The Milky Way Galaxy is home to our solar system. In our solar system, 8 planets rotate around the Sun. The planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto was classified as a planet prior to 2006, but now is considered a “dwarf planet”. An interesting way to compare the planets is by looking at how many moons each has. The graph above shows the planet and how many moons they have. The planets are listed in order of their distance from the Sun.
Earth is the only planet with one moon. Although one moon is better than zero (sorry Mercury and Venus), the night sky would be pretty dazzling with more. Saturn really hit the jackpot with 82 moons! 82!!!
The number of moons planets have range for 0 – 82. The exact breakdown can be seen in the graph above.
Planets Moons Graph Notes:
The x-axis (horizontal part of the graph) shows the planet name in order from the sun ~ Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. The y-axis (vertical part of the graph) shows the planets number of moons. Dwarf planets: a celestial body resembling a small planet but lacking certain technical criteria that are required for it to be classed as such. Milky Way: The galaxy that contains our Solar System. The name describes the galaxy’s appearance from Earth. A hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. Sun: A star which is located at the center of our solar system.
