Earth in space

A planet is a huge round object made of rock, gas and ice. Our solar system is made up of eight planets that travel around a massive star called the sun, plus many smaller moons and millions of even smaller space rocks called asteroids and comets.

The sun gives out light and heat, so when part of the Earth faces the sun, it’s daytime and when it’s turned away, it’s night-time.

Night Moon Sun Day Solar system

Earth is the fifth-largest planet in our solar system. It’s the only planet where animals and plants can survive because it’s not too hot or cold and there’s a lot of water on the surface.

Earth is nearly 150 million kilometres away from the sun and the sun is about one million times bigger than the Earth!

It takes Earth 365 days, a whole year, to travel around the sun. This is called Earth’s orbit. As it travels, the Earth spins on an imaginary tilted line called an axis.

Orbit

Exosphere

Thermosphere

Mesosphere

Stratosphere

Troposphere

What’s the weather?

In the troposphere, aeroplanes fly, clouds are formed and all of the Earth’s weather takes place.

Weather conditions change all the time and from place to place, and the sun plays a big part in this.

It’s sunny when the sun warms up the air so it’s dry and bright. It’s cloudy when the sun warms up the water from lakes, rivers and the sea. Tiny water droplets rise into the air to form clouds .

Weather can be windy, foggy or stormy. There can suddenly be extreme conditions like a hurricane or heatwave, or you might even see a rainbow!

It’s rainy when these water droplets get bigger and become too heavy to float. They fall to the ground as raindrops. It’s snowy when the clouds get so cold the water droplets turn into ice crystals and fall as snowflakes.