What is the solar system?

Buckle up, space explorers! Are you ready to blast off on an epic journey through our solar system? Join Mira and Finn as they leave Earth behind to explore the eight amazing planets that circle our Sun! Discover wild worlds made of solid rock, heavy metal, and swirling gas. Did you know there is a planet so incredibly hot it could melt a pizza oven? Or a giant gas planet so light it could float in a massive bathtub? Get ready for mind-blowing space facts! We will travel to a planet with a raging hurricane bigger than Earth that has been blowing for over 300 years, climb a towering Martian volcano three times the size of Mount Everest, and even visit an ice giant that rolls on its side and smells exactly like rotten eggs! Yuck! From the freezing, crater-covered rocks of Mercury to the supersonic winds of Neptune, our cosmic neighborhood is full of wild surprises. Perfect for summer stargazing, this episode will make you look at the night sky in a whole new way. Don't forget to stick around for the space-tastic trivia quiz at the end!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Welcome to Science Is Not Boring by kidopoly.com. I am Mira. And I am Finn! Since it is the perfect time of year for summer stargazing, we are taking a trip off our planet today. Wait, are we going to space? We are! Imagine a planet that is so incredibly light it could actually float in the giant bathtub. No way! A whole planet floating like a bath toy! Exactly! And picture a spinning storm that is bigger than the entire Earth and has been blowing for over 300 years without stopping. Over 300 years? That has to be the longest storm ever! Today we are exploring the amazing family of worlds that circle our Sun. We are talking about the planets. What are they made of? Are they all made of dirt and rock like Earth? Not even close, Finn. Our solar system has eight amazing planets. Four are made of solid rock and heavy metal, and four are swirling giants made mostly of gas and ice. Eight planets. So where do we start our journey? Let's start closest to the Sun. We live in a solar system, which means everything is held together by gravity, revolving around our star, the Sun. Which planet is the very closest to the fire? That is Mercury! It is a small, rocky planet, completely covered in craters. It is only about 3,030 miles wide. That sounds kind of small. Is it really hot because it is right next to the sun? Yes, but only on one side. During the day, Mercury gets up to an agonizing 800 degrees Fahrenheit. 800 degrees? That would completely melt a pizza oven. It definitely would. But here is the wild part. Because Mercury has almost no atmosphere to hold the heat in, the night side drops to minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit. Minus 290? You would turn into a frozen ice cube instantly. You really would. But believe it or not, Mercury is not even the hottest planet. That title belongs to the second planet from the Sun, Venus. Wait, how can Venus be hotter if it is farther away from the Sun? Because of something called the runaway greenhouse effect. Venus is wrapped in a super thick atmosphere made mostly of carbon dioxide. So the air traps the heat like a giant heavy blanket. Exactly! It traps the heat so incredibly well that the surface of Venus is an intense 900 degrees Fahrenheit. It is hot enough to melt lead. I would definitely not want to land a spaceship on Venus. You could not, even if you tried. The air pressure on Venus is 90 times heavier than on Earth. It would feel like being completely crushed at the very bottom of the ocean. Plus, aren't there weird, dangerous clouds there? Yep. The thick clouds swirling around Venus are made of sulfuric acid. It is a completely toxic, crushing, burning oven of a world. Phew! I am very glad we live on the third planet, Earth. Me too, Finn! Earth is perfectly placed at 93 million miles from the Sun. Not too hot, not too cold. The Goldilocks zone! But what about the fourth planet, the dusty red one? Mars! It is covered in a dust called iron oxide, which is basically just rust. That is exactly why it looks red to us. Does Mars have anything cool on it? Like mountains or canyons? Oh, it only has the biggest volcano in the entire solar system. It is called Olympus Mons. How big is it exactly? Bigger than mountains on Earth. It is 16 miles high, Finn. That is nearly three times as tall as Mount Everest. 16 miles high? If you stood on top of that volcano, you would basically be standing in outer space. Pretty much. Mars is a freezing rocky desert now, but scientists think it used to have flowing rivers and oceans billions of years ago. Okay, so we have got four rocky planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. What comes next? Now we have to cross the asteroid belt. Once we safely navigate through millions of floating space rocks, we meet the absolute king of the planets, Jupiter. The biggest planet! How huge is it? Jupiter is a gas giant. It is so utterly enormous that you could fit 1,300 Earths inside of it. 1,300 Earths? That is, I cannot even picture a ball that big. Is it really just made of floating gas? Mostly hydrogen and helium gas. If you try to land a ship on Jupiter, you would just sink endlessly into swirling clouds until the pressure crushed you. And what about that giant red spot I always see in pictures of Jupiter? That is the great red spot. It is a giant spinning hurricane. And Finn, that single storm is 1.3 times the width of our entire planet Earth. A storm bigger than Earth? How fast are the winds blowing inside it? The winds howl at around 400 miles per hour. And astronomers have been watching this exact same storm, raging for over 300 years. That is terrifying, but also kind of awesome. What is waiting for us after Jupiter? The absolute jewel of the solar system. The one with the amazing rings! What are those rings actually made of? They are made of billions of chunks of glittering ice and rock. Some pieces are as tiny as grains of sand, and some are as big as entire mountains. How wide are the rings? They look huge in photos. They span about 175,000 miles across. But here is a truly mind-blowing fact about them. Oh, tell me. Even though they are incredibly wide, in some places the rings are only about 30 feet thick. Only 30 feet? That is just the height of a normal house. They are like a giant iCD floating in space. Exactly! And remember earlier when I said there is a planet that could float in a bathtub? Yes! Is it Saturn? It is! Saturn is gigantic, but its density is only 0.687 grams per cubic centimetre. Since water is heavier than that, if you had a bathtub big enough, Saturn would bob right at the top, like a rubber duck. That is the funniest thing I have ever imagined. A massive gas giant floating in a tub. Okay, moving out into the freezing, dark outer solar system. Planet number seven is Uranus. That is an ice giant, right? Yes. It was discovered in 1781 by an astronomer named William Herschel. And it is freezing. Minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit. Does Uranus do anything weird? Oh, it is very weird. Every other planet spins like a top, but Uranus rolls on its side like a barrel. Scientists think a huge space object smashed into it billions of years ago and knocked it completely over. Whoa! A giant cosmic car crash! And if you ever went there, you would absolutely hate the smell. The upper clouds are made of a gas called hydrogen sulfide. Wait, isn't that the chemical that smells exactly like rotten eggs? Yes, the entire planet smells like giant cosmic rotten eggs. I definitely do not want to take a vacation to Uranus then. What about the last planet? Number eight is Neptune, the farthest planet in our solar system. It is a stunning, deep blue ice giant. Since it is the farthest away from the sun, it must be the coldest, right? It is freezing, but Neptune is actually famous for something else. It's extreme winds. Wait, are the winds worse than Jupiter's giant storm? Way worse! Neptune has supersonic winds that whip around the ice giant at 1,200 miles per hour. 1,200 miles per hour? That is faster than a fighter jet. Exactly! And the way it was discovered is pure genius. No one actually saw Neptune first. They found it using math. Wait, you can discover a planet with math? How is that even possible? An astronomer named Urbain Leverrier noticed that Uranus was being pulled slightly off its orbit. He calculated that another, unseen planet's gravity must be tugging on it from the dark. So he just did the math on a piece of paper, pointed a telescope, and boom, Neptune? Yes. In 1846, another astronomer named Johann Gall looked exactly where the math said to look, and there it was, shining back at him. That is basically a space detective story. Why do scientists still study our planets so much today? Because understanding our solar family helps us understand the whole universe. By exploring these extreme worlds, we have learned how rare and precious Earth truly is. We are the only planet we know of that has oceans of liquid water and life. And now new space telescopes are finding exoplanets orbiting other stars, right? Exactly! By knowing exactly what extreme heat does to Venus, or how massive storms work on Jupiter? Scientists can figure out what those new worlds, billions of miles away, might be like. Next one. How many Earths can fit inside the giant planet Jupiter? Question three. Which giant planet has a density so low it would float in a giant bathtub? Here is number four. What is the name of the massive volcano on Mars that is 16 miles high? Last question. Which ice giant planet rolls on its side and smells like rotten eggs? Great job! Let's see how you did and go through the answers. The first answer is, Venus is the hottest planet because of its super thick atmosphere trapping the heat. For question two, you could fit 1,300 Earths inside Jupiter. The answer to number three, Saturn is the planet that would float right at the top of a giant bathtub. For question four, the giant volcano on Mars is called Olympus Mons. And the final answer, Uranus is the planet that rolls on its side and smells like giant cosmic rotten eggs. What an absolutely amazing journey through our solar system today! Seriously, I will never look at the night sky the same way again. I just keep picturing Saturn bobbing up and down in a bathtub. Same here, Finn. If you loved learning about the planets today, please leave us a five-star review. Yeah, tell us which planet you would want to visit in your review. Just scroll down in your podcast app and tap those five stars. Oh, and do not forget to check out our site, kidopoly.com. We have tons of fun learning games and amazing science activities waiting for you there. And if you want a shout out on the show or just want to say hi, email us at hello at kidopoly.com. Keep looking up at the stars and keep asking great questions. See you next time on Science Is Not Boring.