1. Mrs. Lewis’ 5th Grade Class

2. The Planets
 What is a planet?
 A planet is a spherical ball of rock and/or
gas that orbits a star.
 How many planets are in our solar system?
 There are 9 planets in our solar system.
 They are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and
Pluto.

3. Characteristics of Planets
 Mercury: it is the closest planet to the Sun. The
surface of Mercury is gray to orange in color, and is
covered with craters.
 Venus: it is the second planet away from the Sun.
Venus looks brownish-yellow in color.
 Earth: made up mostly of water. Earth looks blue and
brown in color because of all the water and land.
 Mars: is a little more than half the size of Earth. Mars
appears red in color. Mars has many volcanoes,
canyons and craters on its surface.

4. Characteristics of Planets
 Jupiter: is the largest planet in the Solar System.
Jupiter’s surface is made up of gas, so it looks
white, yellow, red, and brown because of gas
clouds.
 Saturn: has three rings. The surface of Saturn
looks striped, and has a brown-yellow,
butterscotch color.
 Uranus: almost 4.5 times the size of Earth. It is
covered by a thick layer of gas, and has a blue-
green color.

5. Characteristics of Planets
 Neptune: surrounded by 5 rings around the
planet. It appears blue in color. The planet
is just a little bit smaller than Uranus.
 Pluto: is the farthest away from the Sun.
We cannot tell what the color of the planet
is or what the surface looks like. Pluto has
one large moon and two smaller moons.

6. The Moon
 The Moon is approximately 239,000 miles from the
Earth.
 The Moon shines at night because of the sunlight that
is reflected off its surface.
 We can see craters on the Moon. These craters have
been caused by the impact from meteors over millions
of years.
 Exploding volcanoes on the Moon also caused some
craters.