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Child VO:What is The Solar System?

Maddie Moate:The universe is vast.

Serei:Vast means really, really big!

Maddie Moate:There are a lot of stars in our Universe. And the Sun is a star thatgives out heat and light. The Sun is at the centre of the solarsystem. The Solar system is the name we use to describe the 8planets, and their moons that circle or orbit around the Sun.

Taranpreet:Our Planet, Earth, is in The Solar system.

Joshua:Yeah but the closest planet to the Sun, is

Serei:Mercury

Maddie Moate:Mercury is a rocky planet, with large round ditches that we callcraters. Mercury takes about about 88 days to travel around thesun. When it's closest to the sun it gets very hot. Hot enough tofry an egg or even burn it! But when it rotates away from thesun, it gets really, really cold.

Child VO:This planet is Venus

Maddie Moate:Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun. It is very hot. Thehottest planet in the whole solar system.

Child VO:If it's further away from the sun why is it hotter than Mercury?

Maddie Moate:That's because Venus is surrounded by a thick layer of gassesthat keep the suns heat in, like a greenhouse. Venus is the secondbrightest object we can see in the night sky after the moon.

Taranpreet:It takes Venus 225 days to orbit the sun.

Maddie Moate:Earth, where we live, is the third planet from the sun. The Earthhas water to drink and air to breathe. It's the only planet in ourSolar System known to have the right conditions to support life -like plants and animals.

Child VO :and don't forget the people!

Maddie Moate:It takes Earth about 365 days to orbit the sun. That's one year.Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. People sometimes thinkMars is hot because of its red colour but it's usually very cold,the red comes from a rusty metal called iron in the ground.

Serei:Vehicles like this model Rover are used to explore Mars

Maddie Moate:That's right, scientists have been studying whether Mars couldsupport life in the future or if it did in the past.

Taranpreet:So how old is our solar system?

Maddie Moate:That's a great question. Let's ask an expert.

Dr Becky:Hi, I'm Dr Becky and I am a space expert. Now, the solar systemand all the planets in it were formed at the same time, from thesame stuff. So, If we can measure how old planet Earth is, thenwe know how old the solar system is. And we measure how oldEarth is by looking at the stuff it's made from - rocks. Because wecan read rocks kind of like a big clock and some rocks changewith time. So, if you look at how much they've changed, we knowhow much time has passed. And when we do that we work outthat the earth, the sun and everything in the solar system is 4.6billion years old!

Maddie Moate:Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and the biggest. It's knownas a gas giant because it's mostly made up of swirling gases andliquid. Jupiter has very stormy weather, making its coloursconstantly change. Jupiter has a storm that's been raging for overover 200 hundred years.

Joshua:The storm is called The Great Red Spot.

Maddie Moate:Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and known for its greatbig rings that go around its middle, they look like hula hoops.The rings are made of ice and rock and move around Saturn.

Joshua:Saturn takes a little over 29 earth years to orbit the sun.

Taranpreet:Saturn has 146 moons!..

Serei:And those are just the ones we've discovered so far.

Maddie Moate:Uranus is the 7th planet from the Sun. Cold and windy, this icyplanet has a rocky centre. Water and gasses, including a gascalled methane, make up its surface. It takes Uranus 84 earthyears to orbit the sun.

Child VO:What's next?

Maddie Moate:The eighth planet from the Sun is Neptune. It's another icyplanet, like Uranus.

Maddie Moate:Oh that looks like fun. Can you remember the right order of theplanets? Our solar system is huge and it's just one of nearlynearly 4000 star systems in our galaxy, the Milky Way. So there isstill so much more to discover out there in Space.