Solar System Reading Comprehension

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Solar system with planets orbiting the sun

📚 Vocabulary

Planet: A large object that orbits around a star

Orbit: The path an object takes as it travels around another object in space

Moon: A natural object that orbits around a planet

Star: A huge ball of hot gas that gives off light and heat

Asteroid: A rocky object that orbits the Sun, smaller than a planet

Solar System: The Sun and all the objects that orbit around it

🌌 Reading Passage

Our solar system is made up of the Sun and all the objects that orbit around it. The Sun is a star - a massive ball of hot gas that provides light and heat to everything in our solar system.

There are eight planets that orbit the Sun. The four planets closest to the Sun are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. These are called the inner planets and they are made mostly of rock. The four outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These are much larger and are made mostly of gas.

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only planet we know of that has life. It has one moon that orbits around it. Some planets have many moons - Jupiter has over 80 moons!

Between Mars and Jupiter, there is a region called the asteroid belt. This area contains thousands of asteroids - rocky objects that are much smaller than planets. Scientists believe these asteroids are leftover pieces from when the solar system was formed billions of years ago.