General:

* The planets in our solar system are not named after Greek gods. The Roman gods are the ones who lend their names to the planets we know.

* Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system, even though Mercury is closer to the sun. This is because Venus has a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide, which traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect.

* Saturn's rings are made of ice and rock. They are so vast that they would stretch from Earth to the moon and back!

* Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a giant storm that has been raging for centuries. It's so big that it could fit three Earths inside it.

* Uranus is tilted on its side. This means that it rotates on its axis at a 98-degree angle, unlike the other planets in our solar system.

* Neptune is the windiest planet in our solar system. Winds can reach speeds of over 1,200 miles per hour!

Weird and Wonderful:

* Pluto is a dwarf planet because it hasn't cleared its neighborhood of other objects in its orbit. It's also considered a "Kuiper Belt object."

* The Earth's moon is shrinking. It's cooling down and shrinking by a few inches every year.

* There's a planet made entirely of diamonds. 55 Cancri e is about twice the size of Earth and has a mass eight times greater.

* There's a planet that rains glass sideways. HD 189733b has winds that reach 5,400 mph, blowing glass-like rain sideways.

* You could stand on Jupiter's moon, Io, and watch volcanoes erupt. It's the most volcanically active object in our solar system!

Bonus:

* There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth.

* There are planets that orbit stars outside of our solar system. These are called "exoplanets."

I hope you found these planet facts cool!