The Giants

Key facts

Jupiter

Jupiter is the king of the planets – more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. It is a ball of mostly hydrogen and helium with colourful cloud stripes and the Great Red Spot, a storm wider than Earth.

Saturn

Saturn is famous for its rings: billions of chunks of ice and rock, from dust grains to house-sized boulders. The rings are about 280,000 km wide but in most places only about 10 metres thick.

Uranus

Uranus is an ice giant that rolls around the Sun on its side, probably knocked over by an enormous collision long ago. Methane gas in its atmosphere gives it a pale blue-green colour.

Neptune

Neptune is the most distant planet: a deep-blue ice giant with the fastest winds in the Solar System. It was the first planet found by mathematics before anyone saw it.

Quiz

1. Which planet would float in a (gigantic) bathtub?

   • ☐ Jupiter
   • ☐ Saturn
   • ☐ Uranus
   • ☐ Neptune

2. How was Neptune first found?

   • ☐ By accident
   • ☐ By a space probe
   • ☐ By mathematics predicting where it should be
   • ☐ Ancient people always knew

3. Which planet rolls around the Sun on its side?

   • ☐ Saturn
   • ☐ Neptune
   • ☐ Uranus
   • ☐ Jupiter

Find it in the sky

Use the Sky Finder at seethestar.com. Tick what you find and write when you saw it.