Solar System For Kids – Fun Facts About Our Universe!

The solar system for kids is a place of infinite mystery – whether it’s their fascination with the stars, planets or astronauts, they love Space. This can lead to a barrage of questions that need short and simple answers that will satisfy their curiosity.

Well, today’s blog is focused on the solar system for kids. We’ve curated facts from textbooks, our memories and the internet that we’re sure will help your child understand the solar system a little better.

What Is The Solar System?

Image courtesy kids-world-travel-guide.com

An uncomplicated way to explain the Solar System for kids is to give them a simple description that they can remember easily. The description we like best is:

The Solar System is like a dance which features the Sun and it’s dance partners who orbit around it due to a force called gravity. The dance partners in the Solar System are the Earth, the other planets, stars, asteroids and comets that come out to dance.

However, if you have older kids and they are currently learning about the Solar System in school, then, we prefer the description by Kids.kiddle.co:

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound planetary system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, such as the five dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. 

The statements above will undoubtedly lead to more questions, ones we hope the facts below will help answer!

Fact About The Solar System for Kids

These facts about the Solar System for kids have been curated from all over the internet and textbooks. A great way to get kids to remember these facts is by making them into flash-cards that can be played with whenever curiosity strikes.

Let’s start with the top 10 facts about the Solar System for kids

Image courtesy Newsweek

1. The Sun is a star – it gives off light and heat and is made up of hot gas.
2. Not everything in the Solar System orbits the Sun. The Moon, for example, revolves around the Earth.
3. There are 8 planets that orbit the Sun.
4. The order of the planets in the Solar System are – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
5. The biggest planet is Jupiter and the smallest is Mercury
6. The Earth rotates as it orbits the Sun. One day = One complete rotation. It takes 365 rotations or days to complete a whole year.
7. Our Galaxy is called the Milky Way and the Sun is one of the hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy.
8. Saturn’s ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice particles.
9. The Solar System formed around 4.6 billion years ago. 
10. As of 2008, Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Makemake and Haumea are known as dwarf planets.

More Fun Fact About the Solar System for Kids

 

Image Courtesy VectorStock

1. The Sun is 93 million miles from the Earth. The light from the Sun only takes 8 minutes to travel to the Earth – cited from theschoolrun.com
2. According to Planetforkids.com- Our sun collected 99.86% of our solar system’s mass. This shows you just how big our sun is. The sun is made up of hydrogen and helium and that demonstrates how much of these gasses are in the universe as compared to the metals and rocks as we have on Earth.
3. Before humans explored the Earth, we thought it was flat. However, all planets and the Sun in the Solar System are shaped like balls.
4. Each planet in our Solar System has different characteristics. For example, Earth is made up of rock, however, Jupiter is made from Gas!
5. According to theplanets.org – the Sun comprises over 99.8% of the Solar System, with the planet Jupiter accounting for most of the remaining mass.
6. The hottest planet is Venus with an average temperature of 460°C and the coldest planet is Uranus with an average temperature -220°C.
7. Earth is the only planet we currently know of that has living creatures on it – although we’re still looking!
8. All the planets were named after Roman and Greek Gods/Goddesses with the exception of Earth – which means ‘ground’ in old Germanic English.
9. According to Planetforkids.com – We refer to the “solar system” as it has been named after our sun, called “sol” which is Latin for “sun.” The words “Solar System” related to two things: Any celestial body that is “of the Sun,” and a collection of objects that work together to form the entire whole.
10. Our Solar System has 8 planets, 5 dwarf planets, 181 moons, 552,894 asteroids and 3,083 comets!

Mnemonics to Learn the Planets in the Solar System For Kids

Learning about the 8 different planets in order can be a difficult task for little ones who are just being introduced to the Solar System. However, the easiest way to learn them is by Mnemonics – a simple sentence where each word represent the name of the planet. Below are some of our favourite Mnemonics to learn the planets and their position in the Solar System for kids.

• My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Noodles
• My Very Educated Monster Just Showed Us Notes
• Molly Visits Every Monday, Just Stays Until Noon
• My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming
• My Very Evil Monster Just Sent Us North

Come up with your own! Use the initials of all the planets to create a fun Mnemonic of your own. Brownie points if you add the 5 dwarf planets in there too!

Well there you have it, that was our blog on the Solar System for Kids. If you’d like your kids to read more books about the Universe then check out our booklist that we wrote on the best Space books for kids. 

 

Till next time,
Happy Reading!

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Feature image courtesy galaxykidscodeclub.com