the third planet out from the Sun, but only relatively recently in human history was it realized that it is one amongst several other planets orbiting a star that we call the Sun. The three outermost planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were only discovered after the telescope was invented. Pluto is the last planet to be discovered, which took place in 1930, and is very faint and difficult to see.

Because of its small size, there has recently been some controversy whether Pluto should even be called a planet. Between 1990 and now (2005), a large number of icy bodies have found beyond the orbit of Neptune in what is called the Kuiper Belt, which is a sort of outer icy asteroid belt. It appears that Pluto is possibly the largest member of this group of bodies, at least known so far, so perhaps Pluto should be demoted. Nevertheless, we will consider Pluto to be a planet here. Below we give a brief introduction of the planets in order out from the sun, with some of the information coming from the Nine Planets website. Mercury This is the closest planet to the sun, and completes one orbit in 88 days. It is about 1/3rd the diameter of the earth and is the only planet with no atmosphere. It also has no moons. Because it is well inside the earth's orbit, it can never be seen far away from the sun in the sky, in fact never more than 28°, so can only been seen with the naked eye in the western twilight sky after sunset or the easterm twilight sky before sunrise.

Venus This is the second planet from the sun, and in terms of size, mass and bulk composition, is more like the earth than any of the other planets, being only very slight smaller in size and mass than the earth. However, in other respects it is quite different from the earth with oven like temperatures and a mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere with a surface pressure of 90 times that of the earth's atmosphere at sea level. Like Mercury, as it is inside the earth's orbit, it can never get very far from the sun, but with a maximum elongation of 47°, it can be seen for several hours after sunset or before sunrise when favorably placed. Because it is larger than Mercury, comes closer to the earth, and has brilliant highly reflective clouds, it is very bright, and is the brighest object in the sky after the sun and moon, indeed it can often be seen in the middle of the day with the naked eye when it is favorably places, the sky is transparent, and you know where to look. Also like Mercury, it has no moons. Earth This is our home and is the third planet out from the sun.

As far as we know, it is the only place in the solar system where there is life. The earth is unusual in a number of other respects, such as being the largest planet with a solid surface, the giant planets like Jupiter have no solid surface that we know of, it has plate techtonics, and most of the earth's surface is covered with liquid water. The earth has one moon as follows: Name

Question: Which planet has one moon called Charon?
Answer: Pluto