The planet Earth facts for kids

The Solar System includes the Sun, the Earth (where you are now!) and all of the other planets, asteroids and comets that go around and around it.

You may think that the Earth is a pretty big place, but the Earth isn’t even the biggest planet in the Solar System. The biggest planet is Jupiter – you could fit 1,321 Earths inside Jupiter. The Sun is even bigger than Jupiter – it would take 1.3 million planets the size of Earth to fill the same volume as the Sun.

Top 10 facts

Everything in the Solar System revolves around the Sun. The Sun is a star – a massive ball of hot gas that gives off light and heat.
There are eight planets that orbit around the Sun.
The closest planet to the Sun is Mercury, and the farthest away is Neptune.
The biggest planet is Jupiter, and the smallest planet is Mercury.
The Earth is the only planet that we know has creatures living on it.
The Earth rotates as it orbits the Sun. It takes one day to complete a rotation.
It takes 365 days for the Earth to complete one circuit around the Sun. We call this a year.
The Sun is just one of hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy that we live in, which is called the Milky Way. The whole Universe has at least 100 billion galaxies in it.
You are held onto the surface of the Earth by a force called gravity. This is the same force that keeps the Earth and the other planets orbiting around the Sun.
Not everything in the Solar system orbits directly around the Sun. The Moon orbits around the Earth.