Why Are Some Planets So Big and Some So Small? | Whynosaur

Why are some planets so big and some so small? Count the eight planets with Whynosaur, see them side by side in their real sizes, and find out why the planets near the Sun are small and rocky while the planets far away grew into giants. If Earth were a grape, Jupiter would be a basketball! Then play the planet quiz. A gentle science video for children aged 4-6 and their grown-ups, with "guess the answer" moments to join in. Notes for grown-ups: Mercury is the smallest planet, just a little bigger than our Moon. Jupiter is the largest: 11 times wider than Earth, and about 1,000 Earths could fit inside it. Saturn is 9 times wider than Earth; Uranus and Neptune about 4 times (NASA). The Sun is about 100 times wider than Earth (NASA). The solar system formed from a spinning disk of dust and gas. Rocky planets like Earth formed near the Sun, because icy and gaseous material couldn't survive close to all that heat; gas and icy stuff collected further away, creating the gas and ice giants (NASA Space Place). In the video the planets are shown in their true sizes when sizes are compared; the distances between them are not to scale. Sources: NASA Space Place, "How Did the Solar System Form?". NASA Science, "Planets". NASA Space Place, "All About Mercury". NASA Science fact pages for Mars, Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and the Sun. Little questions. Big discoveries.