Jupiter

• The largest planet in the soloar system.
• Named for the Roman King of the gods
• Characterized by colorful bands which are clouds of gasses and big storms. The Great Red Spot is one of thes storms and has lasted for over 300 years.
• Rotates very quickly, only 10 Earth hours to make one rotation.
• There are faint bands around Jupiter discoverend in 1979 as well as more than 60 moons.
• Some of the moons are very interesting, Io has volcanic eruptions an is very active. Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury. Europa is an icy world with a cracked surface but because of all the ice there might be liquid water beneath.

Saturn

• Saturn is most familiar because of its ring system and is the second largest planet in the solar system.
• Saturn is named for the Roman god of agriculture
• Revolves around the sun every 29 years.
• The rings, nearly 1000 of them, are made of dust and ice particles
• Saturn is like Jupiter because it is primarily made of gasess wtih stormy bands of clouds the winds in the storms can reach 1800 kilometers and can rotate on its axis in 11 Earth hours.
• Saturn has at least31 moons and the largest is named Titan which actually has its own atmosphere, mostly nitrogen which is similar to Earth.
• Recently the moon has been vistited by Cassini spacecraft. Last march this photo was taken by Cassini.Saturn's largest and hazy moon, Titan, has a surface shaped largely by Earth-like processes of tectonics, erosion, winds, and perhaps volcanism. The findings are published in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

Uranus

• Uranus is also a large gaseous planet that is blue in color.
• Named after the Greek god of the sky (blue)
• Rotates on its side so no one know which is its north pole. Demonstrate the hand and thumb principle.
• It also has a faint ring system discovered by telescope in 1977 and then studied by Voyager 2 in 1986.
• Uranus has at least 11 rings and 22 moons.
• Revolves around the sun in 84 Earth years and rotates on its axis in 17 hours.

Neptune

• Neptune is the eighth planet from the sun and cannot be seen without a telescope.
• Named for the Roman god of the sea.
• Because of methane gas in the atmosphere it appears as a greenish blue and has a big spot in its atmosphere like Jupiter.
• Neptune has rings as well, (4) and 11 moons. Its moon Triton rotates in the opposite direction of Neptune and is thought to have active volcanoes.
• It rotates on its axis in 16 hours but takes 164 Earth days to revolve one time around the Sun.

Pluto

• The coldest outermost planet in the solar system but because of its highly eliptical orbit is not always the furthest planet from the sun.
• Named for the Greek god of Wealth, who ruled the dark underworld.
• From Pluto the sun appears as only a bright star in the sky so it is like night all the time.
• Pluto is the only outer planet with no atmosphere and no ring system.
• It has only one known moon, Charon that is hard to see even with powerful telescopes.
• Because it its almost 6 billion kilometes from the sun it takes Pluto 248 Earth years to revolve around the sun and it also has long days. It is estimated that it rotates on its axis every 6 Earth days.