Does your school seem like a big place compared to your home?  What about your city?  When you compare your city to the rest of your state or the rest of the country, it doesn’t seem quite so big, does it?  Our planet, Earth, is just one of eight planets that make up our solar system.  That solar system is just a small part of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is just part of the entire universe.  It is hard to even imagine, isn’t it!

What is a solar system?  A solar system is a group of planets that orbit or revolve around a star.  In our solar system, the planets revolve around the Sun.  Scientists believe that our solar system was created 4.5 billion years ago!  Science has taught us so much about outer space already, however there is much that we still need to learn about the solar system in which we live, and about the universe beyond it.  It is important for us to understand how unique our planet is in it’s ability to support life (or is it?).  Maybe having a better understanding of that fact will make us more conscious of the way we treat our precious planet.

Some of the concepts that you will learn about in your class this year are the orbit of the earth and the phases of the moon.  You will learn about the order of the planets, and the differences between them.  The solar system is a complicated and amazing topic.  Hopefully, you will find information on this website to help you in your classroom work, and information to answer your own questions about the planets.