Question

The four planets closest to the Sun are called
1. Terrestrial planets
2. Giant planets
3. Dwarf planets
4. Gas planets

Answer 1

Correct Answer - Option 1 : Terrestrial planets

The correct answer is terrestrial planets.

• The four planets closest to the sun - Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are called terrestrial planets.
• These planets are solid and rocky like Earth.
• The Jovian Planets or Outer Planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune because they are all gigantic compared to Earth, and they have gaseous nature.
• Planet
  • A planet must meet three criteria-
    • It must orbit the Sun.
    • It must be big enough for gravity to squash it into a round ball.
    • It must have cleared other objects out of the way in its orbital neighbourhood.

• The planets of our solar system are divisible into two groups
• The planets of the inner circle (as they lie between the sun and the belt of asteroids) or the inner planets or the ‘terrestrial planets’ 
• The planets of the outer circle or outer planets or the ‘gas giant planets’ or Jupiter-like Jovian planets.
• The inner-circle consists of four planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars having smaller and denser bodies while the outer circle comprises four planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune having a larger size and less dense materials and have a thick atmosphere, mostly of helium and hydrogen
• Jovian planets are more like the sun than terrestrial planets.
• If we take Jupiter, the biggest planet, as the centre of the planets of our solar system, the size of the planets becomes smaller as we go away from either side of Jupiter (Mars being the exception).
• An Astronomical Unit (AU) is the average distance between Earth and the Sun, which is about 150 million km.