Credit: National Center for Interactive Learning/Space Science Institute

Big Idea

Visitors explore the extraordinary giant planets orbiting our Sun and learn what they tell us about the formation of solar systems, our planet, and the conditions necessary for life.

Themes

The giant planets were instrumental in the formation of Earth and its habitability.

There are many Earth and giant planet connections such as weather, volcanoes, and magnetospheres.

The giant planets change over time. They are born, they grow-up, they have seasonal and lifecycle changes.

How do we know what we know? Human ingenuity combines with ever improving tools to broaden our understanding of our Solar System and our place in space. There will always be more to learn.

Science is teamwork. Real people do real science. Our knowledge is incomplete.

Take Away Messages

We owe our lives to the giant planets. Their story is our story.

Each giant planet is a dynamic and changing family of objects including the planet, its moons and rings.

Today, exploration of the giant planets is an ongoing collaborative effort by scientists, engineers, programmers, students, and others.

Exploring the Giant Planets is a multigenerational task.