Mnemonic Devices for Remembering the Order of Planets
How many mnemonic devices are bouncing around in your head right now? Maybe you can still remember at least a few of these educational memory aids that you learned way back when you were in elementary or middle school? COPS? FANBOYS? PEMDAS? HOMES? You almost certainly know your fair share of mnemonic devices, but maybe you haven’t heard the term thrown around much. It’s worth a quick visit to the dictionary for this one - a mnemonic device is essentially a memory aid that can help people remember information that might otherwise be difficult to remember. For the planets, an acronym would be: MVEMJSUN. This may be hard to remember until you make the acronym sound like a word by adding necessary vowels here and there.
What are Mnemonics?
Mnemonics themselves can come in a variety of forms.
- Acronyms: Using the first letter of each word in a list to form a new word can make information easier to remember. For example, “ROY G.
- Acrostics: These are similar to acronyms, but instead of forming a new word, the first letter of each word in a list is used to form a phrase or sentence that is easier to remember.
- Rhymes: Whether they’re set to a song or just a simple rhyming phrase, the cadence of a rhyme is a helpful memory trigger for students.
- Chunking: Breaking up information into smaller, more manageable chunks is a classic mnemonic device.
Remembering the Planets: A Solar System Challenge
Need an easy way to remember the order of the planets in our Solar System? Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These are the eight planets in our Solar System. Pluto was once part of the gang, but according to NASA, its status as ‘planet’ has now been downgraded to ‘dwarf planet’, so technically, it no longer counts. Sorry, Pluto.
The technique used most often to remember such a list is a mnemonic device. This uses the first letter of each planet as the first letter of each word in a sentence.
Before 2006, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were considered as planets.
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The Classic: "My Very Educated Mother…"
I was taught how to remember the planets using the mnemonic ‘My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas’. With Pluto now excluded, I thought it’d be fun to come up with some new mnemonics.
- My Violet Emu Munched Jam Sandwiches Until Night
- My Very Exhausting Mother Just Showed Up Nagging
- My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos
- My Violin Emits Musical Jams So Utterly Nice
In August 2006, for the eight planets recognized under the new definition, Phyllis Lugger, professor of astronomy at Indiana University suggested the following modification to the common mnemonic for the nine planets: "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos".
If you include Pluto, a good mnemonic for the order of the planets is “My (Mercury) Very (Venus) Easy (Earth) Method (Mars) Just (Jupiter) Speeds (Saturn) Up (Uranus) Naming (Neptune) Planets” (Pluto).
Adapting to Change: The Demotion of Pluto
When Pluto's significance was changed to dwarf planet, mnemonics could no longer include the final "P". The first notable suggestion came from Kyle Sullivan of Lumberton, Mississippi, USA, whose mnemonic was published in the Jan. 2007 issue of Astronomy magazine: "My Violent Evil Monster Just Scared Us Nuts".
The National Geographic Competition
In 2007, the National Geographic Society sponsored a contest for a new mnemonic of MVEMCJSUNPE, incorporating the then-eleven known planets and dwarf planets, including Eris, Ceres, and the newly demoted Pluto.
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Since the National Geographic competition, two additional bodies were designated as dwarf planets, Makemake and Haumea, on July 11 and September 17, 2008 respectively. Longer mnemonics will be required in the future, if more of the possible dwarf planets are recognized as such by the IAU.
Mnemonics in the 1950s
"Men Very Easily Make Jugs Serve Useful Needs, Perhaps" - The structure of this sentence, which is current in the 1950s, suggests that it may have originated before Pluto's discovery. It can easily be trimmed back to reflect Pluto's demotion to dwarf planet.
Beyond Sentences: Other Mnemonic Techniques
Rhymes are also a popular technique, albeit they require memorizing more words. Uranus sideways falls and along with Neptune, they are big gas balls. Or songs can work too. There are a number of songs that help you recall a basic fact about each planet and help you remember their order.
If sentences, rhymes or songs don't work for you, perhaps you are more of a visual learner, as some people remember visual cues better than words. Try drawing a picture of the planets in order. You don't have to be an accomplished artist to do this; you can simply draw different circles for each planet and label each one. Sometimes color-coding can help aid your memory. For example, use red for Mars and blue for Neptune. Or try using Solar System flash cards or just pictures of the planets printed on a page (here are some great pictures of the planets). This works well because not only are you recalling the names of the planets but also what they look like.
Maybe you are a hands-on learner. If so, try building a three-dimensional model of the Solar System. Kids, ask your parents or guardians to help you with this, or parents/guardians, this is a fun project to do with your children. You can buy inexpensive Styrofoam balls at your local craft store to create your model, or use paper lanterns and decorate them. Here are several ideas from Pinterest on building a 3-D Solar System Model.
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For some people, it helps to write down information in order to lock it into their memories. It might help to use a different color marker to write each planet’s name. Saying the names in order over and over is another way to use repetition to remember the order.
Visual Mnemonics
One simple visual mnemonic is to hold out both hands side-by-side with thumbs in the same direction (typically left-hand facing palm down, and right-hand palm up). The fingers of hand with palm down represent the terrestrial planets where the left pinkie represents Mercury and its thumb represents the asteroid belt, including Ceres. A representation of the above method with the left hand representing the terrestrial planets and the right hand, with palm turned upward, is representing the giant planets along with TNOs.
Memory Pegs and the Journey Method
Memory pegs are things that information hooks onto inside your brain. For each of the words assigned to each number, imagine that object. Imagine a shoe for the number 2. Give each planet a number in the order that they need to be memorized. Connect your number image (1-bun, 2-shoe, etc.) with your planet name. Go through each image set and link the images together. Go systematically, reviewing them one by one. Give yourself a written test to see how well you remember the image sets.
The journey method involves you mentally moving yourself through a location such as a house. Imagine a large house and assign each planet to a different room. Associate an image with each planet and give them a reason for being in a given room. “Imagine the hot sun. What do you see coming out of the sun? A tube that contains MERCURY of course. Who gets covered by the Mercury as it falls? The goddess VENUS. What does Venus do to escape from the burning metal? She digs a hole and builds up a pile of EARTH. Who gets upset by the noise made by digging the hole? The little red-faced man (MARS is known as the red planet) eating a MARS bar. When he throws the MARS bar, who does it hit? It hits JUPITER the king of the gods. What has Jupiter got on his T-shirt? The letters S, U and N which stand for SATURN, URANUS, and NEPTUNE.
Group Activities
If you are looking for a group project to help a class of children learn the planets, have a contest to see who comes up with the silliest sentence to remember the planets. Additionally, you can have eight children act as the planets while the rest of the class tries to line them up in order. You can find more ideas on NASA's resources for Educators.
Tips from the Experts
When you have to teach information to someone else, you need to know the information pretty well yourself.
EXPERT TIP Jessie Antonellis-John is a Math and Science Instructor who teaches at Southwestern Oregon Community College. With over 10 years of experience, she specializes in curriculum development. Jessie earned her PhD in Teaching & Teacher Education from the University of Arizona, her Master of Education from Western Governors University, and her BS in Astrophysics from Mount Holyoke College. She’s also co-authored several peer-reviewed journal articles in professional publications.
Learn planet groupings logically rather than memorize mnemonics. To remember planet order, dig deeper than memorizing mnemonics. Learn why planets are grouped - like terrestrial vs gas giants. Understanding why helps you logically see the order in the solar system.
Testing Your Knowledge
See how well you perform by testing yourself as you study the planet names. Try to write down from memory all the planet names. See which ones you get right, which ones are wrong, and which you’ve forgotten altogether. Ask a friend or family member to help you study.
The Order and the Journey
It is different for each planet, depending on how close it is to the sun. It takes 1 Earth year for Earth revolve, but only 88 Earth days for Mercury. The ninth planet used to be Pluto before it was demoted to a dwarf planet. There is also a Planet Nine, which is a hypothetical planet in the outer Solar System.
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