(ORDO NEWS) — As elementary school students, we studied the order of the planets. Perhaps you even memorized mnemonic phrases like “We Know, Yulia’s Mom Sat On Pills In The Morning!” or “The Bear Comes Out for the Raspberry – The Lawyer Managed to Escape the Lowlands.” The second phrase became relevant after Pluto was excluded from the list of planets.
The order of the planets is easy to remember, but what about the size of the planets? Here is some information about the sizes of the planets in our solar system.
What is the smallest planet?
The smallest planet in the solar system is Mercury. The size of the planet is about 1/3 of the width of the Earth, its radius is 2439.7 kilometers.
The second largest planet is Mars. It is about half the size of the Earth and has a radius of 3389.5 kilometers.
Next is Venus, which is only slightly smaller than Earth. The radius of Venus is 6059 kilometers.
What is the largest planet?
Jupiter is the largest planet, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Jupiter has a radius of 69,911 kilometers and is almost 11 times the size of Earth.
The planets are listed from largest to smallest:
Jupiter: radius 69,911 kilometers;
Saturn: radius 58,232 kilometers;
Uranus: radius 25,362 kilometers;
Neptune: radius 24,622 kilometers;
Earth: radius 6,371 kilometers;
Venus: radius 6,052 kilometers;
Mars: radius 3,389.5 kilometers;
Mercury: radius 2439.7 kilometers.
Which planet is closest to the Sun?
Mercury is not only the smallest planet, but also the closest to the Sun. According to NASA, Mercury is almost 57.9 million kilometers from the Sun.
The Earth is about 149.5 million kilometers from the Sun, a number you may have had to memorize in science class. The most distant planet is Neptune, located about 4.55 billion kilometers from the Sun.
Although Mercury is closest to the Sun, the hottest planet in our system is Venus. According to NASA, the surface temperature of Venus is 462 degrees Celsius. Mercury’s temperature reaches 427 degrees during the day but can drop to minus 173 degrees at night.
Is Mercury smaller than Pluto?
Mercury is larger than Pluto, but it is considered the smallest planet due to the fact that Pluto is a dwarf planet.
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