8 Planets – The Solar System Game

Create your own solar system! Learn the names of our planets while having fun. When you’re finished being creative print out your masterpiece! Great for kids learning to use the mouse or for learning our 8 planets.

The Solar System is the gravity-bound system of the Sun and the objects surrounding it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects orbiting the Sun directly, the eight planets are the largest, the rests are smaller objects, the dwarf planets, and the small bodies of the Solar System. Of the objects orbiting the Sun indirectly—natural satellites—two are bigger than Mercury’s smallest planet.

The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago due to the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular interstellar cloud. The vast majority of the system’s mass is in the Sun, with the majority of the remaining mass in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, are terrestrial planets, composed primarily of rock and metal. The four outer planets are giant planets, which are considerably larger than the terrestrial ones.

The two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, consisting mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outer planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants, composed mostly of substances with relatively high melting points compared to hydrogen and helium, called volatiles, such as water, ammonia, and methane. All eight planets have almost circular orbits within an almost flat disk called the ecliptic.