Our Solar System (Numbers and Descriptions)
Si estas aprendiendo inglés y ya estás en un nivel B2 o superior, te recomendamos este artículo en el cual aprenderás vocabulario elegante que te ayudará a perfeccionar tu writing; porque sí es una de las áreas más débiles que muchos estudiantes tienen y si planeas hacer un examen internacional, este blog te servirá como modelo. También te incluimos un glosario al final de esta lectura que ayudará a lograr un mejor entendimiento de este vocabulario. ¡Léelo y buena suerte!
Space. There’s a lot of it. No really, there is so much “space” in just our solar system, not to mention our galaxy or the visible universe. Let me rephrase that, there is a mind-boggling amount of space out there, which is completely incomprehensible to us.
Just consider this, the outermost planet, Neptune (sorry Pluto you’re a dwarf planet now), can orbit as far as 4,500,000,000 (four point five billion) km away from the sun! To put that into some perspective, it takes light approximately four hours and ten minutes to get to Neptune, travelling at 300,000km/s (three hundred thousand kilometres per second). Sadly, the fastest manned vehicle ever build was Apollo 10 which hit a colossal 39,897km/h (thirty-nine thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven kilometres per hour) when returning from the moon. In theory, this could get you to Neptune in a measly 12.9 (twelve point nine) years! “In theory” being the key phrase here, but in practice this is unlikely. Worse still is the fact that the next nearest start to our own Sun is almost 9,000 times further away from us that Neptune. Just to add insult to injury, those seven wondrous Earth-like planets that were recently discovered are an almost 40 light year journey (forty years travelling at the speed of light) away, or close to 90,000 times the distance to Neptune. Unless you’re happy to spend an eye-watering 1,082,800 (one million, eighty-two thousand, eight hundred) years looking out of the window at nothing, you won’t get the chance to go there.
So, space is absolutely massive, in fact it’s ginormous! Our galaxy is more or less 100,000 light years across and contains somewhere in the region of 100-400 billion stars! Now consider that scientists believe that there may be 2,000,000,000,000 (two trillion) galaxies in the universe. It makes you feel minuscule to think about these perplexing statistics, doesn’t it? But before you start to feel insignificant, just think about all the cool things there are to see in our own tiny corner of the universe. All you need is some patience and a simple telescope.
See how much we can see in the visible universe.
In our solar system, we officially have eight planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – of which Mercury is the smallest by just a bit and Jupiter the largest by a long way. Orbiting these are numerous moons and comets. Between Mars and Jupiter is our asteroid belt, containing countless objects ranging from dust particles to a dwarf planet called Ceres, which is around 950km in diameter. Past Neptune and we find the Kuiper belt and Scattered disc (yes, that’s really its name), which are home to a ton of ice and possibly a few thousand dwarf planets. There is also thought to be a spherical cloud of trillions of icy objects, such as comets, engulfing our entire solar system, as well as a mysterious ninth planet on a highly-elliptical orbit at twenty times the distance of Neptune from the sun. One year here could be anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 years!
Watch to see how big our solar system is to scale.
Anyway, back to what we do know. Mercury is an incredibly inhospitable place with no atmosphere and temperatures ranging from -173°C (minus one hundred and seventy-three degrees centigrade) at night to 427°C in the day. Its brother, Venus, isn’t much better. It is baking hot (more so than Mercury) and although it has an atmosphere, it’s 96% (ninety-six percent) carbon dioxide and the pressure is 92 times that found on Earth. It’s also shrouded in an opaque layer of clouds made up of sulfuric acid, so you have the option to be melted, cooked, suffocated or crushed to death here.
Then we come to our beautiful and spectacular blue green brown and white home. From swirling cloud formations to lush jungles, it’s a truly spectacular place and we should look after it better. It’s the only known place to sustain life (although we probably aren’t alone in the universe), with biodiversity on a magnitude beyond what most people imagine. Apart from the twelve people who have visited the moon, it’s the celestial body all human activity has taken place.
The last of the inner rocky planets is Mars. Probes have been sent to Mars and we can watch video taken on its surface; however, just like Venus it’s atmosphere is too rich in carbon dioxide to support human life. There are some grandioso ideas to terraform Mars, so we could one day call it home, but it’s a barren planet lacking in life, so you may be better to stay Earth until a few hundred generations have drastically improved it.
Finally, we have the outer planets, also known as the giant planets. Collectively the make up 99% (ninety-nine percent) of the mass orbiting the sun despite Saturn and Jupiter (the larger two) being gaseous. As such, the visible features of these planets are semi-permanent, including the Great Red Spot seen moving across Jupiter’s surface. This is actually a storm, three times the size of Earth! All of the giant planets have ring systems, with Saturn’s being the most prominent and easiest to see. These monstrous bodies are also home to the majority of moons in our solar system, with Ganymede (Jupiter) and Titan (Saturn) being larger than Mercury. This has led many people to question whether Jupiter is in fact a failed star.
See what would happen if Jupiter suddenly became a star.
So, as you can see, we live in a totally fascinating part of all that “space”, with copious unexplored worlds waiting to share their secrets. Now, go study hard, invent warp-drive and let’s get out there amongst the stars!
Glossary
mind-boggling - alucinante
completely incomprehensible - completamente incomprensible
outermost - más lejano
four point five billion - cuatro punto cinco billones
three hundred thousand kilometres per second - trescientos mil kilómetros por segundo
colossal - colosal
thirty-nine thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven kilometres per hour
- treinta y nueve mil ochocientos noventa y siete kilómetros por hora
measly - extremadamente pequeño
twelve point nine - doce punto nueve
almost 9,000 times - casi 9,000 veces
wondrous - maravilloso
eye-watering - lagrimeo
one million, eighty-two thousand, eight hundred - un millon ochenta y dos mil ochocientos
absolutely massive - absolutamente masivo
ginormous - enorme
somewhere in the region - en algún lugar de la región
two trillion - dos trillones
minuscule - minúsculo
perplexing - perplejo
insignificant - insignificante
tiny - diminuto
numerous - numeroso
countless - incontable
around - alrededor
a ton of - una tonelada de
a few thousand - algunos miles
trillions of - trillones de
be anywhere from ___ to ___ - algo entre ___ y ___
incredibly inhospitable increíblemente ihnópito
ranging from ___ to ___ - algo entre___ y____
minus one hundred and seventy-three degrees centigrade
- menos de ciento setenta y tres grados centrigrado
baking hot - muy caliente
more so than – mas que
ninety-six percent - noventa y seis porciento
made up of – compuesto de
beautiful - hermoso
spectacular - espectacular
swirling - remolino
lush - opulento
truly - spectacular
on a magnitude beyond – en una escala mas grande
too rich - copioso
grandioso - grandioso
barren - esteril
lacking - carencia
drastically - drásticamente
ninety-nine percent - noventa y nueve porciento
semi-permanent - semi-permanente
three times the size of – tres veces el tamaño de
prominent - prominente
monstrous - monstruoso
the majority of - la mayoría de
totally fascinating - totalmente fascinante
copious - copioso
