The Planets

The Planets

Chapter 1 What Is a Planet? Take a look at this picture. You can see the moon, right? But there is something else glowing in the night sky. Those tiny dots of light are planets!

You can get a great look at some of the planets with a telescope. Planets are round like balls. They travel through space at amazing speeds.

Guess what? Our home, the Earth, is a planet! The Earth is one of eight planets. Some are bigger than the Earth and some are smaller. All of the planets orbit around the sun.

The four planets closest to the sun are called the inner planets. The other four are called the outer planets. Let's take a space tour to learn all about them.

The planet Mercury is closest to the sun. It gets super-hot during the day. The surface of Mercury is covered with craters just like the moon.