1. Our Solar System Our Solar System By Mrs. Mohn’s First Grade Class

2. Oursunis a common, middle-sized yellow star, which scientists have named Sol, after this ancient Roman name.

3. Luna is a beautiful world (almost 239,000 miles from Earth). It has mountains, valleys, old volcano sites, and many bowl-like holes called craters. Luna is our moon. The moon has phases. This is the “full moon”.

4. When you look into the night sky, you will see the moon in different phases: crescent moon, half moon, three-quarter moon, and full moon. The moon doesn’t make it’s own light. The sun shines on the moon as our moon rotates around our Earth, and that’s why we see the different shapes or phases of the moon.

5. The planet Mercury is the closest of the planets to the sun. Mercury has no atmosphere. That means there is almost no air on Mercury.

6. Venus is in many ways like the Earth’s sister planet. However, if they are twins, then Venus is the evil twin. No living thing would ever be able to survive on Venus.

7. There are almost 7 billion people living on the Earth. About 25% of the Earth’s surface is covered with land, while about 75% is covered by oceans. The Earth’s temperature, weather, atmosphere, and many other factors are just right to keep us alive.

8. Mars is called the “Red Planet,” because the surface of Mars is red, Scientists have evidence that Mars once had rivers, streams, lakes, and even an ocean. Today, the only water on Mars is either frozen in the polar caps or underground.

9. Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar System. The Earth could fit inside Jupiter more than 1,000 times. Jupiter is a very stormy planet.

10. Saturn is similar to Jupiter, but it is much smaller. It is a gas giant like Jupiter. The rings around Saturn are made up of ice, dust, and rocks.

11. Uranus has 27 moons. It has 10 moons which are closer to the planet’s surface than the other moons. We call these worlds the inner moons.

12. Due to its great distance from Earth, it is extremely difficult to see Neptune’s moons. Today we know of 13 moons around Neptune.

13. Pluto was the only planet to be named by a child. After the planet was discovered in 1930, an 11 year old girl, gave Pluto it’s name. Pluto is two-thirds smaller than Earth’s moon. Pluto was called a planet, but scientists discovered that it is VERY small , so it is now called a “dwarf planet”. Therefore, there are really only 8 planets in our Solar System. • Pluto… the Dwarf Planet

14. Constellations A constellation is a pattern of stars. Long ago, people imagined pictures in the stars by connecting the “dots” or stars. Then they named the pictures.

15. A galaxy is like an island in space. It’s made up of gas, dust, and millions of stars. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, includes about a trillion stars in a disk shape. • Galaxy

16. The Milky Way …. Our Galaxy

17. Nebula Field - made up of clouds, dust, and gases… also sounds heard from this area in Space

18. Orbits are paths that objects take as they move around another object. Each of the planets orbit around our sun. Our moon orbits around our Earth, too. • Orbits

19. This is a meteor flying through space. You can see the Earth in the background. • Meteor

20. The nucleus or center of a comet, is like a ball of rock and dirty snow. As the comets get close to the sun, the frozen gases and dust begin to heat and form a long tail of vaporized gases, dust, and debris to flow behind them. • Comet

21. Space Telescopes and Satellites-The telescopes allow us to see objects in Space that are very far from our earth. Satellites can send signals back to our earth.

22. Space Shuttles

23. Space Station

24. Space Travel & Exploration United States astronauts landed on the moon in 1969. Since then, there have been other visits to the moon. Scientists have sent Voyager robots to explore the surface of Mars. They plan to send astronauts to Mars in 2020.

25. We hope you’ve enjoyed seeing ...Our Solar System.