... big as it does from Earth (www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/). Mercury is approximately 3,031 miles in diameter, which makes it the second smallest planet in our Solar system. Mercury is a bit over one third of the diameter of Earth. Mercury's mass is 3.3 x 10e23kg, which is ... , although surface features indicate that volcanic activity once existed at the surface. There is little evidence of motions near the surface of the planet now, although at earlier times during Mercury's evolution the surface was much more active. We know relatively little about Mercury, compared to ...

• Word Count: 1115
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Earth's gravity. The diameter of Venus is 7,502 miles. Venus probably had seas at one time. Earth It is the third planet in distance from the sun. Earth is the fifth largest planet in the solar system. The distance between the sun and the earth is 149,503,000 kilometers or 92,897,000 miles. ... revolution in 365.25, which explains why we have 365 days in a year. Earth's average distance from the Sun is 93 million miles. This planet tilts 23.5 •X on its axis, causing seasonal changes. Earth has a changing weather pattern. Earth consists of three layers: the crust, the mantle, and the co...

• Word Count: 825
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... system together with the stars is called the Milky Way. Planets of the Solar System: Earth: Earth is the fifth largest planet in the solar system. It is the third planet from the sun at a distance of about 150 million kilometres. Its name is derived from the ancient English language. It takes ... the Earth 365.25 days to travel around the sun and 23.9345 hours to rotate around itself. It is the only planet known to harbour life with an average surface temperature of 20°C. The Earths atmosphere consists of 78% of Nitrogen, 21% of Oxygen and 0. ... - including humans - combine forces to...

• Word Count: 677
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... primary objectives of this new frontier. The dispensing of the gasses will change to color of the plant from a red to a blue-green planet similar to earth. After these years, the terraforming effort will probably be taken on by large business for whatever reason they have. These ... maybe undertaker in the later years of terraforming. In order to give a number of years a terraforming effort would exist before a large percent of the planet's surface was capable of sustaining human life, someone would have to take a lot of factors into consideration before spending a considerable amount of...

• Word Count: 844
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... 141 million miles. Mars is named for the Roman god of war because it appears fiery and red in the night sky. Mars is a relatively small planet, with about half the diameter of Earth and about one-tenth Earth's mass. The force of gravity on the surface of Mars is about one-third of ... crust to form large rifts. The surface of Mars would be a harsh place for humans, but it is more like the surface of Earth than any other planet. The temperature on Mars does not get much cooler than the temperature at Antarctica. At the surface it ranges from about -225 F to 60 F. During ... These winds of...

• Word Count: 1211
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... fuel needed to return home to earth. So if we can't make it back Mars, why not just make the trip a one-way trip to planet. The probability is being talked among many who believe that Mars could be an adaptive place for initial colony of four astronauts to live. Equipped with ... a small nuclear reactor, a couple of rover vehicles, the few could make their own oxygen and food to survive on the planet. Obviously this might not be that simple due to constraints on possibilities of things going wrong. With so many different situations that could go wrong, ... boundaries of Earth has been a...

• Word Count: 739
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... planets that have rings around them. Saturn has 2 large rings around it that are made up of rock and ice, which is formed by the gravity pull on the planet. Jupiter is also known for a ring planet, it only has one large one with gaps in between the one large ring, and it is also made on dirt and ice. The last ... planet made of rings is Uranus. It has 11 rings that once again are made of ice and dirt. The planets are aliened in certain ways, known as the inner ... Neptune, and Pluto. The outer planets travel slower around the sun and it spins a lot slower. Earth is a little different f...

• Word Count: 520
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... Crenium Galaxy it has taken us nearly three years to get here and we plan to land on the nearest planet in approximately five days. Ben has received the honours of naming the planet. It shall henceforth be called Pentrix. Pentrix has an outer and inner atmosphere similar to Earth, the main difference ... . It says: Any . Trespassers . Will . Be .. Brutally .. Slaughtered. After a long meeting, we have decided to get as far away from this planet as we can. We don't care about alien life we"re just terrified. After THREE whole years of "running" we have decided to search one more ... plane...

• Word Count: 682
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... got its name from its red color, Mars is sometimes called the red planet. Mars" orbit is significant because it is elliptical. Mars average temperature is about -55C and at the winter poles it is almost about 27 C. There are four major land forms ... active plate tectonics . Having no lateral plate motion, hot spots under the crust stay in a fixed position relative to the surface. There is no evidence of volcanic activity on the planet Mars. There lots of erosion and small floods that happen on Mars. There is other possibilities of other fluids besides water on ... planet Mars . The a...

• Word Count: 516
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... all the planets make these revolutions in different amounts of time. One revolution for Earth is one year, or 365 days. Earth is also the only planet that we know to have life and water found on its surface. For a space traveler, the distinguishing Earth features are the blue waters, brown and ... green land masses and white clouds set against a black background. For us on the planet, Earth seems to be a huge, mighty force that has no boundaries. From the picture below we can conclude that Space-travelers are correct, and our mighty ... the big red spot that is actually a great storm mo...

• Word Count: 867
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... chemical compounds may have played a part in the origin of life. Dr. Louis Allamandola said "This discovery implies that life could be everywhere in the universe". Earth is the only planet in the solar system that we are sure that can support life. The early histories of life are be dated back too as much as about 3.85 billion years ago ... that cannot live in the presence of oxygen. It is very convincing that life does exist on Earth back 3.85 billion years ago and still present day. Mars is the planet closet to ours that appeared to have all the necessary conditions to support life. M...

• Word Count: 1217
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... , and ever since then people have associated space exploration with fiction and imagination. (TWAC, p.392) However space exploration is far from fiction. Searching for, as well as developing, life outside planet earth could possibly lead us to improve our population problems and diminishing resources. Growing more resources in space would be a significant step for a longer human existence. Along with the opportunity ... an impact to developing space technology with the hopes to create life on mars. Mars has been seen as a potential home for life in the future. NASA has considered this pl...

• Word Count: 1063
• Approx Pages: 4

... to Earth, its formation, and life on it. Meteorites provide us with a record of the development and origin of the solar system. Our planet Earth is made up of the same materials as meteorites. During the formation of the solar system, interstellar clouds were filled with various types of ... begun to melt and form planets. Meteorites contain minerals that are also present in the crust, core, and mantle of our planet. In other words, the Earth's oceans and atmosphere are the same liquids and gases that were present in the very first meteorites. The people ... that live on planet Earth h...

• Word Count: 335
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... discovered so much about Venus because spacecrafts and satellites have been sent to study Venus. In 1970, the Russians sent an unmanned space craft to examine the surface of the planet. The craft was named Venera 7. Venus? atmosphere was so corrosive, that it destroyed this spacecraft. Along with Venera 7, there was one other craft that traveled to Venus. This was the ... inner planets, it is how iron reacts to heat. When iron is heated to extreme temperatures, it becomes liquid metal. When it is then cooled, it again becomes a solid. The planet Mercury probably has a large iron core. D...

• Word Count: 450
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

LANDING ON THE RED PLANET Who would have ever dreamed about a spacecraft, sponsored by The United States, landing on the surface of Mars for a second time? That dream became a reality on July 4, ... world. At first, many people doubted that the Pathfinder mission would become a success. Most believed that the Pathfinder would never even land on the surface of "the red planet". Little did they know, that sixth months from its initial takeoff on December 04, 1996, it would land very precisely where it had been projected and planned to do ... so. Using solar panels as its power, it impacted th...

• Word Count: 677
• Approx Pages: 3

... tectonic theory was not fully conceptualized until a basis of relevant data had been assembled. Just as in the theory of plate tectonics of the planet earth, the same information is what is stated in the article about Mars. New measurements of Mars" magnetic field suggest that plate tectonics reigned ... . Planetary scientists have challenged for more than 25 years that water was once abundant on Mars. Early images had revealed dried up channels scarring the planet's surface. "If one believes early Mars was wet, then it makes plate tectonics more reasonable," says Gerald Schubert of the...

• Word Count: 394
• Approx Pages: 2

... , when you count the amount underwater and the amount above water is taller than Mount Everest. Some volcanoes have been found in our solar system that are not on the planet Earth. One volcano, which is the largest one in our solar system, is Mount Olympus Mons on the ... planet Mars. This is the only volcano found on the planet mars. There are also numerous volcanoes found on Io, a moon of the planet Jupiter. These volcanoes also show that some plate tectonics on Io, even though no plate tectonics is believed to have occurred on ... ...

• Word Count: 965
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Uranus is the seventh planet in our solar system. Uranus is three quarter billion. miles from the sun. It takes Uranus eighty four years to circle the sun once. Uranus lies on it's side ... I"m going to answer my questions. Uranus contains mostly rock and water, with hydrogen and helium, and trace amounts of methane in its dense atmosphere. The blue-green color of this planet comes from the methane gas present in Uranus's cold clear atmosphere. Uranus probably has a small rocky core smaller than Earths with a radius no larger than 1240 miles. The cores ... The atmosphere of Uranus is relati...

• Word Count: 265
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... positioned closely to the earth, which led to much observation. Giovanni Schiaparaelli, an Italian astronomer, reported seeing "canali" on the planet Mars. Canali meant channels but was mistranslated as canals, which led to much speculation of life form on the red planet. This is just some information on how the novel War of The Worlds was written, now on to what this ... aliens were watching the humans "keenly and closely" with "envious eyes". This leads to the reason of why the aliens are going to try to take over Earth. The alien's planet, Mars, is dying and their source for living i...

• Word Count: 323
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... of space exploration is to discover whether or not life exists in any other solar systems like our own. Life as we know it has evolved on Earth because the planet lies at just the distance from the sun to allow water to remain liquid and temperatures to be moderate. Without these two conditions, life forms as we know them would ... most hospitable to life, although it is farther from the sun and much colder than Earth. Mars is believed to have some water, but little atmosphere. Although studies of the planet's surface has not revealed any signs of life, future probes will no doubt look ...

• Word Count: 966
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... expeditions into space was in 1975, when NASA sent its Viking Mission to Mars. It became the first project in history to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of another planet. This mission was composed of two spacecrafts, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each of these spacecrafts consisted of an orbiter and a lander. Each orbiter-lander pair flew together and entered Mars orbit ... mission objectives were to obtain high-resolution images of the Martian surface, characterize the structure and composition of the atmosphere and surface, and search for evidence of life on the planet. The first mo...

• Word Count: 846
• Approx Pages: 3

Is their life on other planets? I believe that there is. I think this because the Martian Meteorite was found a long time ago. The Meteor was from the planet Mars. Mars contains water, and organisms can form with water. I also believe this because it has Chemicals from the atmosphere, Fossil-like formations, Chemical building blocks, and we also know ... from the atmosphere in the meteorite. Mineral deposits formed from the carbon and oxygen in the Martian Meteorite atmosphere. It is believed they were dissolved in the water at the planet surface, and carried into the rock through tiny crack...

• Word Count: 379
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... be transported. A chemical called cyanine, which stains a blue color only on living cells, was used to conclude this experiment. This project shows great proof that earth is not the only planet on which living things can live. It was also proven earlier this year that there is knowledge of other solar systems outside of our own. It is also considered by ... all of these unexplored planets out there, why won't people consider the fact that at least one of these planets could resemble earth. For all we know there could be a planet similar or more advanced than our earth out there with peo...

• Word Count: 762
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... mars is smaller and may have cooled off faster. If so, life there would have had a brief season of warm and wet weather, perhaps several hundred million years, before the planet cooled and its atmosphere went away into space. We see evidence of this time on Mars surface today "carved river valleys, canyons, a vast flat plain that may have been ... reach Mars; just by robots. And because of this there has been a loss of millions of dollars. One spacecraft was sent to land on Mars, and as it approached the planet after its six-month trip through space, was suddenly unreachable. Then we we...

• Word Count: 674
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... and not have to show us any progress. What is extremely confusing though is our sudden interest in Mars. The Rover, the Probes, and Satellites sent to orbit the red planet, would cause Bill Gates to go broke, and gladly put every graduating high school senior through any Ivy League college. Maybe the geniuses at NASA have forgotten, but there is ... this place called planet Earth and it could use a little makeover. The fact that we blow hundreds of billions out into space, and then complain about our national budget or social security only makes ... return it would only pay itself off ...

• Word Count: 568
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School