Our planets, the earth, has eight neighbours. Together they make a family of nine planets which travel around the sun. We call the sun, and all the space bodies that whirl around it, the solar system. Besides the sun and the planets, the solar system includes MOONS, MINI-PLANETS called ASTEROIDS, and COMETS.
The word PLANET comes from the Greek word PLANETES, which means WANDERER.
COMETS are rather like huge dirty snowballs. Most stay out on the edge of the solar system, but a few travel close to the sun. These comets grow gas and dust tails, millions of killometers long, when the suns heat starts to melt them.
An ORBIT is the path of a planet around the sun, or a moon around a planet. The planets all have different orbits. Mercury is the closet planet to the sun. Pluto is usually the farthest away.
Millions of asteroids orbits the sun, in a belt between Mars and Jupiter. Some are like grains of sand. Others are as big as houses. A few ar the size of England
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