Planets in Our Solar System

planetsThere are eight recognized planets in our solar system. With new discoveries nearly everyday, there are hundreds of dwarf planets and satellites too floating around in our huge solar system. For now, we’ll have a look at the real planets in order from the Sun.

Mercury
Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system, and is also the closet to the Sun among all. With a speed of 47.87 km/s, it is also the fastest orbiting planet, taking just 88 days to circle around the Sun.

Venus
Venus is the second farthest from the Sun. It orbits the Sun at a speed of 35.02 km/s, and takes 224.7 days to complete a full orbit.

Earth
Our very own planet Earth comes in third as far as distance from the Sun is concerned. Orbiting the Sun at a speed of 29.78 km/s, it takes 365.2 days to complete one round. The Earth is also known as the ‘Blue Planet’.

Mars
Also called the ‘Red Planet’, Mars is the second smallest planet out of the eight. With a speed of 24.077 km/s, it takes Mars 686.97 days to orbit the Sun.

Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Orbiting the Sun at a speed of 13.07 km/s, it takes Jupiter 4,332.59 days to complete a full orbit.

Saturn
Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system. It’s orbiting speed is just 9.69 km/s, and it takes Saturn 10,759.22 days to do a complete orbit around the Sun.

Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Orbiting at a speed of 6.81 km/s, it takes Uranus 30,799.095 days to rotate around the Sun.

Neptune
And finally, Neptune is the farthest out of the eight planets from the Sun. Traveling at a speed of 5.43 km/s, it takes Neptune 60,190.03 days to go around the Sun.

As you can see, as their distance from the Sun increases, planets orbit the Sun at a slower speed, and coupled with the fact that the distance is more, the time for one orbit obviously increases to a great extent.

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