Among The Stars - Chapter 1 - Introduction To The Solar System

Chapter 2 – Introduction to the solar system

So, first, why do we even need space exploration?

It is actually an integral part of our understanding of the cosmos and an inseparable sector of the development in our knowledge. In the recent days, many inventions have been made and financial and economic development associated with technological improvement in mechanical infrastructure has sculpted our world, but that is not enough. We need to be ready in case any danger came to our home planet. For instance, if any asteroid hit earth, then the earth would just become a giant ball of magma and we would face extinction in a dramatic and drastic way. We don’t want that to happen. If we are in two planets, then the odds of extinction plunge and drop. That is why space exploration is vital in providing information about various worlds for our benefit. Secondly, we can also learn many things to use them in our future as experiences and also, we can develop our knowledge. With this in our mind, let us go through the rest of the book.

The solar system consists of all of the planets, our sun, the moons, the asteroids, the meteoroids, the comets and all of the space dust along with the huge and brobdingnagian swarm of comets about a light year away from the sun which is known as the Oort Cloud. There are 13 planets in our solar system and some of them even have their own moons. The thirteen planets are as follows:-

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris.

Mercury

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Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. Yet, it is not the hottest of all the planets! It has a very large core, about the size of our moon highly rich in iron. Mercury contains more iron than any other planet in the solar system. It is the most heavily cratered planet in the solar system, with a crater big enough to support the land area of Western Europe. This is the smallest planet out of the main 8 planets that are chiefly known today as the International Astronomical Union nominated Pluto as a dwarf planet. Even some moons are bigger than Mercury. Earth’s moon is smaller than Mercury. It also has several craters on its surface. It is way too small to support any atmosphere like Venus and Earth. The temperatures on this planet swing in extremes, as the side facing the sun scorches while the other side freezes in extreme cold. It is not habitable as it is way too close to the sun:- about 58 million kilometres. This planet does not have moons or rings. Messenger is one of the space crafts sent by NASA in order to explore this planet. It is visible from earth during sunset and sunrise. Messenger was endowed with a special shield to protect it from the harmful rays of the Sun. It took high quality pictures of the planet’s surface. It cannot be easily seen from earth because it is too close to the sun and is blinded by the sun’s radiant and blond light.

Distance from the sun: 57.91 kilometres

Surface temperature: 354 degrees Farenheit

Rotation period: 58 days, 15 hours, 30 minutes

Revolution period: about 88 days (the fastest in all of the planets)

Tilt of Axis: 0.01 degrees

Discovered by: Galileo Galilei and Thomas Harriot observed it through telescopes in the seventeenth century.

Diameter at the equator: 4,879.4 kilometres

Surface area: 74.8 million square kilometres.

Speed of revolution: 47 kilometres per second

Escape velocity: 4.3 kilometres per second

Mass: 3.3 x 1023 Kilograms

Surface gravity: 3.7 M/S2

Venus:-

Venus from outside (covered with smothering blankets and thick layers of Carbon Dioxide gas and sulfuric clouds). It is the second brightest natural celestial body in the sky after the moon.

The surface of Venus – Venus also experiences sulfuric acid rain. Venus is laden with thousands of active and dormant volcanoes.

Venus is the second closest planet to the mighty sun and is the hottest of all of the planets. It has a metallic iron core with an astonishing diameter of about 6000 kilometres. I have already written about Venus in Chapter 1. It is believed that once, Venus was like earth and was flourishing with liquid water, but then, things went terribly wrong. The volcanoes erupted, dumping Carbon Dioxide gas into the atmosphere, thus polluting the planet. The CO2 gas built up and started trapping the heat from the sun, thus raising the surface temperatures. Today, all of its oceans have boiled of, and its atmosphere is also laden with sulphur gas clouds. Venus is a kind of heaven turned into a kind of hell. No life is believed to exist in the planet because of the extremely harsh conditions. Venus, as we know it, not a cherishing grassland; instead it is a broiling oven, with temperatures enough to melt lead. Venera 13, Venera 14 and Magellan were some of the space crafts sent to explore the unexplored realm of Venus. The water has been evaporated and has reached the atmosphere where it is blown away by the solar wind of the sun. These space crafts somehow managed to take some pictures of Venus’ surface and to also take important measurements before they were completely roasted by the extreme heat. Venus’ atmospheric pressure is 92 times greater than what we experience here on Earth. Venus is the closest planet to earth.

Distance from the sun: 108.2 million kilometres

Surface temperature: About 900 degrees Farenheit

Revolution period: 225 days

Rotation period: 243 days

Tilt of Axis: 177 degrees (According to our point of view, Venus is almost spinning upside – down)

Discovered by: In 1610, Galilieo Galilei became the very first person to point a telescope at Venus.

Speed of revolution: 35.02 kilometres per second

Diameter at the equator: 12,104 kilometres

Surface area: 460.2 million square kilometres

Escape velocity: 10.36 kilometres per second

Mass:

Surface gravity:

Venus spins clockwise unlike the other planets and is the slowest spinning planet in our solar system. Some scientists speculate this theory:- Venus was spinning just like the other planets, but suffered from a serious blow by another large celestial body. This collision was so violent, that the planet started spinning in the opposite direction, but very, very slow – the story goes..

Earth

The Earth is our home. I have given a lengthy description about earth and nature in Chapter 1. Earth and Venus are roughly the same size. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are the 4 terrestrial planets. Our home, the earth, has 66 tectonic plates, and their collisions cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It is not a sphere. The shape of the earth is referred to as ‘Geoid’. It is flattened at the poles and is bulging at the equator. Earth is the biggest of the terrestrial planets and is the fifth largest planet in the solar system. It is currently the only planet in our solar system known to harbour life. Molten rock, iron and nickel make up the outer liquid core of earth. It also has an inner solid core. It is in the sun’s sweet habitable zone. The habitable zone is the place in the aspect of the home star where it is not too hot and not too cold. It is also known as the Goldilock’s zone and this helps to sustain liquid water – one of the essential necessities needed for life. Natural disasters are common in earth. Typhoon Tip is one of the biggest storms ever recorded and Typhoon Haiyan is one of the strongest storms ever recorded. The solid portion of the earth contains the essential nutrient elements along with organic molecules and water in order to sustain life forms in the soil which is ultimately known as the lithosphere. The water of the earth is the part of the hydrosphere. It contains water in all of matter’s three forms:- liquid, solid and gas. All of the water bodies are part of the hydrosphere. The gaseous layers containing several gasses such as oxygen, nitrogen, argon, neon, Carbon Dioxide make up the atmosphere. The places where we find the lithosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere together is known as the biosphere. The biosphere contains all of the life forms and living organisms – even from tiny bacterium to large animals and us too – humans. The earth has 7 continents and 5 oceans which are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia and the Pacific ocean, Atlantic ocean, Indian ocean, Southern ocean and the Arctic ocean in the order of their sizes respectively. A narrow strip of land joining 2 landmasses is known as an Isthmus. A small strip of water body joining two large water bodies such as oceans or seas is known as a strait. The earth is the most dense planet of our solar system. A kind of bacteria known as cyanobacteria polluted the earth with oxygen, and as a result, an ozone layer formed, which is protecting us from the harmful ultra – violet rays of the sun. The drastical swings of the climate and other mass extinctions led to the evolution and extinction of many species including the dinosaurs which dominated the earth millions of years ago. All of this evolution has ultimately ended up in us and our space exploration. The earth has one moon. Now, let us see about it.

The Moon

The moon is the only moon the earth has. It is the closest celestial body to earth. Luna 3 was the very first space craft to orbit the moon, which was launched by the Soviet Union in 1959. Apollo 8 became the very first manned space craft to orbit the moon which was launched by NASA (U.S.A) IN 1968. The moon is tidally locked to earth, which means that it takes the same time for one revolution and rotation, which is about 27.3 days. As a result, only one part of the moon is facing us and the other part is doomed to eternal darkness. The differences in the earth’s speed of rotation and the moon’s revolution plus the tidal forces result in the decrease of speed of the earth’s rotation. Some scientists speculate that one day, the speed of the rotation of earth and the revlution of the moon will match and the moon will go away from the earth. The sun is slowly getting hotter, and the amount of charged particles it emits will increase by that time. So that time, when the speeds of the earth’s rotation and the moon’s revolution matches, the moon will be forced back to plunge at earth. When it crosses the 17000 mile – threshold, it will break into pieces and will form a ring because of the gravity of the earht ripping the moon apart and the small asteroids that had resulted from this breakdown will rain back to earth and will ruin the situation. Okay, so now this is just a theory and it is not sure. There is another theory about the moon’s formation; as we know, the early solar system was a chaotic place. At that time, when earth was very hot from its formation, it was allowed to cool. But in the bad time, another Mars – sized planet, named as Theia, crashed into earth.

This violent and belligerent collision resulted in many fragments orbiting earth, which later condensed to form the moon. This is just a theory, again. We never know what happened really for sure. Evolution shaped our moon, and now, it is big – extremely big. The collisions with several asteroids and comets resulted in the craters. The mountains cast shadows on the moon’s surface.The moon does not host an atmosphere and that makes the absence of life on the moon. Several space crafts have been sent to the moon. The Apollo program was designed to make humans land on the moon and bring them back to earth unscathed and was done by the USA. It was declared by President Kennedy and was a part of the Cold War between the US and the USSR (The Soviet Union). Although Apollo 1 was a disaster, over time, NASA did all they could to gain success. And they did gain success through Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first two people to land on the moon respectively. The earth experienced ice ages over the course of a hundred thousand years which led to the extinction of many species including the woolly mammoths. It is said that the last of these gigantic creatures died from thirst and hunger. As the moon orbits the earth, the interaction of light between the sun, earth and moon results in shadows obscuring the moon. That is why it goes from no moon to cresent moon, then to half moon, then to gibbous moon and then to full moon and vice versa. When the moon is between the earth and sun and the three celestial bodies are aligned, that creates solar eclipses because of the moon completely blocking the light of the sun. The shadow of the moon falls on earth, but special glasses are used to view these eclipses as it may cause harm to bare eyes. When the earth is between the sun and the moon and the three celestial bodies are aligned, then that creates lunar eclipses when the earth’s shadow falls on the moon. The moon is the cause of tides on the earth and also, the moon captivates all of us with its astonishing and charming beauty! Seeing it gleaming in the sky gives us a lot of happiness, bliss and pleasure.

Earth:-

Distance from the sun: about 150 million kilometres

Surface temperature: About 57 degrees Farenheit

Revolution period: 365.25 days (about 1 year)

The moon is the fifth largest moon in the whole solar system and is larger than all of the known dwarf planets.

Rotation period: 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds (about 1 day)

Tilt of Axis: 23.5 degrees

Surface area: 510.1 million square kilometres

Diameter at the equator: 12,742 kilometres

Magnetic field strength: 0.5 Gauss

Speed of revolution: about 30 kilometres per second

Escape velocity: 11.2 kilometres per second

Moon:-

Distance from the sun: About 150 million kilometres

Surface temperature: Day: 127 degrees Celsius, Night: -173 degrees Celsius

Revolution period: 27.3 days

Rotation Period: 27.3

Tilt of axis: 1.5 degrees

Surface area: 38 million square kilometres (It is less than the surface area of the largest continent Asia).

Diameter at the equator: 3474.8 kilometres

Speed of revolution: (around earth) – 1.022 kilometres per second

Distance from earth: 384,400 kilometres

The moon’s magnetic field is weaker than one – thousandth of the strength of the earth’s magnetic field. It is too less powerful and small to generate enough power to have a magnetic field. The moon is composed of oxygen, silicon, iron and magnesium along with manganese, calcium, aluminium, chromium and titanium in very small trace amounts. Metallic materials are abundant in Mercury, while it also has silicate materials. On the other hand, Venus’s atmospheric composition consists of carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen along with hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide, molecular oxygen and carbon monoxide in trace amounts. With CO2 as the major gas, Mars also has other gasses such as molecular oxygen, molecular nitrogen and argon in trace amounts.

Now, in the next section of Chapter 2, we will see about Mars

Mars

Mars is possibly the only place where we can establish colonies, at least in the near future, that is. But yet, it does not come cheaply. We need to toil hard at it without any turmoil in order to achieve the feat. Mars is believed to have had liquid water a few billion years ago, but we are not sure where did all of the water go. Some scientists speculate that because Mars does not have a magnetic field, the solar wind made all of the water vanish. Mars doesn’t support a great, thick atmosphere like ours. Instead, it is laden with a very thin atmosphere, with Carbon Dioxide as the major gas. The other gases are present only in trace amounts. That is why we need to also take oxygen cylinders and huge tanks plus surplus amounts of water if we want to go to Mars. Mars has a hot liquid core with iron mainly and also with sulphur and other element sin trace amounts. Interior cooling of Mars’ core made its magnetic field to collapse and disappear, and its atmosphere was blown away by the sun’s powerful solar wind. Today, its atmosphere is very thin. SpaceX, an organisation found by Elon Musk, has planned to put humans on Mars in a couple of years. And it is also extremely important to mention that Mars is one of the most explored planets in the solar system. It also has many polar ice caps which contain a lot of water. The Curiosity rover, launched by NASA on 2012 has also found organic molecules which are essentially the building blocks of life. That is why scientists think life is possible on Mars. Mars is very similar to earth, with the length of one day almost equal between the two planets. But it is much smaller than earth. If we combine all the land area of earth, then the surface area that results will approximately be equal to the surface area of Mars. None of the four terrestrial planets mentioned above have rings. We have also collected many samples of soil from Mars. The rovers which were put there, also study the rocks of the planet, which are believed to be of red colour because of the high iron content in them. (Iron rusts). That is why Mars is referred to as the Red Planet. Earth is composed highly of water, and thus shows a swanky and gaudy blue hue and hence the name, blue planet. The huge variety of colours seen on Mars captivates and attracts us through its dazzling beauty. What is more, is that many dormant volcanoes endow the planet. It has the tallest volcanoes in the whole solar syste

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m. One such volcano is three times higher than Mount Everest, which has a peak of about 8848 metres and is the tallest mountain on earth! Sojourner was the very first rover to land and rove on Planet Mars. Spirit and Opportunity were two rovers which landed on Mars. They were launched by NASA. The landing date was in 2004. Spirit stopped working in 2010 because of being trapped in sand, but Opportunity was on fire. It was originally designed to work for about 90 days, but instead, it kept on going for a mind – boggling 15 years, until it stopped and got destroyed because of a sand storm on Mars. Well, it did not actually get destroyed! It did, in fact, get out of the obnoxious ordeal unscathed, but it seems like its battery was destroyed. It was harnessing the power of the sun with its solar panels, but after the storm, the solar panels became coated with dust and sand. It blocked the sunlight, until the rover got blacked out and it entered hibernation. NASA was desperately trying to establish communication with the rover endowed with splendour and grandeur, until it eventually gave up and declared the end of the embellished mission. Now, let us see about the historic milestone achieved by ISRO (The Indian Space Research Organisation) by sending a space craft to explore the uncharted territory of space science, by making special and pulchritudinous discoveries in the planet!

An odyssey with space crafts

Introduction:-

We humans are totally restless and curious. No matter how much knowledge we get, we have this insatiable hunger and thirst for more and more knowledge. We always want to learn more about our solar system’s planets, our star and beyond. But space is so hostile and dangerous that we, ourselves cannot go beyond our earth to see and relish the planets’ own dazzling nature which is also a little bit weird, but instead of us, we can send robots and machines into space to study space. And that is what we are doing. We just cannot sit at one place and be short of knowledge. Knowledge is very important for us to tackle our future. This is why we are launching space crafts into space.

What is a space craft?:-

A space craft is just a machine or a robot which studies mysterious baffling space and transmits the information to earth’s sensitive deep space radio telescopes. A space craft has many parts:- Parts that detect cosmic rays, intensity of light, radiation, temperature, sound, radio waves etc. It also has instruments to see different objects in different frequencies and types of light, like Gamma – ray, X – ray, Ultraviolet, Infared, microwave, radio wave and visible light. It also has a radio antenna to receive commands and signals from earth. It also has an on – board computer to process all of the collected and received data. It is covered with a golden – like gleaming fabric endowed with a sheet which protects that space craft from temperature fluctuation. This is the brief definition that explains the basic properties of a space craft.

The reason for launching a space craft:-

A space craft helps us in many ways. For instance, it helps us to gain knowledge and know more. We can use this precious and helpful knowledge in the future to protect ourselves from certain dangers. Space crafts also detect asteroids and comets which are charging towards earth in a fury. With the help of space crafts, we can know about these dangers in advance and can warn and prepare ourselves to face these hazardous dangers. And we humans have a grave danger of being cooked and fried by the sun, which is slowly heating up. The brightness of our star is increasing, and so, before the sun gains its super – growling form, we should take refuge in another planet. As space crafts study other planets in our solar system and beyond and beam that information to us, we will come to know about some earth – like planets which is in the hospitable zone of its star which fit our race perfectly and precisely. So, space crafts help us to succeed in this hectic and perplexing problem. Now, I am going to take on an epic odyssey to our solar system and beyond through this text. Now, you are stepping in our spaceship. So, let us start our voyage!

Mangalyaan 1:

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched this missions to the planet Mars. In was launched by the popular, famous and preferable Pollar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket. It was launched in 2013 and entered orbit on September 2014. The rocket launch took place in November 2013. The school children also watched the spectacular and grand launch. The space craft had-

1, Star sensors and gyroscopes. To keep the path of the space craft precise.

2, A sensitive antenna to communicate with earth.

3, Solar panels to capture the sun’s solar energy.

4, A liquid engine propelled with a small amount of fuel.

5, A lithium ion battery which helps the space craft to work on its own without our commands.

This was a budget mission. India had to use less amount of money to build a capacitated space craft. The scientists and engineers used several complex parts to build the space craft in an ultra – clean room.

While launching the space craft with PSLV, the space craft did not get the needed velocity to directly escape the earth’s gravitational pull. The only rocket which could do this task is the mighty titan GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle), but the scientists could not rely on that rocket because it was still being developed by the engineers and scientists. Also, it is important to mention that the earth and Mars were revolving the sun in different speeds. Their closest point to each other comes only in the consecutive 26 months, and so, they could not afford to wait. Even to reach the closest approach, with the PSLV rocket, the space craft had to travel a mind blowing distance of 650 million kilometres and it took 300 days!(At that time, a space – race between India and China was going on, but the Chinese mission failed, and India could not help themselves to let this golden opportunity go miss.) So what must they do? They had to orbit the earth several times to gain velocity in order to escape the gravitational pull of our earth. The PSLV rocket ejected the satellite into the first orbit successfully. But the real challenge was looming and lurking ahead. Many deep space antennae were tracking the trajectory of the rocket – Goldstone, Canberra, JPL NASA, Port Blair, Indonesia, Brunei, Byalalu etc. But when the rocket started its pilgrimage over the magnificent South Pacific Ocean, there was no ground station to track it. This is the crucial stage of the mission when space craft Mangalyaan is separated from the rocket. Without communication at this stage, the mission would certainly fail. After a hectic period of questioning, debating and calculating, a solution was found. Two large ships would be placed in the Pacific loaded with sensitive antennae to return valuable data to the mission control, but despite the period of bad weather and rain, one of the ships could not reach its destination on time, and so, the date of launch was desperately postponed. They shifted the date of launch to November 5. The mission control room which monitors the actions of the space craft 24x7 is located in the Silicon Valley of India. The space craft’s scientific instruments and cameras were carefully designed in Ahmedabad. The space craft is launched from Sriharikota. And the town Byalalu located in the outskirts of the Garden City has India’s most sensitive antennae. As the rocket unfolds and writes history, it plunges and races into the atmosphere of earth. The successful separation of the first three rocket stages was assured by the ground stations in Sriharikota, Port Blair, Brunei and Indonesia. The rocket started lurking and roaming in the Pacific ocean for 10 minutes with lost telemetry with the mission control, but soon, the two ships came into act. The first ship will assure the ignition of the rocket engine tenaciously and the second ship will confirm separation of the space craft. All of the acts of the rocket gone as per planned and the Indian Mars Orbiter Mangalyaan successfully entered the elliptical orbit around the earth. Everyone was jubilant! After a few days, the scientists made the space craft boost its speed with its engine, increasing the apogee and perigee of the space craft. But even after a couple of burns, the velocity of the space craft was not enough to escape the gravitational pull of the earth and so, the scientists had to burn the engine a few more times. In one of the burns, the engine did not perform well and thus ceasing the required velocity to exist. So, space craft Mangalyaan’s engine had to burn another time to achieve the required velocity to escape the earth’s sphere of influence. After a long and tense six burns, the space craft was finally ready to leave the earth. Everyone were in a bliss. But even though India celebrated its launch success, many countries remained sceptical about this mission till the actual launch happened. But India clearly manifested to the other countries that ISRO is rapidly moving towards Mars in reality. Many other countries were tracking Mangalyaan with powerful antennae. Mangalyaan was ejected towards Mars after six engine burns to achieve the speed needed to escape the immense and intense bewildering gravitational pull of earth. And as a memory, it sends its first picture of India by its camera. But as it hurtles towards Mars at the perplexing and surprising speed of 20 kilometres per hour, its engine was shut off but the speed of the space craft would not change; Because space has no friction. Mangalyaan was ready to withstand frigid temperatures of -150 degree Celsius, as it moved away from the incandescent sun. Before launch, the space craft undergone many kinds of tests to withstand high vibration, temperature variation etc. (The minimal power required for the space craft to function is 800 watts. Mangalyaan was built in 15 months in a cost of 74 million dollars. The cost was so cheap! So, for the next 300 days, Mangalyaan hurtled towards Mars at a speed of 20 kilometres per second. So now, the real challenge is looming ahead. Now, when the mission started, Mangalyaan had to increase its velocity and we saw why and how, but now, its titanic task is to slow down. But there are no breaks to slow down the space craft. The same liquid engine which had functioned 300 days before had to restart now. The scientists and engineers had to turn the space craft in the opposite direction and then fire the liquid engine in the contrary direction in order to slow down.

Now, this was the most crucial phase of the whole mission. Many expensive and sumptuous Mars missions have failed at this hectic stage. 41 hours before insertion into the Martian orbit, the ISRO geniuses tested the old engine, and at that time, the engine performed without any technical glitch. With any vessel raging towards a planet at a high speed, the vessel should be slowed down. When this phase of the mission fails, the space craft would either crash into the planet or would fly past the planet and will start to roam the unknown mysterious territory of interplanetary space. But Mangalyaan was safe from this particular hazardously dangerous ditch dug by interplanetary space, but still, a huge ditch was waiting ahead. When Mangalyaan slows down and enters within 500 kilometres of the Martian surface, it gains its orbit, but it has to go behind Mars. At that time, its solar panels will be unable to get the 800 watt energy the space craft needs as Mars blocks sunlight. (Fact: The solar energy that we get on Mars is just 40% to 60% of what we receive here on earth). With deficiency of power, Mangalyaan has to depend on its lithium – ion battery and has to function on auto – mode, because it would not receive the signals from mission control as it goes behind Mars for 25 minutes. When its lithium – ion battery is switched on, Mangalyaan is still in contact with mission control. When India’s Mars orbiter Mangalyaan goes behind Mars, the phase of the mission “occult start” begins. At that time, Sir A S Kiran Kumar was the chairman of ISRO. He says, “Prepare for the worst, hope for the best”. And yes, it is true; With so much of negativity, that is the only thing that we can really say. In this phase of the mission, our honourable Prime minister of India Narendra Modi was watching the hectic and tense situation in the mission control not virtually, but by coming to that spot. The news of success or failure will be only received from America’s Goldstone and Australia’s Canberra. The other ground stations would not receive any signals from Mangalyaan. But after 25 minutes…. Mangalyaan re – appears from the other side of Mars and contacts mission control. Phase of the mission, “Eclipse ends”. Everyone was jubilant. India became the 4th country in the world to reach Mars, first country in Asia to reach Mars, and the first country in the world to reach Mars in just its first attempt. After that, our respectful Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi gave a lecture to all of the 135 crore Indians. He encouraged the ISRO scientists and celebrated the success of India. Now, this mission proved that India is not weak in comparison with America, Russia or any other advanced country in the world! India can achieve anything!!! After some time, data from the space craft started pouring in. It took many photos of Mars from its colour cool camera which was designed in Ahmedabad. Mangalyaan discovered that sand storms can rise hundreds of kilometres above the Martian surface. Below are the pictures captured by Mangalyaan.

Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)

Mars has two moons:- They are Phobos and Deimos. Phobos is located too close to Mars and it is speculated that it may crash into Mars one day. Deimos is relatively farther away. These moons are potato – shaped.

Phobos:-

Deimos:-

Mars:-

Distance from the sun: 217.44 million kilometres

Surface temperature: The surface temperatures in Mars are extreme in the morning and in the night. On average, the temperatures are about -81 degrees Farenheit.

Revolution period: 687 days

Rotation period: 24 hours 40 minutes

Tilt of Axis: about 25 degrees

Surface area: 144.8 million square kilometres

Diameter at the equator: 6779 kilometres

Discovered by: Galileo Galilei became the very first telescope to see Mars through an astronomical object (a telescope).

Speed of revolution: 26.5 kilometres per second

Escape Velocity: 5.03 kilometres per second

Phobos:

Distance from the sun: about 1.5 Astronomical Units

Surface temperature: (Phobos does not have any atmosphere) – temperatures fluctuate between -4 degrees Celsius and -112 degrees Celsius.

Revolution period: (around Mars) 7 hours 39 minutes

Rotation Period: 1.026 days

Tilt of axis: 0 degrees

Surface area: 1548.3 square kilometres

Diameter at the equator: 22.533 kilometres

Speed of revolution: (around Mars) – 2.138 kilometres per second

Distance from Mars: 9376 kilometres

Discovered by: Asaph Hall discovered the two moons of Mars on August 1877.

Deimos:

Distance from the sun: about 1.5 Astronomical units

Surface temperature: about -40 Celsius

Revolution period:    30.3 hours

Rotation Period: 30.5 hours

Tilt of axis: 0.9 degrees to Mars’ equator (Inclination)

Surface area: 495. 15 square kilometres

Diameter at the equator: 12.4 kilometres

Speed of revolution: (around Mars) – 1.36 kilometres per second

Distance from Mars: 23,458 kilometres

Discovered by: Asaph Hall discovered the two moons of Mars. Phobos was discovered on 17th August 1877. Deimos was discovered on 12th August 1877.

Deimos is one of the smallest moons in the whole solar system.

Venus and Mars don’t have magnetic fields. Mercury and Venus don’t have moons. Mercury has a weak magnetic field. The measurements of the magnetic fields are written here according to their strength at the surface of the planets.

After Mars, there comes the asteroid belt. It is located between Jupiter and Mars. It is a swarm of asteroids which are left over from the formation of the terrestrial planets. They orbit the Sun. Sometimes, these asteroids can be thrown out of orbit because of collisions and gravitational disturbances. Sometimes, they can head into the outer solar system, and sometimes into the inner solar system where the 4 terrestrial planets exist. The asteroids are the only leftover remnants of the planet – formation which endure till today. One such asteroid is accused by some scientists for having killed the dinosaurs, but other scientists think that various climate changes along with mass extinctions killed the dinosaurs. The birds are the only living descendants of the dinosaurs. Asteroids are made up of various materials such as dust, rocks and boulders. When they hit planets, they can cause massive destruction. And that is what we call as mass extinction, as it results in the extinction of several species. Several mass extinctions have happened on earth. Tardigrades are extremely small creatures living on earth for about 500 million years. They have survived all of the five recent mass extinctions. They are so tough that they can go on and on for years without water. Oh, and water is also known by the peculiar and strange name – ‘Dihydrogen Monoxide’