Planets/ Solar System Study Game
Mars:
1. Why is Mars called the "red planet"? due to iron rich rocks/ soil.
2. Could one walk on Mars and be similar to Earth's gravity? yes
3. Does Mars have clouds? yes, but very very thin and not that many
4. What makes up the ice caps of Mars? frozen water and frozen carbon-dioxide of the northern and southern poles of Mars / some might be underground
5. Does Mars have a tilted axis and season of winter/ summer? yes
6. Does Mars have dust-storms and melted to increasing flows of ice yes
7. What is Olympus Mons? a super large volcano on Mars
8. How big is Olympus Mons? as big as Missouri and 3 times taller than Mt Everest (the tallest mountain on Earth)
9. What is Phobos and Deimos? the 2 moons of Mars
10. Does Mars have enough oxygen to breath? no
11. Name 3 movies about Mars:
answers
1.
VENUS
1. What god is Venus named from? the Goddess of Love/ Beauty
2. What is different or special about how Venus rotates? it goes very,very slow, only once complete spin every 8 months/ or 4 months of daylight/4 of dark
3. What is also special of how Venus rotates? spin is clock-wise not counter
4. Why is Venus called the "evening star"? cuz you can see it at sunset
5. Describe the atmosphere of Venus: always has clouds in sky, full of a lot of
carbon-dioxide gases, with small rain-drops of sulfur acid (deadly)
6. What were Venera 7 and the Magellan? space probes that went to Venus
7. What is Maat Mons a large volcano on Venus
MERCURY
1. List the three main characteristics about Mercury: its the closest planet, the smallest planet and has no or little gases and gravity
2. What were the Mariner 10 and the Messenger? space probes to Mercury
3. What takes 88 days to orbit the Sun? Mercury
4. Describe Mercury's temperatures: warm in daytime, very cold at night;
highs near 430 C and at night - 170 C.
5. Does Mercury have a moon? No, Is Mercury as big as our Moon? Yes
6. Does Mercury have craters? Yes
JUPITER:
1. WHAT IS the largest planet? Jupiter
2. What is 2 and 1/2 times larger than all the other planets combined? Jupiter
3. What is the Great Red Spot? its a massive storm larger than Earth!
4. Describe the storm: its like a hurricane with 100 mile/ hr winds
and swirling winds
5. What are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto?
4 main moons of Jupiter
6. Most of Jupiter is made up of what two gases?
hydrogen and helium
7. Jupiter is mostly of gases, not land and those gases are mostly of liquid form having layers of clouds or liquid/ true or false? all true
SATURN:
1. What is the 6th planet from the Sun? Saturn
2. Is Saturn the only planet with rings?
No, all outer ones do as well
3. What was or is Voyager I and II?
space probes that took 1000 of pics of Saturn and its moon
4. Does Saturn have storms, lightning like Jupiter? yes
5. So, what are the rings of Saturn?
They are chunks of ice and rock that orbit all around Saturn, there are 1000 s .
6. How many moons does Saturn have?
63 of them , most famous are Titan (larger than Mercury) and Rhea.
Uranus / Neptune
1. What are knows as the twin blue/green planets?
Uranus/ Neptune
2. What is twice as far from the Sun as Saturn and 4 times bigger than Earth?
Uranus
3. Does Uranus have rings?
Yes What is the deadly poisionous gas in Uranus? methane
4. Uranus rotates fast, but how fast? once/ every 17 hrs
5 What is true about Uranus and its moons?
There are 27 of them and most have lava flows, craters, and ice.
Neptune:
1. What has storms and many clouds and is actually maybe shrinking?
Neptune
2. How was Neptune discovered?
by laws of mathematics and how or why Uranus was orbiting strange.
So something was changing its gravity and they thought it might be another planet near it, then they found Neptune.
3. how many moons does Neptune have?
at least 13 moons
Pluto/ comets/ meteors/asteroids:
*** All answers are either Pluto, comets, meteors or asteroids:
1.What is smaller than Earth s Moon and yet has a surface and one moon of its own?
2. What takes 248 years to orbit the Sun?
3. The brightest part of this object is its head but longest part is its tail, what is it?
4. Most of these orbit between Jupiter and Mars, some very large:
5. these are particles that fall off of comets or asteroids and fall to Earth
6. also called a "belt" between Jupiter and Mars
7. these large objects make big orbits far out in space beyond all the planets
8. The distance of these is so far away it might be 1000 times farther from the Sun than Earth is!!!!!
(earth is 93 million miles away) = 93 million X 1000 = ???
What are they?
9. What is also called a falling star?
10. Some people say a large one of these fell to Earth and killed the dinosaurs!
answers =
1. Pluto 2. Pluto 3. comet
4.asteroids 5.meteors 6. asteroids
7.asteroids 8. comets 9. meteors
10. asteroids
