--- title: Olympiad: planet puzzles ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: planet puzzles ★★★», a lesson of the space course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: This closing block mixes the whole Solar System into puzzles: each one needs two facts from different lessons joined together, or a trap in the --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Space](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/) / Olympiad: planet puzzles ★★★ # Olympiad: planet puzzles ★★★ Lesson 31 of the space course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/0/) — This closing block mixes the whole Solar System into puzzles: each one needs two facts from different lessons joined together, or a trap in the wording spotted before you answer. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/1/) — Many traps hide in rules that sound obvious: the planet nearest the Sun is not the hottest (Venus is), and the planet furthest out did not have the coldest air ever measured (Uranus did). - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/2/) — Some puzzles are sums with space numbers: Jupiter goes round the Sun once in about 12 years, so a child who has just turned 12 has seen Jupiter make about one lap - two facts, one step. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/3/) — Picture Ruby from Cardiff at the bus stop, moaning "It took a million years for the bus, I'm tamping" - "a million years" is hyperbole, not a number to count, and "tamping" is Welsh for furious; olympiad puzzles love a big-sounding number that does not count. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/4/) — Read every word: "meteor" and "meteorite" are different things, "day" and "year" swap their usual order on Venus, and a comet's tails point away from the Sun, not always behind the comet. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/5/) — From the Sun the planets go Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune; the first four are rocky and the last four are giants. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/6/) — Venus is the hottest planet, about 465 degrees Celsius, although Mercury is closer to the Sun, because Venus's thick carbon dioxide air traps the heat; Mercury's daytime reaches about 430 degrees. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/7/) — Uranus has the coldest measured atmosphere of any planet, about minus 224 degrees Celsius, even though Neptune is further out. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/9/) — On Mercury one sunrise to the next takes about 176 Earth days, which is two of its 88-day years. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/10/) — A day on Mars, called a sol, is about 24 hours 40 minutes, so each sol is 40 minutes longer than an Earth day. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/11/) — Jupiter takes about 12 Earth years to go round the Sun, Saturn about 29.5 years and Neptune about 165 years. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/12/) — Uranus was found with a telescope in 1781, Neptune was predicted by mathematics and found in 1846, and Pluto was found by comparing photographs in 1930. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/13/) — Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, and Titan, a moon of Saturn, are both wider than the planet Mercury. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/14/) — Gravity on the Moon is about one sixth of the Earth's, so you would feel six times lighter there. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/15/) — Saturn is less dense than water, so in an impossibly huge bath it would float. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/16/) — A comet's tails always point away from the Sun, so when a comet is heading back out, its tails go in front of it. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/17/) — A space rock is a meteoroid in space, a meteor while it glows in the air and a meteorite if a piece lands on the ground. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/18/) — A solar eclipse can happen only at new Moon and a lunar eclipse only at full Moon; spring tides come at both, so about every two weeks. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/31-olympiad-planet-puzzles/19/) — "Tamping" is Welsh slang for furious, "howay" is North East English for come on, and "no cap" is young American slang for no lie. - ← previous: [What comes next: the Moon, Mars and beyond](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/30-what-comes-next-the-moon-mars-and-beyond/) - next →: [Olympiad: stars, light and space history ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/32-olympiad-stars-light-and-space-history/) - ↑ back to [Space](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/)