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 long a year is on that planet. A year meaning how long it takes for that planet to travel around the sun. The graph above shows the length of a year for that planets. The planets are listed in order of their distance from the Sun.
The time it takes for each plant to travel around the sun differ significantly. Earth has one of the shorter year lengths with 365 days. It’s trippy to think that if Earth had the same year lengths as Neptune or Pluto, no one would live long enough to experience a full year of seasons.
Planets Year Length 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 year length in days. 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.
