DID YOU KNOW?

The Sun is enormous, at least by our standards! It accounts for 99.8% of the solar system’s total mass,and we’re all bound by its gravitational force – the eight planets, five known dwarf planets (including Pluto), 200+ moons, and millions of asteroids, comets and meteoroids. Surprisingly, our Sun is just an average-sized star when you look beyond our solarsystem – Betelgeuse, a red giant in the Orion constellation, is 700 times larger and 7,000 to 14,000 times brighter than the Sun!

A planet’s colours are determined by its composition, and by the way light interacts withits atmosphere or surface:

Mercury’s rocky, dust-covered surfaceis to blame for its stark grey colour.

Venus looks yellow-orange due to its carbon dioxide atmosphere and sulphuric acid clouds.

Earth gets its colours from the oceans, clouds and land.

Iron oxide in the soil is the reason Mars is known as the “red planet.”

Jupiter’s stormy atmosphere is responsible for its gaseous swirls, colourful bands andfamous red spot. The spot is the largest storm in our solar system – it’s bigger than Earth and has been raging for at least three centuries!

Easily recognized by its seven rings, Saturn’s upper atmosphere contains chemical compounds that tint its fast-moving cloud bands.

Ice giants Uranus and Neptune appearblue due to the presence of methane gas in the atmosphere. These two are also ringed planets, like Saturn, but their rings are more faint.