In Depth | Saturn – NASA Solar System Exploration

About 4 billion years ago, Saturn settled into its current position in the outer solar system, where it is the sixth planet from the Sun. Like Jupiter, Saturn is mostly made of hydrogen and helium, the same two main components that make up the Sun.

In Depth | Mercury – NASA Solar System Exploration

Despite its proximity to the Sun, Mercury is not the hottest planet in our solar system – that title belongs to nearby Venus, thanks to its dense atmosphere. But Mercury is the fastest planet, zipping around the Sun every 88 Earth days.

Our Sun: Facts

From our vantage point on Earth, the Sun may appear like an unchanging source of light and heat in the sky. But the Sun is a dynamic star, constantly changing and sending energy out into space. The science of studying the Sun and its influence throughout the solar system is called heliophysics. The Sun is []

What is a Planet? | Planets – NASA Solar System Exploration

A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

List of nearest exoplanets

The closest exoplanets are those found orbiting the star closest to the Solar System, which is Proxima Centauri 4.25 light-years away. The first confirmed exoplanet discovered in the Proxima Centauri system was Proxima Centauri b, in 2016. Planets named in the 2015 event include the planets around Epsilon Eridani (10.5 ly) and Fomalhaut

Solar System Exploration

The solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. There are five officially recognized dwarf planets in our solar system: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. Get the Facts.

540 Solar Company Name Ideas to Inspire Your New Venture

Infinity Solar Systems; Ray of Light Energy; Sunrise Solutions Co. BlueSky Solar Group; ReNew Sun Technologies; SunnySide Solar Co. Empower Solar Solutions; Cool Solar Company Names. Choosing the right name for your solar company is crucial for making a strong first impression. This list of 540 ideas offers a variety of options to suit

In Depth | Asteroids

How Asteroids Get Their Names. The International Astronomical Union''s Committee on Small Body Nomenclature is not very strict when it comes to naming asteroids. As a result, out there orbiting the Sun we have a giant space rock named for Mr. Spock – a cat named for the character of "Star Trek" fame.

List of named Solar System objects

For a list of named planets, dwarf planets and stars, see: List of gravitationally rounded objects in the Solar System; For a list of named minor planets see: List of named minor planets. For a list of named moons see: List of natural satellites This page was last edited on 20 March 2022, at 16:39

In Depth | Sun – NASA Solar System Exploration

The Sun is the largest object in our solar system. Its diameter is about 865,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers). Its gravity holds the solar system together, keeping everything from the biggest planets to the smallest bits of debris in orbit around it.

Solar System Facts

Our solar system includes the Sun, eight planets, five officially named dwarf planets, and hundreds of moons, and thousands of asteroids and comets. Our solar system is located in the Milky Way, a barred spiral galaxy with two major

In Depth | Saturn Moons – NASA Solar System Exploration

Haze-enshrouded Titan is Saturn''s largest moon and the solar system''s second-largest, and an all-around exceptional place. Titan is the only known world other than Earth where any sort of liquid collects on its surface.

What Is Our Solar System Called?

"The Solar System" takes its name from the Latin word for sun, "Solis." At its core is the sun, the central powerhouse driving everything that orbits around it. What makes up the Solar System? Our solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These planets, along with numerous

Naming of exoplanets

The search for planets beyond the Solar System reaches back to the middle of the 20th century, but the first extrasolar planet (e.g., HD209458). The scientific designation of the exoplanet is the catalogue name of the host star followed by a letter (HD209458 b). In other cases, the designation of an exoplanet reflects the historically

Milky Way

The Milky Way [c] is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy''s appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a D 25 isophotal diameter estimated at 26.8 ± 1.1 kiloparsecs (87,400 ± 3,600 light-years),

In Depth | Earth''s Moon – NASA Solar System Exploration

The Moon makes a complete orbit around Earth in 27 Earth days and rotates or spins at that same rate, or in that same amount of time. Because Earth is moving as well – rotating on its axis as it orbits the Sun – from our perspective, the Moon appears to orbit us every 29 days.

What Are the Solar System Planets in Order?

There are lots of tricks for remembering the order of the planets. This illustration shows them in order from the sun. WP/CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikipedia. Over the past 60 years, humans have begun to explore our solar system in

Solar System

A star system is a group of planets, meteors, or other objects that orbit a large star. While there are many star systems, including at least 200 billion other stars in our galaxy, there is only one solar system. That''s because our sun is known by its Latin name, Sol. The solar system includes everything that is gravitationally drawn into the sun''s orbit. Use these resources to learn about

In Depth | Our Solar System – NASA Solar System Exploration

Our solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust. The cloud collapsed, possibly due to the shockwave of a nearby exploding star, called a supernova. When this dust cloud collapsed, it formed a

The Nine Planets of The Solar System | Eight Planets Without Pluto

The Nine Planets is an encyclopedic overview with facts and information about mythology and current scientific knowledge of the planets, moons, and other objects in our solar system and

Solar System | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids

· In July of 2015, a spacecraft named New Horizons arrived at Pluto after a long journey. It took amazing pictures of this dwarf planet and will continue to study other objects in the Kuiper Belt from 2018 to 2022. The hottest planet in our solar system . explore; All About the Planets. Learn more about the planets in our solar system

List of potentially habitable exoplanets

This is a list of exoplanets within the circumstellar habitable zone that are either under 10 Earth masses or smaller than 2.5 Earth radii, and thus have a chance of being rocky. [3] [1] Note that inclusion on this list does not guarantee habitability, and in particular the larger planets are more unlikely to have a rocky composition. [4]Earth is included for both comparison and reference

In Depth | Pluto – NASA Solar System Exploration

Discovered in 1930, Pluto was long considered our solar system''s ninth planet. But after the discovery of similar intriguing worlds deeper in the distant Kuiper Belt, icy Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.

List of natural satellites

Of the Solar System''s eight planets and its nine most likely dwarf planets, six planets and seven dwarf planets are known to be orbited by at least 300 natural satellites, or moons.At least 19 of them are large enough to be gravitationally rounded; of these, all are covered by a crust of ice except for Earth''s Moon and Jupiter''s Io. [1] Several of the largest ones are in hydrostatic

In Depth | Our Solar System – NASA Solar System Exploration

Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity – the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets such as

List of planets | Solar System, Dwarf Planets, Moons | Britannica

As the term is applied to bodies in Earth''s solar system, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) lists eight planets orbiting the Sun. Pluto also was listed as a planet until 2006. This is a list of selected planets. (See also astronomy; infrared astronomy; planetarium; radio and radar astronomy; ultraviolet astronomy.) planets of the

Lists of planets

There are eight planets within the Solar System; planets outside of the solar system are also known as exoplanets. Artist''s concept of the potentially habitable exoplanet Kepler-186f. As of 17 October 2024, there are 5,780 confirmed exoplanets in 4,314 planetary systems, with 969 systems having more than one planet. [1]

Solar System

OverviewFormation and evolutionGeneral characteristicsSunInner Solar SystemOuter Solar SystemTrans-Neptunian regionMiscellaneous populations

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, forming the Sun and a protoplanetary disc. The Sun is a typical star that maintains a balanced equilibrium by the fusion of hydrogen into helium at its core, releasing this energy from its outer photosphere. Astronomers

In Depth | Oumuamua – NASA Solar System Exploration

How Oumuamua Got its Name. The object was officially named 1I/2017 U1 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which is responsible for granting official names to bodies in the solar system and beyond.