An asteroid is a rock or bit of rock that is orbiting the Sun roughly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This area between Mars and Jupiter is called as asteroid belt. Mars is present at a distance of 1.52 AU from sun and Jupiter is present at a distance of 5.2 AU from sun. hence, the asteroid belt must lie between this distances and it is spread between 3.2 AU to 4.5 AU.
Sometimes, asteroids run into each other and when this happens, the asteroids may break up into smaller asteroids. Scientists think that most of the asteroids are result of collisions between larger rocky space bodies.
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Rheasilvia Mons, the tallest mountains in the entire solar system is present on 4 Viesta,
an asteroid that belong to the asteroid belt. The mountain is 90% the diameter of the asteroid.
Asteroids are minor planets (small Solar System bodies or dwarf planets) that are not comets, especially those of the inner Solar System. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones.
The image here shows the location of asteroid belt.
Gravitational perturbations from the giant planet (Jupiter) imbued the protoplanets with too much orbital energy for them to accrete into a planet. Collisions became too violent, and instead of fusing together, the planetesimals and most of the protoplanets shattered. As a result, most of the asteroid belt's mass has been lost since the formation of the Solar System. Some fragments can eventually find their way into the inner Solar System, leading to meteorite impacts with the inner planets.
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Jupiter acts both as a friend and foe to our Earth while interacting with these asteroids. Few times it protects by pulling asteroids towards itself which are moving inside to inner planets and few times push the them towards the terrestrial planets.
Few of these asteroids when pushed into the inner solar system turn into comets by developing the tail as they move nearer to Sun.
Though the name Mars, which named after the Roman god of war because of the red color. Mars usually appears a distinct orange, or reddish color; the actual color of Mars is closer to butterscotch, and the redness seen is just dust in the planet's atmosphere.
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Mars can easily be seen from Earth with the naked eye.which is surpassed only by Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, and the Sun.
Since it is the first planet to be located behind the earth (from sun) in the solar system and because the orbit of Mars is eccentric, its apparent magnitude at opposition from the Sun can range from −3.0 to −1.4.
Mars got two moons named Phobos and Deimos, these are most probably captured asteroids from the asteroid belt that is in between Jupiter and Mars. Mars got a dusty atmosphere and sun from this planet almost looks like a bright disc of diameter roughly half of the full moon disc when seen from earth.
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Mars got a diameter that is approximately half the earth's diameter.
Liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars due to low atmospheric pressure. Mars has two permanent polar ice caps. During a pole's winter, it lies in continuous darkness, chilling the surface and causing the deposition of 25–30% of the atmosphere into slabs of CO2 ice (dry ice). When the poles are again exposed to sunlight, the frozen CO2 sublimes, creating enormous winds that sweep off the poles as fast as 400 km/h. These seasonal actions transport large amounts of dust and water vapor, giving rise to Earth-like frost and large cirrus clouds.
The image shows the shield volcano, Olympus Mons (Mount Olympus).
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Olympus Mons (which is 27 km & is the second highest known mountain in the Solar System,) is over three times the height of Mount Everest which in comparison stands at just over 8.8 km.
The solar day on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours. Mars lost its magnetosphere 4 billion years ago, so the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere, lowering the atmospheric density by stripping away atoms from the outer layer.
Few other characteristics of Mars:
Escape velocity : 5.027 km/s
Equatorial rotation velocity : 241.17 m/s
Surface pressure : 0.636 KPa
Euatorial radius : 3,396.2 km
Axial tilt :
Gravitational acceleration
on surface : 3.711 m/s2
Generally, what comes into your mind after hearing the word "Venus"?
Obviously the first thing that comes into anybody's mind is the planet that is second from the sun.
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After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows..!!!
Cloud structure on venus is shown in the image, this image is taken by pioneer venus orbiter.
Venus got the densest atmosphere of all the terrestrial planets and carbon dioxide is the major contributor to its atmosphere. Due to the presence of high amount of CO2 the atmosphere of Venus acts as greenhouse effect and increases the surface temperature of the planet.
Venus is shrouded by an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light.
The image shows the true-image of venus and its surface covered by opaque clouds of H2SO4.
The surface gravity of Venus is not the only characteristic of the planet that nearly mirrors Earth. Venus has 86% of the volume that Earth has along with 82% of the mass. The planet’s density is nearly identical at 5.243 g/cm3. Since Venus and Earth are almost the same size and have about the same mass, the surface gravity on Venus is almost the same as the surface gravity on Earth. The surface gravity on Venus is about 90-91% of the surface gravity on Earth. This is why Venus is mainly referred as our Earth's sister planet.
Venus's small induced magnetosphere provides negligible protection to the atmosphere against cosmic radiation. This radiation may result in cloud-to-cloud lightning discharges.
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Venus rotates clockwise called "retrograde" rotation once every 243 Earth days—the slowest rotation period of any planet in the solar system.
A radar image of venus.
Venus is present at a distance of 0.72AU from the sun and has got an orbital period of 224.65 days. A day on Venus is longer than a year, one day on Venus is 243 days which is due to its slow rotational period.
Few other characteristics of Venus:
Escape velocity : 10.36 km/s
Equatorial rotation velocity : 1.81 m/s
Surface pressure : 9.2 MPa
Euatorial radius : 6,051.8 km
Axial tilt : 177.3°
Gravitational acceleration
on surface : 8.87 m/s2
Mercury, the fastest planet to run around sun, that is, it got a very less revolution period around sun of just about 88 days and revolution period of 58.646 days(Earth days).
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Mercury planet got no atmosphere, therefore parachutes doesn't work there at all, anything onto the planet has to fall hard.
This is not earth's moon, it is mercury.
This is a composite image taken by Messenger. It is heavily crated which makes it a look alike of our moon.
The reasons of these craters is due to its geological inactive nature for over billions of years.
The orbit of mercury is highly eccentric(not near to circle), hence becoming the only planet with high eccentricity.
The variation in seasons on this planet is not because of its axial tilt but with its distance from sun at that particular point of time. . At perihelion, the intensity of sunlight on Mercury's surface is more than twice the intensity at aphelion. Because the seasons of the planet are produced by the orbital eccentricity instead of the axial tilt, the season does not differ between its two hemispheres.
Because Mercury's orbit lies within Earth's orbit, it can appear in Earth's sky either as a morning star or an evening star.
It was discovered by William Herschel in 1781.
Mercury got no moons due to its very near distance from sun, the sun pulls away the moons of the inner planets(mostly) and further detail explanation on this topic is done in the problems with two body systems.
Few other characteristics of mercury:
Escape velocity : 4.25 km/s
Equatorial rotation velocity : 3.026 m/s
Surface pressure : trace
Euatorial radius : 2,439.7 km
Axial tilt : 2.11′
Gravitational acceleration
on surface : 3.7 m/s2
We all know that "Earth" is the only planet known till date which is hosting life. It is the third planet from the Sun which is sometimes referred as the world or the blue planet. This planet is the home of millions of species including humans.
Here towards left shows the complete image of earth from space.
The picture is taken from Apollo 17 during its flight to moon.
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When compared to the distance from center of earth to the mountain peaks, Mount Chimborazo is taller than Mount Everest due to its presence near the equator.
It is said that earth was formed approximately around 4.54 billion years ago and earliest life appeared around 4 billions years ago. Due to its presence in the habitable zone it is able to bear life on it. It go only one natural satellite the moon. Earth gravitationally interacts with the other space objects especially with the moon and the sun. It got a rotational period on its own axis of 23hr 56min 4sec and a revolution period around sun of 365.24 days. The rotational period is so high that the shape of earth is not exactly sphere but is oblate spheroid, which means it possesses a slight but noticeable bulge around the equator. The Earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.4° away from the perpendicular of its orbital period, producing seasonal variations on the planet's surface with a period of one tropical year.
Earth is the fifth largest and the densest planet of the solar system. The bary center of the earth and the moon lies somewhere outside the center of earth due to the large size of moon. Moon is the largest natural satellite relative to its primary size and the second densest satellite in the entire solar system.
The image on left shows the sizes of the planets of our solar system and the earth is shown as third planet from left.
Few other characteristics of earth:
Escape velocity : 11.186 km/s
Equatorial rotation velocity : 465.1 m/s
Surface pressure : 101.325 KPa
Euatorial radius : 6378.1 km
Axial tilt : 23°26'21".4119
Gravitational acceleration
on surface : 9.8m/s2
