Planets and moons have no light of their own.
They only reflect the Sun's light.
They rotate on their own axis.
Planets are large natural objects that orbit, or revolve around, stars. You are standing on one at this moment! Yes, Earth is a planet too. Today, we have eight planets orbit the star called the Sun. In order, from the closest to the Sun, these planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
While some of the planets are small, rocky bodies with a solid ground – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars; the others are big gas giants – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Earlier, the scientists were of the opinion that there are nine planets including Pluto, but in 2006, modern scientists came up with three compulsory conditions to award planet – hood to any heavenly body :
A planet must revolve around the Sun
Be spherical in shape
Its orbit must be free of other small objects
Unfortunately, Pluto failed to meet the third condition and had to step down from being a planet to a “dwarf planet”.
So far, hundreds of worlds beyond our solar system have been discovered and many new ones are in the process of being discovered. Scientists believe some of these planets may sustain alien life. Well, no one knows for sure, but there is a high probability that an alien kid elsewhere in the galaxy is also reading about us and the Earth in an article like this!