Blast Off! Can You Solve This Solar System Crossword?

How to Play This Online Word Puzzle?

• 1Click on a picture, and enter the letters of the matching word! If you fill in the word correctly, it will be validated automatically!
• 2Click on the "Check grid" button to see if you made mistakes and to mark incorrect letters in red.
  
• 3Use the Tabulator key on your keyboard to move to the next word in the crossword puzzle grid.
  
• 4Use the arrow keys on your keyboard, to move to the next or previous cell.
  
• 5Use the Delete or Backspace keys on your keyboard to clear a filled cell in the grid.
  
• 6To accomplish your mission and reach the final victory, find all the words in this online crossword game! Good luck!

Our Neighborhood in Space

Earth is part of a much larger neighborhood in space. At its center is the Sun, whose gravity keeps planets and many other objects travelling around it. The eight planets of our Solar System are very different from one another, ranging from small rocky worlds relatively close to the Sun to enormous planets much farther away.

This picture crossword turns that fascinating part of astronomy into an eleven-word vocabulary challenge. Study each illustrated object, recall its English name and fit the letters into the numbered grid. Crossing answers provide useful hints when a planet or another space word is difficult to spell.

Not Everything Is a Planet

The Solar System contains much more than planets. The Sun is a star, while moons are natural satellites that orbit planets or other larger bodies. There are also asteroids, comets and dwarf planets, along with countless smaller objects travelling through our cosmic neighborhood.

Pluto is a famous example. It was once taught as the ninth planet, but since 2006 it has officially been classified as a dwarf planet. Located far beyond Neptune, this small and distant world remains one of the best-known objects in our Solar System.

Rocky Worlds and Giant Planets

The four planets closest to the Sun are relatively small and rocky. Farther out, the planets become much larger and are made mostly of gases or ices. Their appearances differ too: planets can have distinctive colors, enormous storms, rings and very different numbers of moons.

Distance from the Sun also has a major effect on each planet's journey. The farther a planet is from the Sun, the longer its orbit generally takes. Exploring these differences can turn a simple list of English names into a first introduction to how the Solar System is organized.

Eleven Clues Among the Stars

The eleven illustrations include familiar worlds as well as other important members of our Solar System. Look closely at each numbered picture, identify what it represents and use the crossword grid to test the spelling. Some names are short, while others provide a longer word challenge for young space explorers.

Once every square is filled, try putting the eight planets in order from the Sun. Recognizing their names is the first step; remembering where they belong adds another astronomy challenge after the crossword is complete.