Solar System Worksheets for Grade 5

The eight planets in order from the Sun are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. A common memory phrase is 'My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos.' The first four — Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars — are inner rocky planets with solid surfaces. The outer four — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — are much larger and made mostly of gas or ice. Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 because it has not cleared its orbital neighborhood.

Rotation is a planet spinning on its own axis — like a top spinning in place. One complete rotation of Earth takes about 24 hours and creates one day. Revolution is a planet traveling completely around the Sun in its orbit — one complete revolution of Earth takes about 365 days and creates one year. Different planets have different rotation and revolution times: Mercury rotates very slowly (about 59 Earth days per rotation) but has a short revolution (88 Earth days). Venus actually rotates backward compared to most planets.

Mercury has almost no atmosphere, so it cannot trap heat. Its dayside is very hot, but its nightside is extremely cold — temperatures swing over 600°C between day and night. Venus has a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide that traps heat like a greenhouse — the greenhouse effect keeps Venus at a nearly constant 465°C all the time. Atmosphere composition matters more than distance from the Sun when determining a planet's surface temperature. This is also relevant to Earth's climate — our atmosphere regulates temperature in a similar way.

The Sun's gravity pulls all planets, moons, asteroids, and comets toward it, while each object's forward momentum keeps it from falling in — the result is an elliptical orbit. The stronger the gravity and the closer the object, the faster it must move to maintain its orbit. This is why Mercury orbits the Sun in just 88 days while Neptune takes 165 years. The same principle keeps moons orbiting planets. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is a region of rocky debris held in orbit by the Sun's gravity, with Jupiter's gravity preventing the debris from forming a planet.

Moons are natural satellites that orbit planets — Earth has one, but Jupiter and Saturn each have dozens. The asteroid belt is a region of rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter. Comets are icy bodies that develop bright tails of gas and dust as they approach the Sun. Dwarf planets, like Pluto and Ceres, orbit the Sun but have not cleared the other objects from their orbital neighborhood. The Kuiper Belt, beyond Neptune, contains many dwarf planets and icy objects. Together, these bodies make the solar system far richer and more dynamic than just eight planets orbiting the Sun.

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