День космонавтики.

12 апреля 1961 произошло чрезвычайно важное событие: впервые в космос полетел человек - Юрий Гагарин. Данное событие потрясло весь мир.

Давайте и мы узнаем чуть больше о космосе, о солнечной системе, о планетах...

What is the solar system? (солнечная система).

The Solar System is made up of the Sun and the celestial objects  (небесные объекты)that are bound to it by its gravity: the eight planets and five dwarf planets, their 173 known moons, and billions of small bodies, such as asteroids, icy kuiper belt objects, comets, meteoroids, and interplanetary dust.
Although the farthest planet is over four billion kilometers away from the earth, all eight planets can be seen in the night sky, using a telescope or binoculars - as long as you know where to look!
 

Mercury.

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and the smallest planet of the solar system. Mercury is 57,900,000 km away from the sun. 

         

Venus.

Venus is a very similar size to the Earth. Venus is probably the planet that is most similar to Earth in many ways, although it is much drier than Earth and its atmosphere is ninety times as dense (плотный).
It is the hottest planet in the solar system, with surface temperatures over 400 °C.
Venus is named after the Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty.

 

Earth.

Earth is the largest and densest of the four inner planets (внутренняя). It is the only planet known to have life. Its liquid (жидкость) hydrosphere (oceans and seas) is unique among the terrestrial planets.
It has one natural satellite (спутник), the Moon, which is the only large satellite of a terrestrial planet in the Solar System. 

Mars is the red planet.

Mars is smaller than both Earth and Venus. The first spacecraft to visit Mars was Mariner 4 in 1965.  Mars is named after the Greek God of War. It is sometimes also called the red planet, because most of its surface is covered in reddish rocks, dust and soil.(пыль и почва)

Jupiter.

Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system. It is a gas giant, rather than a terrestrial planet, and is made largely of hydrogen and helium.
Jupiter was first visited by Pioneer 10 in 1973.

Saturn is the ringed planet.

Saturn is distinguished (знаменит) by its extensive ring system, but otherwise has several similarities to Jupiter. They are both gas giants. Saturn's rings are extraordinarily thin: though they're 250,000 km or more in diameter they're less than one kilometer thick. 

Uranus.

Uranus is the lightest of the outer (дальних)  planets, a type of gas giant that some scientists call an ice giant. As you can imagine from this nickname its atmosphere is very cold - the coldest in the solar system. The wind on Uranus can blow at over 500 miles per hour!

Neptune.

Neptune is the outermost (самый дальний) planet of the solar system. It is slightly smaller than Uranus. Neptune has also been visited by only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, on August  25 1989.
The weather is very extreme on Neptune - the wind on Neptune is the strongest on any planet, and blows at 1,300 miles per hour - as fast as a jet fighter plane.

Pluto and the other dwarf planets.

Pluto used to be classed as a planet of the solar system, but is now considered to be a dwarf planet, and a part of the Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt is a vast collection of dwarf planets, asteroids, rocks, ice and dust that circle the sun, that extends for millions of miles beyond Neptune, on the outskirts of the solar system.