Family & Education

How To Remember The Planets

Here's a silly but rather effective mnemonic to help you remember the planets in our solar system much more easily. Enlarge

How To Remember The Planets

Here's a silly but rather effective mnemonic to help you remember the planets in our solar system much more easily.

I'm Robert Massey and I'm here from the Royal Astronomical Society which is one of the biggest astronomical organizations in the world and we look after the interests of astronomers not just in the UK but across the world. What I'm going to do today is give you a few pointers to get you started in astronomy which I think is one of the most incredibly interesting subjects there is. One of the important things to know is the order of the planets from the sun in our solar system and my favourite mnemonic, there are few rather crude ones but my particular favourite is My Very Energetic Monkey Just Served Us Noodles which stands for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

It doesn't include Pluto because Pluto hasn't been officially a planet since 2006. So just a recap, My Very Energetic Monkey Just Served Us Noodles, or if you prefer, perhaps slightly more cynically, My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nothing. .