Question

Which is the third nearest planet to the sun?
a). Venus
b). Earth
c). Mercury
d). None of the above.

Answer 1

Hint: A planet is an object that orbits the Sun. To be a planet, the body has to be large and spherical in shape, must orbit the Sun and should clear its surroundings of other rocky and icy orbiting objects. The solar system has 8 planets

Complete answer: Our solar system has 4 terrestrial planets and 4 jovian planets. The four terrestrial planets are Mercury, Venus , Earth and Mars. These are called terrestrial because their surfaces are rocky.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are called Jovian Planets and are enormous in size. These four planets are mostly made of gas.
Let us look at the options given to us:
Option (A ) Venus is the second planet from the sun and is often called Earth’s twin as its surface too has mountains and volcanoes and is of similar mass as Earth. However Venus is the hottest planet of the system with sulfuric acid clouds and oddly rotates east to west instead of west to east.
Option (B ) Earth is the correct option as it is the third planet from the Sun. It is the only planet that can support life. Two third of the planet is covered with water and it has an atmosphere rich in nitrogen and oxygen.
Option (C ) Mercury is the first planet from the Sun. Extremely small in size, it has an atmosphere of sodium, hydrogen, helium and potassium and can't break-up incoming meteors, so its surface is pockmarked with craters.

Therefore the correct option is (B).

Note: The earth takes almost 365 days to orbit the earth and therefore one earth year has 365 days. However , planets closer to the sun have shorter years than earth and planets that are farther from the Sun than earth take longer time to orbit the sun.
Mercury takes 88 days to orbit the sun , Venus takes 225 days to orbit the sun and Mars takes 687 days to orbit the Sun.