Sometimes it seems like the sun☀️ is moving. It is not the sun that moves; it is the planets that move. We move, for example, and Mars moves also. Within one to two months, it can move quite far from one part of the sky to the other.
Mars is a planet that has seasons like we do. Not all planets do. Mars actually had water (we found that out in the 1950s and 1960s). Could there have been life? Mars also has two small moons🌕🌖. We have one.
As you know, the rover that recently landed on Mars, Perseverance, made a huge breakthrough by landing on such a rough terrain. It was a first time event that will mark history. It happened last year in August.
It gets so cold on Mars it can be like -100 Fahrenheit. The air is very thin. Your weight on Mars would be one third of what it is here. Mars is called the red planet. There is no “blue” or water anymore.
Mars is actually small. It’s only one fourth of the diameter on earth. It has low gravity. However, billions of years ago Mars was covered in water. So what happened? On earth, wherever water appears, life appears🌊🐃.
Was there life on Mars that disappeared and dried up? The dinosaurs on earth became extinct 65,000,000 plus years ago. The rover, again, Perseverance is searching to see if there was ever life on Mars.
The mission is using a special device to explore the soil. Perseverance will leave tubes of soil on Mars for eight years and then bring them back to earth to detect if there was ever life there.
The sky in Mars is kind of pinkish. Mars is just one sibling planet, though. There are many other planets, so we can begin by looking at planets nearest to the sun🌞. Mercury and Venus are close by.
One difference between Venus and Mercury is that Mercury can get really hot and cold at the same time. There can be a 1000 degree difference between night and day. Mercury is not even the hottest planet. Venus is the hottest.
It’s not as close to the sun as Mercury, but it’s hotter at times. Venus is always 860 F. It doesn’t change. The air is thick; it’s like being half a mile down in the ocean. The pressure is intense. NASA observes Venus from orbit through a radar map.
Most of Venus consists of rolling planes, and it’s kind of like Iowa. There are no oceans. But there are volcanoes. Venus is sometimes called the sister of the earth, but it is incredibly different.
Which planet would you want to go to first, if the time ever comes to send humans to other planets? Let’s take a look at some more planets near the earth. Saturn is famous for its rings around it. Jupiter🪐 is famous for the clouds.
Juno is a mission that’s orbiting Jupiter by NASA. There is at least one mission to every single planet in the solar system. They are all robots; we haven’t sent a human yet. The storms on Jupiter go on for decades and hundreds of years. We suspect there was a storm even going on for millions!
That is a little background on our solar system in our galaxy, the Milky Way🌌. Marvel at all the Lord has done. There are about 125 billion galaxies in the observable universe that we know of so far. But I’m sure there’s more! I believe it’s infinite and that there are multiverses.
The Milky Way is just one galaxy. Scientists estimate that there may be tens of billions of solar systems in our galaxy, alone, perhaps as many as 100 billion. Think about that. Ponder on God’s grandeur! Never doubt his power and magnificence. He holds the galaxies and stars in place; he will hold you together also!
Here is the course offered by Liberty Science center in New Jersey as part of the Varsity Tutors StarCourse series:
About Zina
Zina Hermez authored the best selling book, Not Without God: A Story of Survival. She’s been featured in numerous articles, guest posts, podcasts, websites, newsletters, and magazines. Recently she was featured on ESPN’s ‘Solutions from the Huddle’ broadcast. Zina’s written hundreds of articles and has taught students from all over the world spanning many different backgrounds and cultures. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Suite T blog and Southern Writers magazine among other places. She writes on faith, science, and overcoming adversity. Her goal is to help others. You can connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, or Twitter.
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