Solar System

As part of our SciPad topic, Astronomy, we were tasked with building a model solar system, containing the eight planets of the solar system:

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

This is our solar system. Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of our control, two planets are missing. Mars & Uranus were taken from our box and replaced with two other, much smaller planets, which were unusable.

Mercury:
Mercury is 57.91 million kilometres away from the sun, and has a surface temperature of 427C°
It has no moons, and its atmosphere is comprised of hydrogen, oxygen, and helium.
The length of a day on Mercury is 58 days, 15 hours, and 30 minutes.
The length of a year on Mercury is 88 Earth days.
Your weight on Mercury would be 38% of your weight on Earth.

Venus:
Venus is 108.2 million kilometres away from the sun, and has a surface temperature of 462C°
It has no moons, and its atmosphere is comprised of carbon dioxide.
The length of a day on Venus is 116 days, and 18 hours.
The length of a year on Venus is 225 Earth days.
Venus, while farther from the sun than Mercury, has a higher surface temperature.

Earth:
Earth is 149.6 million kilometres away from the sun, and has a constantly rising surface temperature.
It has one moon, and its atmosphere is comprised of nitrogen and oxygen.
The length of a day on Earth is 23.934 hours.
The length of a year on Earth is 365.25 Earth days.
Earth is the only planet that supports life in our solar system.

Mars:
Mars is 227.9 million kilometres away from the sun, and has a surface temperature of -63C°
It has two moons, and its atmosphere is comprised mostly of carbon dixiode and nitrogen.
The length of a day on Mars is 1 day, and 37 minutes.
The length of a year on Mars is 687 Earth days.
Mars's atmosphere is 95% thinner than Earth's.

Jupiter:
Jupiter is 778.5 million kilometres away from the sun, and has a surface temperature of -112C°
It has 79 moons, and its atmosphere is comprised mostly of hydrogen.
The length of a day on Jupiter is 9 hours, 56 minutes.
The length of a year on Jupiter is 12 Earth years.
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.

Saturn:
Saturn is 1.434 billion kilometres away from the sun, and has a surface temperature of -185C°
It has 62 moons, and its atmosphere is comprised mostly of hydrogen.
The length of a day on Saturn is 10 hours.
The length of a year on Saturn is 29 Earth years.
Saturn has a large ring around it's surface.

Uranus:
Uranus is 2.871 billion kilometres away from the sun, and has a surface temperature of -224C°
It has 27 moons, and its atmosphere is comprised mostly of hydrogen and helium.
The length of a day on Uranus is 17 hours.
The length of a year on Uranus is 84 Earth years.
Uranus is a giant ice ball, having the coldest temperatures of any planet in our solar system.

Neptune:
Neptune is 4.495 billion kilometres away from the sun, and has a surface temperature of -200C°
It has 14 moons, and its atmosphere is comprised mostly of hydrogen and helium.
The length of a day on Neptune is 16 hours, and 6 minutes.
The length of a year on Neptune is 165 Earth years.
Neptune actually has five, very thin rings.

Moon Landing

For our topic in science, we are learning about astronomy. In compliance with this topic, I will be researching about the moon landing, and whether or not it is a hoax.

The Flag

One of the biggest arguments about the moon landing is how the flag moves when it is placed. In the video of the moon landing, the flag can clearly be seen moving, as if it was being blown by the wind. Because the moon is in a vacuum, there is no air on the moon. Conspiracy theorists argue that because there is no air on the moon, that means there is no wind on the moon, and so the flag couldn't have moved, meaning that the moon landing must have been filmed on Earth.

However, because there is no air on the moon, that means there is also no air resistance on the moon. The force it takes to drive the flagpole into the moon's soil would cause the flag to begin moving, and because there is no air resistance on the moon, there is no friction to halt the flag's movement, meaning that the flag would continue waving forever.

The Stars

In all photo/video evidence of the moon landing, no stars are visible in the sky. Because there ais no atmosphere on the moon, thousands of stars should be visible. This is another reason that people believe the moon landing is fake, and filmed in a studio. The reason there are no stars in the sky is actually because of how the moon's surface reflects light. The moon's surface is constantly reflecting light, meaning that the glow/glare of the moon would have made stars dificult to see. The lunar astronauts also used cameras with fast exposure settings, which would have limited background light.

The Lunar Crater

Theorists believe that the Lunar Lander should have blown up dust and caused a crater on landing, because the thrusters would be facing the moon, and would blow dust around. This did not occur because the lunar lander was actually horizontal when it was coming in to land, meaning tha tthe thrusters were not facing the moon.