the solar system

I could not, for the life of me, remember the sequence of the the planets in the solar system. The little ditty I was taught as a young lass to keep the planets in order has since been forgotten. I know that it starts with My Very Excellent Mother, but I cannot recall the rest, so I have always managed to keep Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars in order, but my memory is hazy beyond that. I knew that Pluto, Uranus, Jupiter and Saturn fit into the puzzle somewhere as all, but I often forgot about Neptune entirely! And I'm not told that Pluto isn't even a planet? When did that happen? And how?

I was a little dismayed at my lack of knowledge so I decided to do a little bit of research. For starters, the order of the planets goes like this:

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn 

Uranus

Neptune
Pluto

Now that we have that sorted out I'll continue on to a couple other things I discovered in my research today. 

• The solar system is split into the Inner Solar System and the Outer Solar System. 
• The Inner Solar System contains Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. 
• The Outer Solar System contains Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet and therefore only receives an honourable mention here. 
• The Inner and Outer systems are separated by the Main Asteroid Belt which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. 
• The planets are also classified by composition. 
• There are terrestrial or rocky plants: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. 
• And there are jovian or gas planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. 
• The terrestrial planets are composed of rock and metal and have relatively high densities, slow rotation, solid surfaces, no rings, and few satellites (like the Moon). 
• Gas planets are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium and generally have low densities, rapid rotation, deep atmospheres, rings and lots of satellites. 
• If we were to reduce the size of the solar system by a factor of a billion then:
• Earth would be the size of a grape. 
• The Sun would be 1.5 meters in diameter (about the height of a man).
• Jupiter would be the size of a large grapefruit. 
• Saturn would be the size of an orange. 
• Uranus and Neptune would be lemons. 
• The Moon would be a foot away from the Earth.
• The Earth would be 150 meters from the Sun (a city block).
• Neptune would be 30 blocks away from the sun.
• Planets can also be categorized by history. 
• Classical planets have been known since prehistorical times. They are visible to the unaided eye and include Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. 
• Modern planets were only discovered in modern times and are visible only with optical aid. These include Uranus and Neptune. 

Thought you might like to know.

information from http://nineplanets.org/