Solar System

The Dome of the sky contains all kinds of information about the night sky and includes some interactive sky maps for different times and locations.
Also take a look at the interactive sky charts on this constellations page.

I am typing as a guest at this website, but I have noted the address to add to my own favourites, and also to add as a hyper link on my own website which is an educational resource.

Please note that you may experience some problems printing these pages because of the black background. If you have difficulties, a text version of each of the planet pages is available. Links are provided in the margin of the planet pages.

The details can be found at Views of the Solar System.

Yes. Uranus has its axis titled by around 90 degrees which means it almost rolls around the Sun as it orbits.

I'm afraid that the site has been experiencing a few technical difficulties beyond my control. I hope to get it sorted out as soon as possible. Thank you for pointing out the problem.

1. Why does Mars have 4 seasons like Earth?
2. The lack of ________ causes Mercury to be heavily cratered.
3. Which planet is considered a "brown dwarf" and what does it mean?
4. What happens to Neptune every 248 years?
5. Why is Titan important to our understanding of space?
6. Why is Miranda important to our understanding of life on Earth?

Wow, lots of questions. Okay, here we go:

1. Planets have seasons because the axis of their rotation is not at the same angle to the axis of their orbit. This means that when the planet is tilted towards the sun, one hemisphere is generally hotter (summer) and then half an orbit later, it is tilted away, so generally colder.

2. There are two main reasons. Firstly the lack of an atmosphere means that small meteors hit the surface, rather than burning up, and also existing craters are not weathered by atmospheric erosion. Secondly, Mercury's surface is very old so it keeps a geological record of any impacts that have occurred. In this sense it is the lack of volcanic activity which causes us to see heavy cratering. I think that probably the atmosphere is more important.

3. A brown dwarf is a big ball of hydrogen which is not quite large enough to collapse under its own gravity, start nuclear fusion and become a star. Jupiter is sometimes considered to be the brown dwarf of our solar system.

4. It becomes the most distant planet in our solar system for around twenty years. This is because Pluto has an elliptical orbit which takes it closer to the Sun than Neptune every once in a while.

5. Although Titan is classified as a moon, it is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto. Titan's air is rich in hydrocarbons, the building blocks for amino acids necessary for the formation of life. Scientists believe that Titan's environment may be similar to that of the Earth's before life began putting oxygen into the atmosphere. Also, because of its thick atmosphere, we have no idea what the surface is like.

6. Miranda is a small satellite of Uranus but its surface is unlike anything in the solar system with features that are jumbled together in a haphazard fashion. Miranda consists of huge fault canyons, terraced layers and a mixture of old and young surfaces. I can't see why it is important to understanding of life on Earth (I would say Titan is more important than Miranda).

I don't know what to suggest - Neptune is little more than a big blue ball of gas. The only noticeable features are the Great Dark Spot and the odd fluffy white cloud here and there.
More pictures of Neptune can be found at the NSSDC Photo Gallery.