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Over the years the boys have done various projects on space, planets and the solar system and as Geocaching HQ have launched the Planetary Pursuit Souvenirs, we thought we would share some of the fun and interesting facts we have learnt with you.
Venus is also known as the Morning Star and the Evening Star. Early civilisations thought it was two different bodies, called Phosphorus and Hesperus by the Greeks, and Lucifer and Vesper by the Romans. This is because when its orbit around the Sun overtakes our orbit, it changes from being visible after sunset to being visible before sunrise. Pluto was discovered on February 18th, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh of the Lowell Observatory. In the 76 years between its discovery and subsequent reclassification as a dwarf planet, the planet completed under one third of its orbit around the Sun. Mars is the only other planet besides ours that has polar ice caps. The northern cap is called the Planum Boreum, with Planum Australe in the south. Water has also been found under these ice caps.Saturn is the most distant planet that can be seen with the naked eye. It is the second largest planet and is best known for its fabulous ring system that was first observed in 1610 by the astronomer Galileo Galilei. Due to its blue coloration, Neptune was named after the Roman god of the Sea. The coldest planet in the solar system is Uranus. The minimum surface temperature is -224°C. Its upper atmosphere is covered with a haze made mostly of methane which hides the storms taking place in its cloud decks. In the next 20-40 million years Mars’ largest moon Phobos will be torn apart by gravitational forces leading to the creation of a ring that could last up to 100 million years.
The rotation of the Earth is gradually slowing down. This deceleration is very slow, approximately 17 milliseconds per hundred years. Eventually this will lengthen our days but it will take around 140 million years before our day will have increased from 24 to 25 hours. Mercury is the only planet which doesn’t rotate exactly once every year – instead rotating three times for every two orbits of the Sun. This is because it is nearly tidally locked to the Sun. The average surface temperature on Venus is 462 °C, and because it does not tilt on its axis, there is no seasonal variation. The dense atmosphere of around 96.5 percent carbon dioxide traps heat and causes a greenhouse effect. A person standing on Pluto would weigh around 1/15th of what they weigh on our planet. Unlike many other planets which “self-heal” through natural geological processes, the surface of Mercury is covered in craters. These are caused by numerous encounters with asteroids and comets. Most of these craters are named after famous writers and artists. Any crater larger than 250 kilometres in diameter is referred to as a Basin. The Caloris Basin is the largest impact crater on Mercury covering approximately 1,550 km in diameter and was discovered in 1974 by the Mariner 10 probe.
