The planets and the universe

Authors Avatar
The planets and the universe

There are nine planets in the solar system. Together with comets and other space debris, such as the asteroid belt, these bodies make up the solar system. All these bodies are held in orbit around the sun by gravity.

The planets are mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. These are in order from their distance from the Sun. The biggest planet is the gas giant Jupiter as it is manly gas and has no solid surface. Jupiter has a diameter of 142 800 km and a mass of 1.9 x 10' the smallest is the ice planet Pluto.

Moons are natural satellites. The Earth and some of the other planets have one or more moons. There are also artificial satellites these are man-made they are placed in orbit around earth to transmit radio signals around the planet or to study what is happening on the Earth.

The sun was formed from a large blob at the center of a cloud. As time passed bye the sun became large enough to collect most of the hydrogen gas surrounding it and to pull smaller objects into orbit.

Deep inside the blob the gases became more and more squashed. Eventually, the pressure and temperature became high enough to push hydrogen nuclei together to form helium nuclei. This process is called Nuclear Fusion and it releases a huge amount of energy. Once nuclear fusion has started, the blob had become a star-the sun.
Join now!


How a star is formed

Stars are formed from massive clouds of dust and gas in space.

Gravity pulls the gas and dust together

When the mass falls together it becomes hot. A star is born when it is at the right tempurture for the hydrogen nuclei to fuse together to make helium. The fusion process releases energy, which keeps the core of the star hot.

During this stable time of the stars life, equal forces of high pressure caused by the high temperatures balance the force of gravity holding the star together. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

Avatar

The candidate mentions jupiter twice in her size list, when the second one should be the planet Uranus. Minor spelling mistakes. Otherwise spelling, grammar and punctuation are fine. The text layout is good with relevant sub-headings and paragraphing.

The candidate explains nuclear fusion in very simplistic terms and not to a high degree of accuracy. To communicate with their reader better the candidate should use solid scientific facts reported concisely so that the reader can understand the terminology. The candidate explains how stars form very well with accurate diagrams to explain each stage with good examples that readers can relate to. Meteorites and comets are explained well, and the expanding universe is as well for a GCSE candidate showing good research and understanding of this topic.

In this the candidate explains the composition of the universe. The candidate responds to the topic to a very high level explaining many of the concepts of the universe in a concise level showing good scientific detail through their writing. The candidate defines the different concepts of the universe well.