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BPS Topic Resources: Rocky Planets

Topic resources for units studied in Years 3 to 6 of the British Section.

An introduction

Rocky planets, or Terrestrial planets are Earth-like planets (in Latin, terra means Earth) made up of rocks or metals with a hard surface — making them different from other planets that lack a solid surface. Terrestrial planets also have a molten heavy metal core, few moons, and topological features such as valleys, volcanoes and craters. 

In our solar system, there are four terrestrial planets, which also happen to be the four closest to the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. During the creation of the solar system, there were likely more terrestrial planetoids, but they likely merged or were destroyed.

For more information, click on the link below.

http://www.space.com/17028-terrestrial-planets.html

Space School - Mars (Discovery Channel)

Space School - Venus (Discovery Channel)

Mars - Crash Course Astronomy

Could we actually live on Mars? - Mari Foroutan (TED ED)

Mercury - Crash Course Astronomy

Venus - Crash Course Astronomy