# Bag of Wonder: The Planets > Fly past the Sun and all eight planets, and peek inside them. A free interactive 3D exhibit for children aged 2 to 6, from Curiosity's Child in Troy, Michigan. - Interactive exhibit: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/planets/ - Ages: 2 to 6. The story is pitched at the youngest; the tap cards give older children more to chew on. - Cost: free, with no sign-in, no ads and no tracking. - Works on: phones, tablets and computers, in a web browser. Sound on for the narration. ## What it is Interactive 3D solar system. A time slider travels outward from the Sun past Mercury, Venus, Earth and its Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. A second slider cuts a slice out of the planet you are visiting to show its layers (for Earth: crust, mantle, outer core and inner core); tapping a planet or a layer shows a child-friendly fact. How to play: press play to hear the story (read aloud in Kelly's voice, with the words on screen). Slide the time slider back and forth to see any part again. Slide "Look inside" to see what is hidden inside. Tap any glowing button for a fact. ## The story 1. This is our solar system: the Sun and eight planets, traveling around and around it. 2. In the middle is the Sun, our very own star. 3. Little Mercury is closest to the Sun. It is the smallest planet. 4. Next comes cloudy Venus, the hottest planet of all. 5. Here is Earth, our home! Blue water, green land, white clouds, and our Moon. 6. Next is Mars, the red planet. Its dust is rusty, and that makes it red. 7. Jupiter is the biggest planet of all! Its stripes are giant clouds. 8. Saturn wears beautiful rings made of ice and rock. 9. Far, far away is Uranus, cold and blue. It rolls around the Sun on its side. 10. Last comes Neptune, cold, blue and very windy. All eight planets keep going around and around the Sun. ## The parts, and what we tell children These are the tap cards, word for word. - **The Sun**: The Sun is a star. More than a million Earths could fit inside it! - **Mercury**: It is the smallest planet. A year there is just 88 days. - **Venus**: It is the hottest planet, wrapped in thick clouds. It spins backwards, so the Sun rises in the west. - **Earth**: It is the only planet we know of with living things. Most of it is covered in water. - **The Moon**: The Moon goes around the Earth about once a month. Twelve astronauts have walked on it! - **Mars**: Mars is red because its dust is rusty. It has the tallest volcano we know of. - **Jupiter**: Its big red spot is a storm bigger than the whole Earth. - **Saturn**: Its rings are made of billions of chunks of ice and rock. - **Uranus**: Uranus is tipped on its side, so it rolls around the Sun like a ball. - **Neptune**: It is the windiest planet. Its winds blow faster than a jet plane. - **Pluto, a dwarf planet**: Far past Neptune lives little Pluto. It is smaller than our Moon, so it is called a dwarf planet. It has a big pale heart shape on it! - **Not to scale**: Space is much too big to fit on a screen! If the Earth were a little pea, Jupiter would be as big as an orange, and the Sun would be a giant ball as tall as you. That Sun would be farther away than a whole football field. So here the Sun is drawn much too small, and the planets much too close together. - **Glowing gas**: The Sun is not on fire! It is a giant ball of glowing gas, so hot that it turns into something called plasma. This glowing outside is the part we see. - **The Sun's core**: The super-hot middle. Here tiny bits of gas squeeze together and make the Sun's light and warmth. - **Radiative zone**: Light from the core bounces around in here for thousands and thousands of years before it gets out! - **Convection zone**: Hot gas bubbles up to the top and cooler gas sinks down, like soup on a stove. - **Mercury's crust**: A thin rocky skin, covered in craters. - **Mercury's mantle**: A layer of rock. On Mercury it is quite thin. - **Mercury's core**: Mercury has a giant metal core. It fills most of the planet! - **Venus's clouds**: Thick clouds trap the heat, like a big blanket. (They are drawn thicker here so you can see them.) - **Venus's crust**: Under the clouds is hot, rocky ground with lots of volcanoes. - **Venus's mantle**: Hot rock, a lot like the Earth's mantle. - **Venus's core**: Scientists think Venus has a metal core, but nobody has looked inside yet. We are still finding out! - **Crust**: This is where we live. It is thin, like the skin on an apple. - **Mantle**: It is hot rock that moves very, very slowly, like super-thick toothpaste. - **Outer core**: It is melted metal, swirling around. The swirling helps a compass point north. - **Inner core**: It is a solid metal ball in the very middle, about as hot as the surface of the Sun. - **Mars's crust**: Red, dusty rock. The dust is rusty, which is why Mars looks red. - **Mars's mantle**: A thick layer of rock, a bit like the Earth's mantle. - **Mars's core**: A robot called InSight listened to marsquakes and found that Mars has a big core of melted metal. - **Jupiter's clouds**: The stripes are clouds, blown into bands by very strong winds. - **Thick gas**: Under the clouds, the gas gets thicker and thicker the deeper you go. There is no ground to stand on! - **Runny metal**: Deep down, the gas is squeezed so hard that it turns into a strange, runny metal. - **Jupiter's core**: In the middle there may be a fuzzy core of rock and ice. Scientists are still finding out! - **Saturn's clouds**: Soft yellow clouds, blown around by strong winds. - **Thick gas**: Saturn is mostly gas, and very light for its size. In a big enough bathtub, it would float! - **Runny metal**: Deep inside, the gas is squeezed so hard that it turns into a runny metal. - **Saturn's core**: In the middle there may be a fuzzy core of rock and ice. Scientists are still finding out! - **Uranus's air**: Clouds of gas. A gas called methane makes Uranus look blue. - **Icy slush**: Underneath is a deep, slushy layer of water and other icy stuff, squeezed very tight. - **Uranus's core**: Scientists think there is a small rocky core in the middle. Only one spaceship has ever visited, so we are still learning. - **Neptune's air**: Clouds of gas, blown by the fastest winds of any planet. Methane gas makes Neptune look blue. - **Icy slush**: Underneath is a deep, slushy layer of water and other icy stuff, squeezed very tight. - **Neptune's core**: Scientists think there is a small rocky core in the middle. Only one spaceship has ever visited, so we are still learning. ## Getting the science right What we checked, and the myths we steer around: - The size order is kept true: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury. - The distances (and the Sun's size) cannot fit on a screen, so they are squashed. A "Not to scale" tap card explains this in child-sized words. - There are eight planets. Pluto appears as a bonus dwarf planet. - The Sun is not on fire: it is a ball of glowing gas (plasma). - Where scientists don't know what is inside a planet (Venus's core, Jupiter's and Saturn's cores, Uranus and Neptune), the card says "scientists are still finding out". ## How to use it with children Fly from the Sun out to Neptune once with the sound on. Then visit Earth again and use the pull-apart slider to cut a slice out, so the child can see the crust, mantle and cores. Ask, "Which planet would you visit, and what would you pack?" Ask more than you tell, and let the child drive. Then step away from the screen: use the "Not to scale" card: put a pea (Earth) next to an orange (Jupiter). Outside, have children stand at the planets' order in a long line from a "Sun" and feel how far out Neptune is. A few minutes together is plenty. The exhibit is a doorway to the real thing, not a replacement for it. ## Credits and licenses The real scans, maps and photographs belong to their makers, under the licenses below. The words, story and code are Curiosity's Child's. - Planet, Moon and star maps by [Solar System Scope](https://www.solarsystemscope.com/textures/) ([CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)), made from NASA mission data - Insides and Pluto drawn in code from what scientists know today - Sizes and distances are not to scale - Narrated by Kelly, in her own voice - Space is silent, so its gentle hum and the music-box tune were made for this page ## More on the Space shelf - [The Rocket](undefined): Count down, lift off and ride the giant Saturn V all the way to the Moon. - [The Moon](undefined): Phases, craters and the far side, then land with Eagle and leave footprints that last for ages. - [The Mars Rover](undefined): Land on Mars with a real robot explorer and its little helicopter. ## About Bag of Wonder A free library of interactive 3D "look inside" science exhibits, made at Curiosity's Child, a licensed home daycare in Troy, Michigan. Secular and science-based; welcoming to all. - All exhibits and how we make them: https://bagofwonder.com/llms.txt - For grown-ups and AI assistants: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/about/ - To cite: "The Planets", Bag of Wonder, Curiosity's Child (Troy, Michigan). https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/planets/