Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.  It was once thought that Mercury's day was the same lenght as it s year, this was later proven wrong.  Mercury is much like our moon, it is heavily cratered and very old.  There is evidence that in the shadows of some of the craters their might be ice.  Mercury is sometimes easily seen with the naked eye or with binoculars.

This is the planet Venus.  It is the sixth largest planet in the solar system.  Venuses surface atmosphere has much pressure as if you were 1km. under the ocean.  Venuses surface temperature is actually twice as hot as Mercury's even though it is about twice as far away from the sun.  The winds are about 350 km. average also.  All of this added together makes a very unlivable planet.  Venus probably once had large amounts of water like earth but it all has boiled away since then.  The same may have happened to the earth if it had only been a little closer to the sun.

This is by far my favortie planet, because without it we would be nonexistent.  Amazingly it has only been a few hundred years since we realized that it was a planet.  It is the only planet in our solar system that can support life. 

This is the planet Mars.  Another name for it is the Red Planet, it is named after the Roman God of War.  It is very dry and barren with fierce storms that ravage its surface.  In fact it is completly devoid of water except for its polar ice caps.  It was once thought that Mars had life on it.  We now know that there is no life on Mars, but long ago Mars was much different.  The hubble and other satelites above Mars have found what look like dry river beds which indicates that Mars could have once been much like Earth. 

The biggest planet of all, Jupiter.  It is more then twice the size of all the planets mass put together!  In fact if the planet Jupiter had only been about 100 times bigger when it was born then it might have become a star instead of a planet.  Then we would have had a dual star solar system.  Also Jupiters composition is more like a stars then a planets.  It is mostly gas and liquid and if it has any solid parts it is in the deep core.  Jupiters red spot is actually a huge year long storm.

This is Saturn viewed through an infared lens on the Hubble telescope.  Saturn is the second biggest planet.  Saturn is famous for its spectacular rings around the planet.  Like Jupiter it is almost all liquid except for its small rocky core.  Another neat thing is that if you were to put Saturn in a giant bathtub it has such low density that it would float.

This picture of Uranus was also taken with an infared lens.  Uranus was the first planet to be discovered in modern times, it was discovered by a man named William Herschel in 1781.  Uranus was only visisted once by a man made spacecraft, Voyager two in 1986.  Uranus's atmosphere consists mostly of hydrogen with a little helium and even less methane.  Unlike Jupiter and Saturn its surface is mostly ice and rock.  Uranus also has its own set of rings, seen in the picture.  They are awsome except when compared with Saturns. 

This is the second farthest planet from the sun.  This is Neptune.  Neptune has also only been visited by one spacecraft, once again it was Voyager 2.  Every once in a while because of Pluto's messed up orbit it passes Neptune, making Neptune the farthest planet from the sun.  Neptunes winds are the fastest in the solar system, sometimes reaching 2000 mph.  Neptune can sometimes be seen with binoculars but you have to know exactly where to look.

This is the planet Pluto and its one moon Charon.  It is the farthest planet from the sun.  It is also the smallest.  Even the Hubble can only see the largest features on its surface.  Pluto is the only planet that has not been visited by a spacecraft.  There is a mission called New Horizons that will lauch and fly by Pluto in 2006 but it hasn't gotten funded yet.  Pluto was discovered in 1930.  Some people think that because of its size Pluto should be considered a large asteroid instead of a planet but is very likely to remain a planet.