Rocky worlds and giant worlds
20 minutes · Paper · Pencil · Colored pencils
Your investigation
- Draw eight empty boxes and label them with the eight planets in order.
- Mark Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars as rocky planets. Mark Jupiter and Saturn as gas giants, Uranus and Neptune as ice giants.
- Choose one rocky world and one giant. Draw a probe for each and label whether it could land on solid ground.
- Add one question your probe should investigate.
Think, draw, explain
Which four have rocky surfaces?
Does “ice giant” describe an ordinary frozen ball?
Grown-up guide & possible answers
- Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars have rocky surfaces, although conditions make landing very difficult on some of them.
- No. Ice giants contain large amounts of materials such as water, ammonia, and methane, much of it hot and compressed inside.