Criteria 2 - Research for Flash Game (Astronomy)

Research on astronomy for my Flash game...

For my flash game on astronomy I plan to use the three closest planets to the sun: Mercury, Venus and Earth...


Mercury



First interesting fact about Mercury is its most relevant to my flash game, Mercury is in fact the closest planet to the Sun in our solar system. Surprisingly mankind has known about its existence since ancient times of 300 BC, the Greeks even referring to it as, Apollo and Hermes (which mean morning and evening star). Unlike Earth and other planets in our solar system, Mercury has no known moon or satellites orbiting it, 1 day there is comparable to 58 on Earth and it only takes 88 days to orbit the Sun.


Venus



Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun, and strangely enough it is the hottest among all of the planets surrounding our Sun, even more so than Mercury which is the closest. The reason Venus is so hot is because its atmosphere is predominantly composed f carbon dioxide which is a major greenhouse gas, meaning that it traps the Suns' heat in its atmosphere like an oven. Due to Venus being so hot it cannot sustain liquids like water that evaporate at such high temperatures. Venus is very similar to Earth in both size (it's 95% the size of Earth) and density. Venus is also another planet with no known satellites or moons.


Earth



First fact about Earth is... It is the planet you're living on right now, along with every other species. Earth is the third closest planet to the Sun and it is the fifth largest in our solar system, losing out only to the Gas Giants: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Even after many years of research and exploration, Earth is still the only planet known to harbor life on it (once again, us!) and for the most part is covered in water. As you mostly know by now, Earth has  season: Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. These seasons are caused by the Earth axis of rotation tilting 23 degrees, and have a drastic change on the weather and climate (relating to changes temperatures).


The Sun



Our Sun has inspired mankind to create many mythologies that almost all cultures across the world have adopted at some point. This includes the Egyptians, Chinese, Native Americans, Aztecs and Japanese (even worshiping it as a God). The Sun is actually a star meaning that it is a colossal mass of burning gases that bind together under it's incredible gravity, this comparison seems a little far'fetched at first thought considering one can see stars at night unlike the Sun and they appear tiny and in great numbers covering the entire. The reasons for this is because even though many of these stars are relatively the same size as ours or larger, they are so far away from this planet a glimmer of their light is the all we can see of them.

This concludes my research on the three closest planets to the Sun.